abstraction

"A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness."
[Alford Korzybski, 1958]

I came across this quote when writing a seminar thesis on systems theory. Can't help to be intrigued by it, just pondering in how many ways this could be a valid statement. Maybe for models of things, personal world views, experience, all kinds of logical abstractions..

another online wisdom

A person grows more often by means of letting go than by taking something in.

wovon träumst du?

melting chocolate

i'm surprised that it took years for me to commit this stupidity: i absentmindedly placed a chocolate cookie directly next to my notebooks fan...
it WAS an interesting experience (the cookie was actually very tasty) and luckily there was no cloth on the table so the dripping chocolate did not do any harm ;)

sometimes

occasionally i wanted to write something of my pondering about love.. but then, everyone is speaking about it and still no-one can pin it down anyway.. and also, i'm normally rather fed up by the usual articles and headlines on the subject.

but then, on some days, i get this feeling of my heart opening so much as to enclose the whole world, and i can not do otherwise than smiling at it and all the people i meet. And they smile back. Which makes me realise that i love them all, somehow :)

mirror

I wonder how much the points someone criticises you for tells you about them.

Considering the hypothesis that people might be most annoyed by characteristics they have themselves and consider negative casts a rather different light on the issue.

minimal changes

Sometimes life is like a tricky differential equation - if you only vary one parameter a tiny little bit, the outcome might change drastically.

I don't know if I am more amazed or scared by this.

However, there could be another phenomenon connected to it: different people seem to sense this potential for rapid change in some situation of their lives and then to collectively decide to escalate - or to do nothing and keep as quiet as possible..

choose.

do you want the attention of all people in the room? or all the attention of a particular person?

believe is everything

If people think it won't happen, they will be right.

Ergo: the worst mistake to make in planning is to take away the confidence of people in their ability to actually solve the problem in time. Once they lost faith, it will be very very hard to convince them otherwise and chances for success will decrease massively.

the perfect scapegoat

"To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so."

[Thanks to Darius]