What a bizarre headline for an article was my first thought, but then – is this how most people think? Then again – bizarre headlines are not exactly unusual – they appear everywhere and are mainly designed to pull in the unsuspecting reader.
History Is What We Make It
The fact that our memory is nearly 100% fallible (note that I am not saying 100% wrong) means that to some extent we need to doubt what we have really experienced in the past. Our own personal life story is full of bits and pieces that our minds have made up to “fill in the gaps” between the reality that we actually do remember correctly.
The Tingle Factor
I was reminded last night of the power of music to affect you in a physical way – I don’t pretend to understand how this works, but it is a very real experience as far as I am concerned. Music affects me in many different ways, depending on the nature of the music – soothing to calm me, martial to inspire, the possibilities are endless, but what I want to concentrate on here is the tingle factor when the power of the music sends a shiver through your body.
Games People Play
We all do it – whether it is keeping something a secret or “putting on a face” when we are feeling down or slapping on the makeup to make us look better than we do (NOT something I indulge in personally 😉) or dressing for dinner – its all an act – a game we play to hide the ‘reality’ in one way or another from someone or other.
Its Not Just The Big Picture
The devil is in the detail
Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves
Big things come in small packages
The longest journey begins with one step
Understanding Backwards
It was Søren Kierkegaard who said that (and I paraphrase) life can only be understood backwards however we must live it forwards. Although I have been aware of that quote for quite some time it is only recently that I have begun to understand the real nature and truth of it.
Living in Parallel Worlds
Reading the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson has got me once again thinking about the many different worlds that we each live in. I have briefly mentioned this in a previous post, however now is a good time to expand on some of those ideas as well as to pull together what that means in terms of some of the other aspects of friendship and mental models that I have talked about.
A Top Ten List
There is a tendency in this “Information Age” to assume that everything we need to know has been written/created in the last couple of months. This is, of course, patent nonsense however in some subjects there is a rather unfortunate tendency to forget all of the huge wealth of knowledge and wisdom we have from times before … well before 2012!!
I came across an article written in 2001 (which I know isn’t that old) which is actually in a style that is currently very popular – i.e. “N things you need to know about……” – often not a terribly useful way of addressing a subject, but just occasionally someone will get it right. This particular one is called 10 Useful Ideas on Systems Thinking and is well worth a look.
A Long Hiatus
It probably was not the plan to have a brief flurry of activity in this blog followed by quiet for months – but that is how it has turned out – almost echoing what was one of the first posts in the series which stated Prediction is difficult – especially about the future.
Hopefully things are now back on track and I have a number of topics that I want to ponder in coming posts – especially regarding systems thinking and a number of extremely interesting discussion taking place in the Systems Thinking World group of LinkedIn. I would certainly recommend that if you are interested in the concept of thinking in systems that you visit, join and contribute to that group.
Music Memories
As a musician, it is not surprising that many pieces of music are associated with particular events/memories. However, it never ceases to amaze me of the wealth of different ways in which the musical memories come about – sometimes it has been through a concert taken part in, sometimes just listening, sometimes music in the background when something has happened and a host of other ways.