This is a deep insight disguised as an everyday observation about shopping or gardening.
How do quantum computers solve problems? How do quantum elements in plants solve optimization problems in photosynthesis? It is about maintaining coherence so that all solutions can be explored and the right one left standing at decoherence.
I think the mental state of openness to context you suggest is a version of this -- staying open to all possibilities until an attractor draws us to the solution. Your piece inspires me to write more about this.
I can’t walk by a box hedge without dreaming of how to create a parterre like those in the Rousham Gardens somewhere in our yard. As the context of our lives shifts so does the idea of the possible form of our gardens.
Your essay though made me think of the context of making art and the form it takes when I consider trying to make it fit a market. What if I just didn’t consider market fit? What if I made art to fit the context of my life alone? Would that make my art “better”, so much so that a market I can’t conceive emerges? I wonder. Your comment in July that writing few essays per year would be an ideal, but you can’t imagine anyone funding that project runs similar lines. Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime. One. And yet what he created now resonates with so many people, and that a market emerged for his work is undeniable. He just didn’t see it happen. I want to explore the personal context for art and what success (or the perfect solution) to making it looks like given what your essay makes me think about “form fits context”. Thanks.
> What if I just didn’t consider market fit? What if I made art to fit the context of my life alone?
Yes, what is the most salient context? "Art market" is one but "fulfilling life" is another -- how do we understand the relationship of different contexts to each other?
Oh, I love this thought, Lawrence. It makes me wonder if all decisions might be aimed at “fulfilling life” as the Uber-context. I ask the question “What if I just didn’t consider market fit?” from a long history of always considering the market and a new ability to not consider it. Leading a fulfilling life has always been a filter for solutions to whatever I’m doing. So, I’d love to explore more about how we understand the relationship of different contexts, as you suggest.
Very nice. Thank you. I thought I was the only weirdo who thought about these things so much. I used to be in a high control spiritual group. The leader used to make decisions for me. When I left him, I was in my forties and it was awkward because I didn’t know how to make my own decisions. It took a few years for me to feel comfortable making decisions without him. In that process, I ended up becoming very interested in this topic. Your article is very helpful! Thank you!
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem in five minutes thinking about solutions”
- Albert Einstein
“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex… Most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.
I loved this and am now eagerly awaiting the next part. We’ve lived in the same place for 27 years now and have ever so slowly reshaped the environment around our old farmhouse in a way reminiscent of your form fits context approach … except for the back “yard” (maybe we should send you guys some photos, perhaps you’ll see it). It remains a puzzle to us, but this approach of yours may open something up (once I get Sara to read it too). PS: loved the line “not yet fully funded” in your closing call to action! Who the hell is?
I'm really moved by how, in a different part of the world, someone with different context, background and nationality converge towards the same interest as mine.
I myself am fascinated by the idea of form-context fit in the context of product management, even wrote a blog post about it myself (n Vietnamese, though browser translation feature may also work): https://www.thomastheproductguy.net/form-context-fit/
I wholeheartedly think this is a powerful and beautiful concept. Love how you and Johanna applied to making a great garden and writing great essays.
I took time to read your piece and I see how products can be created without understanding what the user wants which stems from a perspective issue or a faulty process in proper problem evaluation.
You truly deserve this success as a writer. You have something unique in the way you pull together different ideas and influences. Very beautiful. I’m learning.
I was watching “Our Oceans” on Netflix the other day and meditating on this—how each animal is such a beautiful expression of its context. And how humans are thrust into and create such different contexts (such varying motivations and interests and circumstances). Beautiful too if we could all understand and live our contexts, like dolphins or octopuses or manta rays…
Beautiful visuals in this writing. Sharing a message through a powerfully relatable story makes this so rich.
I think the learning needs to continue past understanding a problem. You need to also spend time learning about the options you have for solutions. We can get secondarily bogged down in wondering if there is always a better solution than we are aware of, and often there is. We must decide how much time is allowed to finding the best solution and make the best of the flawed information about solutions that we have.
This brilliant essay could not have come at a better time for me, as I grapple with which direction to focus on in my life going forward. Truly enjoyed reading this.
“If the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?” - The Dodecahedron (from The Phantom Tollbooth). The sentiment captures so much thinking.
Form-context-fit. It has opened so many new ways of thinking for a product that I am working on. It has shifted the mindset from making a pitch to staying open to ‘probing the context’, absorbing more knowledge from people the product is addressed to, and being less on the defensive.
If I have to think of it beyond the obvious tangibles, this philosophy is as much a means of engaging with life as it is for navigating it.
It reminds me of this quote that I can't find the source for:
In the mid-1960s, researchers Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to discover what led to successful creative careers. Giving them a variety of objects and asking them to compose a still life drawing, two distinct groups emerged: those who hastily chose an object and proceeded straight to drawing, and those that took much more time, carefully considering different arrangements.
In their view, the first group was trying to _solve_ the problem that had been given to them: “How can I produce a good drawing?” The second group was trying to _find_ a problem in the situation they were presented with: “What good drawing can I produce?”
Ive been chewing on this idea for a while now, but it seems like one of those things you can only look at out of the corner of your eye and never directly.
Your essay made me excited about this idea again, and I think I'll spend more time looking again. Thank you.
This are wonderful thoughts Henrik and Johanna! Coincidentally, I am 25 at the time of reading your piece and I feel that the truths you've unearthed and shared here could prove very important for me. I'll be doing my best to re-enter the world of paid employment in the next few months now that I've finished my degree. It's a question of finding what fits in best, and I feel sure that your context-oriented approach to solving challenges like these will help steer me through.
Your essay caused me to have the thought that “any problem can be solved”.
It kind of follows that we should focus on the most important problem of all that I am having a very hard time even stating right now. Something about how we are screwing up the entire planet and each other. Can anyone state the problem succinctly so we can all start working on it?
Is it really 1000 problems I am talking about or is there a root problem?
This is a deep insight disguised as an everyday observation about shopping or gardening.
How do quantum computers solve problems? How do quantum elements in plants solve optimization problems in photosynthesis? It is about maintaining coherence so that all solutions can be explored and the right one left standing at decoherence.
I think the mental state of openness to context you suggest is a version of this -- staying open to all possibilities until an attractor draws us to the solution. Your piece inspires me to write more about this.
I can’t walk by a box hedge without dreaming of how to create a parterre like those in the Rousham Gardens somewhere in our yard. As the context of our lives shifts so does the idea of the possible form of our gardens.
Your essay though made me think of the context of making art and the form it takes when I consider trying to make it fit a market. What if I just didn’t consider market fit? What if I made art to fit the context of my life alone? Would that make my art “better”, so much so that a market I can’t conceive emerges? I wonder. Your comment in July that writing few essays per year would be an ideal, but you can’t imagine anyone funding that project runs similar lines. Van Gogh sold one painting in his lifetime. One. And yet what he created now resonates with so many people, and that a market emerged for his work is undeniable. He just didn’t see it happen. I want to explore the personal context for art and what success (or the perfect solution) to making it looks like given what your essay makes me think about “form fits context”. Thanks.
> What if I just didn’t consider market fit? What if I made art to fit the context of my life alone?
Yes, what is the most salient context? "Art market" is one but "fulfilling life" is another -- how do we understand the relationship of different contexts to each other?
Oh, I love this thought, Lawrence. It makes me wonder if all decisions might be aimed at “fulfilling life” as the Uber-context. I ask the question “What if I just didn’t consider market fit?” from a long history of always considering the market and a new ability to not consider it. Leading a fulfilling life has always been a filter for solutions to whatever I’m doing. So, I’d love to explore more about how we understand the relationship of different contexts, as you suggest.
Very nice. Thank you. I thought I was the only weirdo who thought about these things so much. I used to be in a high control spiritual group. The leader used to make decisions for me. When I left him, I was in my forties and it was awkward because I didn’t know how to make my own decisions. It took a few years for me to feel comfortable making decisions without him. In that process, I ended up becoming very interested in this topic. Your article is very helpful! Thank you!
I love the metaphor you used about the Sudoku - it really opened up my eyes. Thanks for this, life changing really.
Similar thoughts:
“A problem well put is half solved.”
- John Dewey
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem in five minutes thinking about solutions”
- Albert Einstein
“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex… Most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.
- Steve Jobs
I loved this and am now eagerly awaiting the next part. We’ve lived in the same place for 27 years now and have ever so slowly reshaped the environment around our old farmhouse in a way reminiscent of your form fits context approach … except for the back “yard” (maybe we should send you guys some photos, perhaps you’ll see it). It remains a puzzle to us, but this approach of yours may open something up (once I get Sara to read it too). PS: loved the line “not yet fully funded” in your closing call to action! Who the hell is?
I'm really moved by how, in a different part of the world, someone with different context, background and nationality converge towards the same interest as mine.
I myself am fascinated by the idea of form-context fit in the context of product management, even wrote a blog post about it myself (n Vietnamese, though browser translation feature may also work): https://www.thomastheproductguy.net/form-context-fit/
I wholeheartedly think this is a powerful and beautiful concept. Love how you and Johanna applied to making a great garden and writing great essays.
I took time to read your piece and I see how products can be created without understanding what the user wants which stems from a perspective issue or a faulty process in proper problem evaluation.
You truly deserve this success as a writer. You have something unique in the way you pull together different ideas and influences. Very beautiful. I’m learning.
I was watching “Our Oceans” on Netflix the other day and meditating on this—how each animal is such a beautiful expression of its context. And how humans are thrust into and create such different contexts (such varying motivations and interests and circumstances). Beautiful too if we could all understand and live our contexts, like dolphins or octopuses or manta rays…
Beautiful visuals in this writing. Sharing a message through a powerfully relatable story makes this so rich.
I think the learning needs to continue past understanding a problem. You need to also spend time learning about the options you have for solutions. We can get secondarily bogged down in wondering if there is always a better solution than we are aware of, and often there is. We must decide how much time is allowed to finding the best solution and make the best of the flawed information about solutions that we have.
This brilliant essay could not have come at a better time for me, as I grapple with which direction to focus on in my life going forward. Truly enjoyed reading this.
“If the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?” - The Dodecahedron (from The Phantom Tollbooth). The sentiment captures so much thinking.
Form-context-fit. It has opened so many new ways of thinking for a product that I am working on. It has shifted the mindset from making a pitch to staying open to ‘probing the context’, absorbing more knowledge from people the product is addressed to, and being less on the defensive.
If I have to think of it beyond the obvious tangibles, this philosophy is as much a means of engaging with life as it is for navigating it.
Thank you for writing this inspiring piece.
It reminds me of this quote that I can't find the source for:
In the mid-1960s, researchers Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to discover what led to successful creative careers. Giving them a variety of objects and asking them to compose a still life drawing, two distinct groups emerged: those who hastily chose an object and proceeded straight to drawing, and those that took much more time, carefully considering different arrangements.
In their view, the first group was trying to _solve_ the problem that had been given to them: “How can I produce a good drawing?” The second group was trying to _find_ a problem in the situation they were presented with: “What good drawing can I produce?”
Ive been chewing on this idea for a while now, but it seems like one of those things you can only look at out of the corner of your eye and never directly.
Your essay made me excited about this idea again, and I think I'll spend more time looking again. Thank you.
This are wonderful thoughts Henrik and Johanna! Coincidentally, I am 25 at the time of reading your piece and I feel that the truths you've unearthed and shared here could prove very important for me. I'll be doing my best to re-enter the world of paid employment in the next few months now that I've finished my degree. It's a question of finding what fits in best, and I feel sure that your context-oriented approach to solving challenges like these will help steer me through.
Your essay caused me to have the thought that “any problem can be solved”.
It kind of follows that we should focus on the most important problem of all that I am having a very hard time even stating right now. Something about how we are screwing up the entire planet and each other. Can anyone state the problem succinctly so we can all start working on it?
Is it really 1000 problems I am talking about or is there a root problem?
A succinct answer: disunity