Seen Again

Notes on thinking and looking.

Essays

Every essay takes one ordinary thing, walks it up a ladder of levels, and then asks what the ladder missed.

I. The Ladder

  • Single line drawing of a cup A minimal line drawing of a cup on a saucer, one accent detail on the handle.
    Essay 1

    The Cup on the Table

    Tangible thinking is not a primitive stage. It is high-resolution attention to one particular thing, and every other level of thinking is built from it.

    12 min read

  • Four vessels of different shapes standing in a row A minimal line drawing of a cup, a wide bowl, a tall bottle and a narrow vase, drawn as outlines, with one accent detail on the middle vessel.
    Essay 2

    Ten Cups, One Word

    Every category is a decision about what to ignore. Ten cups become one word, and the word is useful right up until you forget that it was made.

    12 min read

  • A sign, a walking figure and a running figure A sign on a post at the left. A walking stick figure in the middle drawn in accent, and a running stick figure at the right drawn in ink.
    Essay 3

    Rules That Travel

    A principle is an abstraction given authority over action. It tells you what to do in a case you have never met, which saves time and can fail badly.

    12 min read

  • A queue of people waiting at a counter A minimal line drawing of five people in a queue, drawn as circles and lines, waiting in front of a counter on the right, with one accent detail on the person at the front.
    Essay 4

    The Queue Is Not the People

    Behavior comes from structure. The same people in a different arrangement wait a different length of time, and blaming the people hides the thing worth fixing.

    12 min read

  • A shower head on a pipe with a single tap handle A minimal line drawing of a shower head, a vertical pipe, and a single handle on the wall, with one accent detail on the handle.
    Essay 5

    The Shower Tap and the Thermostat

    Many puzzling patterns turn out to be one loop with a delay in it. Once you can draw the loop, a strange wobble stops being strange and becomes predictable.

    12 min read

II. Above the Ladder

  • A student at a desk with a test paper and a magnifying glass A minimal line drawing of a seated student at a desk, a test paper on the desk, and a magnifying glass held over the paper, with the crossed mark on the paper in accent.
    Essay 6

    Which Lens, and When

    The skill at the top of the ladder is choosing the lens a situation needs, and noticing when the lens you are holding has stopped working.

    12 min read

  • A school bell beside a grid of timetable squares A minimal line drawing of a bell hanging from a bracket, and beside it a grid of small squares like a timetable, with one square in accent.
    Essay 7

    Perfectly Optimized, Pointless

    Systems and loops do not care what you want. Purpose decides what counts as working, and a well run system aimed at the wrong thing fails efficiently.

    12 min read

  • A student at a desk with an open book and a loop over it A minimal line drawing of a student reaching towards an open book on a desk, with a single accent curve looping back over the book.
    Essay 8

    Learning to Learn to Change

    There are levels of learning, and the top one is not learning more. It is changing the habits that decide which frame you look through.

    12 min read

  • The same cup drawn again, with more attention A minimal line drawing of a cup on a saucer, drawn a little more carefully than in the first essay, with an accent line marking the rim.
    Essay 9

    Back to the Cup

    Abstraction is worth the trouble when you come back to the particular thing and find more in it than you saw before you left.

    12 min read

  • People sitting round a table, going round in circles A minimal line drawing of an oval table with four small figures around it, and a large accent ellipse with an arrowhead circling the whole table.
    Essay 10

    Stuck at a Good Level

    Every level of thinking has a strength and a trap, and the strength and the trap are hard to tell apart from inside. Being stuck is not being at a low level.

    12 min read

  • A path taken and a path not taken A minimal line drawing of a road that forks in two near the bottom. A small figure stands on the left branch, and a single accent dot marks the right branch.
    Essay 11

    Does It Change What You Do?

    A way of thinking that only ever looks is worth keeping for its own sake. A way of thinking you use to decide things has to change something.

    12 min read

  • A compass rose A minimal line drawing of a compass with a circular face, tick marks around the edge, and a needle whose north end is in accent.
    Essay 12

    A Field Guide for Switching

    A practical guide to working out which level of thinking a problem needs, with one question per level, symptoms, and three routines for switching.

    12 min read

III. Ordinary Things

  • A wall clock on a bracket A minimal line drawing of a round clock hanging from a bracket, with the minute hand drawn in accent.
    Essay 13

    The Clock Is a Theory

    A clock looks like a thing that measures time. It is a thing that carries an agreement, and everything else in the day is built on top of that agreement.

    12 min read

  • A door is a decision about who, drawn as a shape A minimal line drawing of a door in a frame, with a handle, and an accent door closer arm at the top.
    Essay 14

    A Door Is a Decision About Who

    Every door is a decision about who may pass, made long before anyone walks through it. The hardware, the position, and the swing all carry that decision.

    12 min read

  • A worn path across a lawn A minimal line drawing of a narrow worn track curving across a flat field, with a single accent mark where the path bends.
    Essay 15

    The Path Across the Grass

    A path across grass is not a path anybody planned. It is a loop that has worn itself in, and the shape of it is a record of the choices that were made.

    10 min read

  • A banknote is a piece of paper that works because people believe it will A minimal line drawing of a banknote with a portrait oval, and a row of four small coins beside it, with one accent mark on the note's edge.
    Essay 16

    Money Is a Shared Story That Works

    A banknote is paper. It works because of a shared belief, held by people you have never met, about a unit nobody can eat.

    11 min read

  • A flight of stairs with equal steps A minimal line drawing of five steps of equal height rising to the right, with one accent mark on the middle tread.
    Essay 17

    A Staircase Is a Rule Made of Wood

    A staircase is a rule that somebody made out of wood, usually after somebody fell, and the rule it embodies is about rhythm rather than about height.

    11 min read

  • An exam paper with a mark on it A minimal line drawing of a sheet of paper on a desk, with written lines and a single accent mark in the margin.
    Essay 18

    The Exam Paper

    A mark is a compression of a piece of learning, and like every compression it drops something. Knowing what it drops is what keeps a test honest.

    11 min read

  • A single stove with four burners and a pan on one of them A minimal line drawing of a stove top with four burners, a pan on the front left one, and a small accent flame under it.
    Essay 19

    One Stove, Six Dishes

    Cooking for six with one stove is a problem about order, not about recipes. The stove is the constraint, and the sequence is the thing worth designing.

    12 min read

  • A phone in a pocket, screen lit A minimal line drawing of a phone held in a hand, with a bright screen and one accent notification mark on the screen.
    Essay 20

    The Phone in Your Pocket

    Your attention is the thing being traded, and the machine that trades it is shaped to get as much as it can. Reading the shape is the first step to changing it.

    11 min read

IV. Adjacent Territory

  • A stone seen as if for the first time A minimal line drawing of a plain stone, with a single accent line that traces its unexpected edge.
    Essay 21

    Making the Stone Stony

    The ordinary disappears from view the moment you know its name. There are five reliable ways to make it come back, and all of them are a kind of patience.

    10 min read

  • A map and the ground it stands for A square map on the left with two lines crossing it, and an uneven patch of ground on the right with a different shape, showing the two do not match.
    Essay 22

    The Map Is Not the Territory

    A model is a distortion made on purpose. Knowing what a map leaves out is what lets you use it without being used by it.

    9 min read

  • A magnifying glass over a square A minimal line drawing of a magnifying glass held over a small square, with an accent circle inside the lens.
    Essay 23

    Zoom

    Changing scale does not change the thing. It changes which questions the thing can answer, and that is a different thing from changing the level you think at.

    9 min read

  • A hand holding a pencil over a sheet of paper A minimal line drawing of a hand holding a pencil, with a sheet of paper below and one accent mark where the pencil touches.
    Essay 24

    Drawing What You See

    A drawing is a record of looking, and most bad drawings are a record of naming. Three techniques change what you look at, and all get in the way of the word.

    10 min read

  • A river seen as a shape rather than a flow A minimal line drawing of a winding line crossing a flat ground, with a single accent mark where the line bends.
    Essay 25

    The Noun That Froze a River

    A noun is a compression that leaves out the change. Some compressions are useful and some quietly rearrange the world, and the difference is worth seeing.

    9 min read

  • A flock of birds turning together A minimal line drawing of a group of small chevron bird shapes flying in the same direction across the frame.
    Essay 26

    Wholes No Part Contains

    Some behaviour belongs to the arrangement and not to any of the parts. Finding it means asking what the whole is doing, not what each piece is.

    9 min read

  • A line of consequence leading to a question A minimal line drawing of a series of connected nodes running to the right, ending in a single accent circle.
    Essay 27

    Then What?

    Almost every consequence has a consequence, and the second one is usually where the cost and the cause are hiding. The habit is to ask the question twice.

    9 min read

  • A frame with a bar across it A minimal line drawing of a rectangular frame with a single horizontal bar crossing the middle and one accent notch cut into the bar.
    Essay 28

    The Form Makes the Poem

    A constraint is not a limit on the work, it is the thing that decides what the work is. Freedom inside a form is easier to find than freedom without one.

    9 min read

  • A weather vane and a slow boulder A minimal line drawing of a wind vane on a post at the left, and a large rounded boulder shape at the right.
    Essay 29

    Fast Variables, Slow Variables

    Most systems have a fast part that moves a lot and decides little, and a slow part that moves almost not at all and decides nearly everything.

    10 min read

  • A plant on a stem in a frame A minimal line drawing of a small plant growing from a stem, with a square frame around the pot.
    Essay 30

    Every Metaphor Is a Borrowed Map

    A metaphor borrows a map and brings its distortions with it. The skill is not using metaphors but knowing where each one stops working.

    9 min read

  • Two marks with a shaped space between them A minimal line drawing of two vertical strokes with a curved line between them, on a flat ground line.
    Essay 31

    The Meaning of Empty Space

    In a drawing, in a piece of music, in a conversation, the empty part is not the leftover. It is doing the work, and it is the part that is hardest to notice.

    10 min read