Meta Patterns & Genius - A Simple Game To Increase A Child's
Intelligence
As a side effect in my life long study of human excellence,
genius and creativity, I have discovered ONE particular thinking
pattern that makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE in:
- understanding the world - problem solving - innovation and
creativity - and even inner harmony.
This is a meta filter which people LEARN, they are NOT born
"that way", and it is a really profound one that makes the
difference between a great thinker and someone who isn't, at the
end of the day.
This filter is about whether a person sorts all manner of
incoming information by difference, or by similarity.
Fascinatingly, across the board, children's games are games of
"difference".
Spot the difference; Sesame Street's "One of these things just
doesn't belong here ..."; and many, MANY other strategies across
the board and all the educational modalities reward this
"sorting by differences".
The side effect of sorting by difference is to compartmentalise
the world into ever smaller blocks of detail; this leads
directly, and I mean directly, in completely logical cause and
effect fashion to losing the ability to "see the big picture".
In neuro-linguistic terms, the movement from a normal sized
picture into more and more detail is called "chunking down".
This is when we stop looking at the car, and instead focus on a
single wheel, and then the hub of a single wheel, and the the
screw with the hub, and then a single turn of the screw, and
deeper and deeper into the details of the thing, until we're in
quarks and neutrons territory and no-one knows or cares that we
ever started with a bright red motor car.
Now, there is nothing wrong per se with "chunking down" into
details of a thing; where it becomes immensely DANGEROUS for a
person, and for many people in their collective societies, is
when EVERYBODY thinks like that - apart from a few "visionaries"
that is, of course, who will become the leaders.
Aha!
A general MUST be able to see the bigger picture; a king must;
an industry leader; ANY leader MUST have the magical ability to
zoom out and perceive huge arrays of objects IN PERSPECTIVE in
order to discover the meta patterns that make up the WHOLE
situation.
In the education systems the world over, children are not raised
and trained to become LEADERS. That explains why the "downchunk
movement" into detail is being taught and fostered at every
turn; people who are only comfortable with "small chunk
thinking" and will turn immediately to chunking down EVEN
FURTHER in moments of crisis, because that movement is THE ONLY
movement they know and are familiar with, make great soldiers,
factory workers, low level clerics - great ants, in other words.
But the fact is that to "think in the opposite direction", to
zoom out to see the bigger picture, is a simple as a child's
game - we just need to reverse it.
Instead of playing endless versions of, "What's the difference?"
we start asking instead, "What's the SAME?"
It is then the meta patterns become revealed and the MOVEMENT
OUT towards the "bigger picture" begins to occur naturally.
This is such a simple, and yet such an INCREDIBLE thing.
Consider this.
We may ask, "What's THE SAME about a black boy, and a white
boy?" and the answer is ready and clear - "They're both boys!"
We may ask, "What's the SAME about a little boy and a little
girl?" and we may receive the answer, "They're both human
beings."
EVERY person needs to be able to ZOOM BOTH WAYS - into the
details, and out to biggest possible picture, and back again.
EVERY person CAN do that - it is just a question of encouraging
the neglected and secret "bigger picture" movement from an early
age, and THAT in itself is as simple as to say to a child,
"What's THE SAME about your teddy and your doll?"
For any adult who seeks to really re-connect to their own
creativity and POWER TO DETECT THE META PATTERNS of our lives
and our environments, it is the same game.
"What's THE SAME about the last five movies you've watched?
What's THE SAME about the last 15 successful advertising
campaigns the competitors ran? What's THE SAME about me and
other people?"
There is a structural re-connection that is astonishing which
occurs so naturally as a by product of asking that simple
question, which is indeed profound, and profoundly healing.
I do believe that the answers lie in the meta patterns, and in
our ability to PERCEIVE THEM CLEARLY.
If we get, as individuals AND as societies, those meta patterns
right, then the details will NATURALLY take care of themselves -
that's the way it works.
"They" say that the devil lies in the detail - it could well be
so that salvation can be found indeed, in all of us starting to
pay much more attention to "the bigger picture".