Walking can be a meditation, a practice of just walking. But thoughts bubble up when walking, and if we try to hold onto those thoughts “for later,” we may find we’re not doing a good job of either walking or holding onto thoughts. Jotting down a note can allow us to let a thought go, […]
An engineering student came up to present his functional model to the class. The assignment called for students to concisely model a trade-off they saw in a design problem of their choice. The student projected his model and began to explain it: “So, I dumbed it down, and…” I paused him there. Why would someone make such […]
Much thinking is a form of planning, relying heavily on “if” and “then.” We sometimes feel comforted by the apparent validity of our reasoning. But when what seemed to be an if/then situation turns out not to be one (i.e. we were wrong), or when the real world’s imagination exceeds what ours was when we listed the ifs […]