Positive
Little Things and Big Differences
Today’s musing is the second to the last musing of Fleas and rats.
The Little Thing: Little things that matter
Updates on the Switchover
First, a few updates on the progress of Fleas and rats:
Musings end after May. (This is the second to last musing.)
The first serialized essay starts on Monday June 8th.
The Aim of Fleas and rats
The aim is to focus on:
News of the decade, not news of the day.
Little things that add up to big differences.
Connections between ideas and action, or at least connections between ideas and understanding.
In sum, Fleas and rats is meant to be thoughtful, positive, and practical. Today’s musing focuses on the value of positive.
Positive
Mathematics is a positive discipline because it provides us with powerful tools that are built on useful and interesting patterns. This helps us make sense of things, gain mastery over ideas, and explain ourselves with clarity and precision.
Essayists should be like mathematicians in that that essayists should construct pattern-explaining tools (and ideas) in order to help us do, or think about, things that matter. Like mathematics, essays should be positive and constructive, not negative and critical.
At the heart of constructive thinking is systems thinking, which means breaking things down (stuff, ideas, actions) to their constituent parts (or steps) to understand how things work (or function) together. While systems thinking starts with breaking things apart, it ends with bringing them back together. Systems thinking is therefore inherently holistic.
Systems thinking also helps you understand roots, the fundamentals and foundations of stuff, ideas, and action. In this sense, systems thinking is radical. Radical is often viewed as breaking down or tearing apart, being negative, and it is seen as taking extreme positions. But a truly radical approach is constructive and moderate, as it focuses on understanding, and building, from foundations.
Radical thinking asks: What matters most? What is the purpose? How can the purpose be achieved and maintained? A radical approach aligns purpose, construction, application, process, function, and outcome.
The purpose of Fleas and rats is to write and share essays on society. How does society function? What is its purpose? How can society perform this function, achieve this purpose?
The first monthly (serialized) essay is due June 8th. Next week’s musing, the final musing of Fleas and rats, will focus on practical role of looking at connections between ideas and action, or at least connections between ideas and understanding.