Out of the Cave and into the Light

I had an interesting experience today as I was talking to my brother. It was like a fog lifted on my mind and I could see clearer. It felt like I was above the confusion of emotion and could see light. I only felt this for a little while, like I had paused in place to take in the view before using it to engage with my brother.

We were talking about words. My brother was telling me what he had learned. We were working on a paper I needed help with. He told me, words put things in categories. Our thoughts are in categories. We express those thoughts in written form by putting those thoughts into words. There are levels of abstraction that we can apply to the concepts we are talking about. Right now I am talking at a high level of abstraction because I am generalizing so I can fit everything I need to into my words. To take it down some levels, what do you think of when I say "Cat". Do you think of a small pet? What if I meant a panther or mountain lion? Don't both of those fit in the category of a cat? The word I used restricted what I was trying to say.

I used to think if I had the right words that is all I needed. I realize now that words are just tools. I went beyond words in my thinking and reached higher as I began to analyze what I was writing. I saw where I went wrong in my writing. I saw how I could go up or down the abstraction scale to accomplish my goal. In my case I was trying to describe in a letter what I do for a living to someone who has no experience in the area. What I was writing was vague and did not show that I knew anything but how to throw a few buzz words out every once and a while. What I needed to do was to show this person that I knew what I was talking about. In this case I needed to come down out of the high level of abstraction and write about a real world example of the steps I went through.

In my last paragraph I was writing in a high level because I used general terms on purpose. You don't know what exactly I meant. Let me give you an example. If your computer hard drive crashed you would not be too happy. You would probably open up the yellow pages, because you don't have google anymore, and begin searching for a computer shop that can help you. It turns out there are 7 pages of ads in the computer section. What, do you call them all and choose the best one? What if most of the ads you pass say something like "We fix computers, We have good prices, leave it to us because will will help you"? What does that mean? It is abstract and can mean anything. That does not tell you they know what they are doing. It wouldn't be that bad if all you had was a simple problem but reading something like that doesnt create much confidence in them. Your hard drive has your work reports, taxes, digital photos, and all the programs you loaded from your friends. Oh but wait, here is another ad "Computer Repair, We specialize in hard drive data recovery and boast a 97% success rate." You just hit the jackpot and found the place to call. But this place fixes computers, has good prices and will help you too. Why call this place? Call because they told you something about what they did and gave some facts to back it up. This place is the perfect fit for what you need. They gave you the information you needed to make the right decision. Even if it wasn't your hard drive, they said in their ad they they are competent. If they can recover hard drive they must be able to do simpler things. They proved they can do simple things by showing the harder thing has been completed. It was like they hide that information and said it without saying it.

I know I will need to practice in order to keep my thinking on the right track but I am enjoying learning how to think properly. Getting there will be a journey but it will be enjoyable. I should be able to take complex topics and subject and be able to explain them in simple terms. This will show that I understand those complex topics. I need to learn to keep track of where I am on that scale of abstraction and be in the appropriate place when I need to. These things will help me analyze what is in front of me weather it be words ideas. It will also help me to understand my own thoughts. This is what I am trying to accomplish by self-reflection. It seems to be working already.