Friday, April 01, 2005

Q-tip for the Brain

Dee Hock said, “The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.
Ok, I’m going to try it. I’m going to take a common practice and apply this theorem to it. Here goes…….shaking hands. This custom is almost universally understood if not practiced. It’s not something that is ever thought about in depth. We just do it. . I’m going to attempt to clean out the attic of my understanding so, bear with me. This might get ugly:
I shake the hands of friends. I shake the hands of those I respect. I shake the hands of my superiors. I shake the hands of my subordinates. I shake hands to greet others.I feel rude when I don’t shake in these above situations. Why?
I don’t care one way or the other if someone shakes my hand or not. Why should they? Do they? Do they notice it? Are we taught this or did we just pick up on it? Do we do it out of fear? Why can’t we just nod or why do we have to do anything at all?
I have hurt my grey matter just now. Ok, note to self: pick a subject that could use some improvement, a subject more modern perhaps. And maybe something that doesn’t predate papyrus. I actually thought a lot about the quote above. It has taken several days to get around to finishing this thought. So, in that way, the experiment was a success.

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