Thread by @jposhaughnessy

1/ Book recommendation

This extraordinary book, like much of what it explores, is difficult to categorize, but if you read/view it, you will come away thinking that is a very good thing indeed.

amazon.com/Unflattening-N…

2/ Author/illustrator @Nsousanis liberates us from "Flatland" by fusing symbols, images, and language together in an almost magical way. He quotes S.I. Hayakawa: "We are the prisoners of ancient orientations imbedded in the languages we have inherited." There's a way out:

3/ "Text immersed in images" and "pictures anchored by words" allow us to escape from the linear world of Flatland into the three dimensional (and more) world of many nonlinear dimensions. The world we live in requires this reframing of thought, as it and we become

4/ more comfortable with abstraction and layered thinking. As Nick says in the book "The verbal marches along linearly, step by step, a discrete sequence of words, [whereas] the visual, on the other hand, presents itself all-at-once, simultaneous all over (and) relational "

5/ "the visual provides expression where words fail" and we've all understood the growing frustration of people who feel either unheard or misunderstood, and maybe one of the solutions is to move beyond being mere "word thinkers" and expanding our thoughts to synthesize

6/ words, images, symbols (and even, speculatively on my part, music and other art forms) and recognize that there are fully explanations to life and problems that allow to see as if with new eyes.

This becomes a "participatory dance, an act of the imagination, in which the

7/ reader animates and transforms the static into the kinetic and brings it to life." Nick reminds the reader that "perception is a dynamic activity...[that is] never static" To overcome stasis, we must flow, an idea as old as time and recommended by various thinkers from Lao Tzu

8/ to Buckminster Fuller. We can see much more clearly by synthesizing all of the information available to us into a multidimensional whole--"Forging new knowledge by stitching together the dissimilar." This can help us understand others better too, something we desperately

9/ need in this time of continual and great change. Learning how to "unlearn" thoughts and ideas that may have once been helpful but now stand in the way of expanding our understanding will be a critical skill as we burst forward into the future.

10/ And start to understand the many invisible strings that bind us not just to our history but to one another as well. Nick notes: "We are better able to see these attachments not as constraints but as forces to harness." We in the US are lucky to have some of these freedoms

11/ guaranteed in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but we need to constantly remember that working with and not against each other often leads to much better outcomes. By expanding our thinking to make use of all of our dimensions, we're able to transform old ideas into

12/ new and potentially more useful innovations. In this time of the Great Reshuffling, we all need to improve our approach to learning creatively, as creativity and innovation are two advantages that we humans have that created wonders out of all surrounding us at every turn.

13/ Nick says "Our experiences and interactions, this social fabric in. which we are woven, all shape our identity...to set ourselves free, we can't simply cut our bonds...the means to rise up and upend our thinking are found in this tumbling of relations.

14/ When we truly train ourselves to perceive in this way by unflattening, "We remind ourselves of what it is to open our eyes to the world for the first time."

15/ By doing so, we can continue to create innovations and solutions and move both ourselves and the world to higher and more complete levels of understanding and thought.

Nick's book offers hope to everyone that you can "unstick" yourself and climb higher and higher.

16/ Thanks to @generativist for recommending the book!

Here's short talk Nick gave on the book:

nga.gov/audio-video/vi…

17/ and here's his website:

spinweaveandcut.com