quotius – Mobiusman

Quotius #10

by David

There’s a thing I often like to point out about belief. It’s the fact that it can only be developed two ways:

1) Through blind faith, which is usually based on a compelling argument, or

2) Based on some sort of tactile hard evidence.

This forms the basis of an observation.

There are two types of people in the world: There are those who can believe in something without actually seeing it and there are those who need hard evidence of its existence before the investment of their belief is forced out of them.

As today’s world shifts more and more towards the cynical belief in anything not proven with absoluteness seems increasingly rare. Yet it still exists. It exists for one reason. People require some semblance of hope just to carry on. They seek it everywhere. It’s as essential as the air we breathe.

As a student of entrepreneurship I know that things must be created and shipped even though they may not be perfected. Tweaks can be made latter. “Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it” as the great copywriter Gary Halbert once said. That kind of productivity is scary. It can lead to many failures. But it can also lead to successes too. You just need to have the gumption to proceed.

Consider the mobius and how it elegantly demonstrates the duality principal yet again.

Belief, in its usual form, looks a lot like just another’s personal perspective and indeed it is. But, on the other hand, if you can get some sort of hard evidence then consider that a bonus.

It can disperse the strength of resistance and make the road forward more attainable.

More power to you.

Music attribution: The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)

Quotius # 11

by David

Science without art is sterile. Art without science is absurd. – Leonardo DaVinci.

I like this quote because, as an artist, I’m a realist too. But my self-confidence became a bit battered in my high school days since science proved not to be my long suit.

Same with math.

I found that stuff just a bit too “scientific”. That’s probably why, after my second attempt at passing grade nine, I dumped the regular courses for a stint at a school that taught the basics of a trades-type career. Besides, they bribed me to go there offering me passage into grade ten if I took them up on it. It was an all boys school and I didn’t fancy that. But, I grit my teeth and went ahead with it anyway.

Turns out I was pretty good at working with my hands and my confidence went up a notch or two. Although that wasn’t saying much.

It was an interesting experiment but, truth be told, it still didn’t push that many of my buttons. I didn’t see myself becoming a professional welder, an electrician, or a machinist. (Although later in life I could have used those skills a time or two.)

I preferred the Leonardo model.

That special blend of artistic invention with scientific grounding was way more appealing. Too bad I was about 500 years too late to learn from him personally but, then again, my languages teacher was French not Italian. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Eventually I got through high school by opting into a special art course. It was an important move and the timing was right. It was my second attempt at grade ten. (They made me yet another a deal I couldn’t refuse.)

It was also a return to a co-ed school and that I believed was necessary given the importance of feminine sensitivity into the whole artistic thing. I much enjoyed my time there. Leonardo would have made the same choice I think. A school of all boys and great art/science doesn’t even sound possible to me personnaly.

Besides, my teenage biological clock was ticking. I didn’t want to be in my mid-twenties and still be working my way through grade 12 high school classes.

Of course I did eventually graduate and went on to a design school in a new start-up community college about five hours driving time from my home. I chose that one because I loved the idea of designing shape and form then making it useful in a commercial world.

It was my kind of thing. I love newness especially when the newness is my idea. Or so I thought. But alas, I’ve since come to understand that most “new” ideas are simply some sort of modification of another’s brilliance. That was another confidence killer right there.

But eventually I discovered there is such a thing as pure newness. In my own nomenclature here atop this website I’m not borrowing on Leonardo but from an obscure mathematician who lived some 150 years ago. His name was August Ferdinand Mobius

He was the one credited with the invention of the Mobius Strip, which in my humble opinion was totally new, and is the greatest metaphor for duality/singularity I have ever seen. I use it often to demonstrate how my own invention can save anyone’s self-confidence from going too far down the pipe. It’s what I used to save my own confidence from disappearing.

It also fits the essence of what I’m trying to demo with these little videos too. It shows how a literary device like the palindrome can work with the art of shape.

It’s a two-for-one offer of insight goodness. Who could refuse that?

More power to you.

Quotius #9 Circular Vs Reciprocal

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless
Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless

This quotius is not actually a quote like most of the others I do here. That’s because it’s not a quote from somebody else. This time it’s my own idea which I made up in an attempt to vividly illustrate the striking differences between two distinct types of thinking: circular and reciprocal.

If you’ve seen more than one of my Quotius videos you may have noticed that I have little regard for the circular type of thinking pattern. I personally believe that thinking that has a pattern like this has been the sole cause of the stuckiness that many people experience in their own lives.

I don’t like it in myself and I don’t like it in others.

That’s why in each one of these little productions I end up destroying the circular band that represents circular thinking. This often happens in a rather extreme way. It’s intentionally violent and final. Like a deadly virus I don’t want it ever coming back.

Circular thinking causes you to make decisions that are hard to reach. They are long coming (if they get made at all) and they are usually the result of over-analyzing things. They are what I refer to as head-based decision making. All you do is go around and around and around burning up time and energy to finally reaching a flimsy compromised path.

If you tend toward this type of thinking it’s probably because it seems like the safe thing to do. But it’s not. It’s just time-wasting. Real opportunities aren’t often found in the safe area of life. They are found in the deep end of the pool and it takes some guts to swim out there to claim them for yourself.

Reciprocal thinking, on the other hand, is thinking that works in partnership with the two sets of independent brain systems found in all humans. The head brain and the gut brain.

You’re no doubt aware of the head brain and what it does. But for some the knowing about the gut brain is still be a bit of a mystery. So let me give you a brief rundown of what I think was one of the top biological discoveries of the last fifty years.

The gut brain, known technically as the “enteric nervous system”, was a discovery that was first made public in North America in an article in the New York Times in 1996. The subject of the article was an announcement by cell biologist Dr. Michael Gershon. His area of interest had been the digestive system and that is how he literally tripped over the evidence of this (abdominal) brain.

He conducted tests and found some startling facts such as:
• The gut brain can, and does, act alone without instructions from topside
• The area of the gut brain is rich in “feel good” chemicals
• The gut brain is very sensitive to touch employing the same neurons found in the head

The brain in the gut was not entirely unknown however. A British doctor by the name of Langley had written about it about 100 years prior to Dr. Gershon’s work, but it had been overshadowed by the discovery of neuro-transmitters (chemicals said to help transmit nerve signals between each neuron).

Now that we know we have two distinct brains in the body why not use both of them in concert when considering critical choices? You can have the thought considerations from the head brain while being made more aware of invaluable signals about good or bad from the gut brain. Base your finial decision on that.

It is said that two brains are better than one. But what’s even better is when both reside in the same body and can agree on the same direction to go in.

More power to you.

Music Credit: The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)

Quotius #8

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

“When the going gets tough… the tough get going.”
This time I have blatantly broken the law (yet again) about proper palindrome-making. I did it this time because, well for one thing it’s my playground, and because I wanted to seriously underscore the huge differences that naturally arise between a circular system of thinking and a reciprocal system of thinking.

The first being the domain of the stuck and the latter being the domain of the actively creative. You know, those who may not have all the answers but are brave enough to power ahead anyway.

In the first half of the video you can’t help but notice how the missing information, which appears upside down on the inside of the circular band, really makes the whole message unreadable. You’d have to stand on your head to get the rest of it.

This not only creates confusion in the reader but it also frustrates her to no end. Why would anyone knowingly want to think this way?

Because it’s easy that’s why. Lead-ass easy.

Of course, there is only one solution the reader’s dilemma and we see it plainly when the second the strip is constructed with that magical half-twist in it before it’s joined together and becomes a qualified Quotius.

That ability to overcome difficulties, no matter how many there are, delineates between the tough and the not tough enough. It’s not always those with sheer strength that win in this battle. It’s those with the ability to adapt and to thereafter endure.

Could you use a half twist in your thinking? Try this on for size.

More power to you.

PS: Have you noticed that a lot of personal development methods no longer pack the punch they once did? Could be the times. I went ahead and invented this simple little brain tweak that makes a huge difference in leveraging your efforts for creating a better version of yourself. Want more? Check out my FREE webinar here.

The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution (3.0).

Quotius #7

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

“It’s always the right time … If you time it right.” – Mobiusman

Back in the day the pop rock group the Rolling Stones recorded a song titled “Time Is On My Side”. Its message underscored the fact that time as a measurement lies at the very foundation of our life’s experience on this big ball of mud we call planet Earth.

Every day we use time as a scale of comparison between the good times and the not-so-good times. Myself, as I get older, arrive at a place where the unknown quantity of the time that I have left spikes dramatically in its perceived value. This is one reason why it troubles me greatly to learn that a growing number of individuals, many of them young people, somehow see that time’s value for themselves is almost worthless and thus take the drastic terrifyingly final and irreversible step to short it out completely.

The power of time’s value is expressed in other ways too. Doctors, for example, try to give their patients more time while our penal system takes away a prisoner’s freedom and uses time as punishment for crimes they’ve committed.

But for most of us these days we feel time racing by never to be reclaimed. “There isn’t enough time in a day” the busy person says. “Why is this taking so long? asks another as she waits for her computer to download a file.

In business school we’re told that cash-flow is king. But that monarchy pales in the presence of the exalted dominion that time has on our hearts and minds.

It all boils down to this: If you have something of value to contribute to the world then do it now.

The timing is just right.

More power to you.

PS: Have you noticed that a lot of personal development methods no longer pack the punch they once did? Could be the times. I went ahead and invented this simple little brain tweak that makes a huge difference in leveraging your efforts for creating a better version of yourself. Want more? Check out my FREE webinar here.

The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution (3.0).

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless
Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless