Quick Review: A Technique for Producing Ideas

...by James Webb Young.

Recommended by Jon Acuff, and he's funny, so I bought it.

It's a tiny book, with double spacing and wide margins, so you don't get a lot of book, but it's a good read.  Originally published in the 1940s, it's still seen as something of an industry standard apparently (the industry being advertising), but is lauded by many people in various creative disciplines.

What it says basically gave form to what I suppose I have generally thought/done, but without recognising it hitherto.  The system is:
1.Gather lots of information, about both the subject at hand and just generally
2.Look for connections and relationships between data, as new ideas are combinations of existing material. When your brain goes foggy and on strike...
3...go and do something else and let your subconscious mind reassemble things and produce answers.
4. The moment when the new idea bursts into existence
5. Shaping and refining in the real world.

It's that bit where you forget about it or sleep or do a Sherlockian concert trip, and then without thinking about it, the idea takes shape, is the most profound and bizarre part: especially as I think it's often the case.  However I also confess to ignoring this and constantly pounding at the problem because I have a deadline, often without result...

Bunyan on good in suffering

Do not even such things as are most bitter to the flesh, tend to awaken Christians to faith and prayer, to a sight of the emptiness of this world, and the fadingness of the best it yield? Doth not God by these things (ofttimes) call our sins to remembrance, and provoke us to amendment of life?  How then can we be offended at things by which we receive so much good?....

Therefore if mine enemy hunger, let me feed him;  if he thirst, let me give him drink.  Now in order to do this,
i) we must see good in that, in which other men see none.
ii) we must pass by those injuries that other men would revenge.
iii) We must show we have grace, and that we are made to bear what other men are not acquainted with.
iv) many of our graces are kept alive, by those very things that are the death of other men's souls...the devil, (they say) is good when he is pleased;  but Christ and His saints, when displeased.

John Bunyan, as quoted in A Puritan Golden Treasury, p14

Oh!

That last post was number
800!

Fanfare for Dickie Mint, another centenary for him.  And his suggestion.

Svenson: are we interruptible?

But it is possible that the most important thing God has for me on any given day is not even on my agenda,” observes Pastor Bruce Larson. “Am I interruptible? Do I have time for the nonprogrammed things in my life? My response to those interruptions is the real test of my love.


God will be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions…. It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God...

Margin, (loc.2085)

Postman: no such thing as an intelligence test (great quote!)

"Invisible technologies"...because their role in reducing the types and quantity of information admitted to a system often goes unnoticed, and therefore their role in defining traditional concepts also goes unnoticed.  There is, for example, no test that can measure a person's intelligence.  Intelligence is a general term used to denote one's capacity to solve real life problems in a variety of novel contexts.  It is acknowledged by everyone except experts that each person varies greatly in such capacities from consistently effective to consistently ineffective, depending on the kids of problem requiring solution.  If, however, we are made to believe that a test can reveal precisely the quantity of intelligence a person has, then, for all institutional purposes, a score on a test becomes his or her intelligence.  The test transforms an abstract and multi-faceted meaning into a technical and exact term that leaves out everything of importance.  One might even say that an intelligence test is a tale told by an expert, signifying nothing.  Nonetheless the expert relies on our believing in the reality of technical machinery, which means we will reify the answers generated by the machinery.  We come to believe that our score is our intelligence, or our capacity for creativity or love or pain.  We come to believe that the results of opinion polls are what people believe, as if our beliefs can be encapsulated in such sentences as "I approve" and "I disapprove".

Technopoly, p89

Postman: information glut kills theroies kills information

That is the function of theories - to oversimplify, and thus to assist believers in organising, weighting and excluding information. Therein lies the power of theories.  Their weakness is that precisely because they oversimplify they are vulnerable to attack by new information.  When there is too much information to sustain any theory, information becomes essentially meaningless.

Technopoly, p77

Postman: the deification of technology

Technopoly...consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology....Those who feel most comfortable in Technopoly are those who are convinced that technical progress is humanity's supreme achievement and the instrument by which our most profound dilemmas can be solved.  They also believe that information is an unmixed blessing, which through its continued and uncontrolled production and dissemination offers increased freedom, creativity and peace of mind.  The fact that information does none of these things - but quite the opposite - seems to change few opinions...

 Technopoly,  p71

Svenson: robbed of anticipation

Calendar congestion and time urgency have robbed us of the pleasure of anticipation. Without warning, the activity is upon us. We rush to meet it; then we rush to the next. In the same way, we lack the joy of reminiscing. On we fly to the next activity.

Margin  (loc.2046)

Svenson: time saving devices

The best thing to remember about time-saving technologies is that they don’t.  Instead, they consume, compress, and devour time. All the countries with the most time-saving technologies are the most stressed-out countries—an assertion that’s easy to prove.

Margin  (loc.2001)

Thomas Watson: it is not the night, but a cloud

If the darkness a man be under be such, that there are some openings of light withal, then it is the darkness of a cloud, and not of the night...Now thus it is always with the people of God.  They never are in any affliction, temptation or desertion, but before their great deliverance comes, they have some special providence, some reviving in the midst of their trouble, some interim of light, some openings of the cloud;  and therefore, in the midst of all, they may say, Surely this my darkness is not the darkness of the night, but of a cloud.  I say, there is no discouragement befalls the saints, but the matter thereof is a cloud, and they may say, It is but a cloud, it will pass over.

Thomas Watson, as quoted in "A Puritan Golden Treasury" by IDE Thomas

Svenson: what we own, owns us

Everything we own owns us. We must maintain it, paint it, play with it, build space in our house to put it, and then work to pay it off. Perhaps if we had fewer things we might have more time.


Recognize unnecessary possessions for what they are: stealers of divine time. At the beginning of every day we are given assignments that have eternal significance—to serve, to love, to obey, to pray. Instead, we squander much of this time on things that soon will leave us forever.

Margin (loc.1996f)

Keller: what we don't know at the start of the Christian life

Imagine sitting down with a seven-year old and saying to her, "I'd like you to write me an essay on what you think it's like to fall in love and be married."  When you read the essay, you will say it isn't very close to the reality.  A seven-year-old can't imagine what love and marriage will be like.  When you start  to follow Jesus, you're at least that far away.  You have no idea how far you'll have to go.

King's Cross, p24

Chester/Timmis: community & Gospel

What forms and sustains Christian community is, perhaps paradoxically, not a commitment to community per se, but a commitment to the gospel Word.   Sometimes people place great emphasis on the importance of community and neglect the gospel Word.  Community then becomes a goal towards which we work.  But Peter says that human activity cannot create life that endures.  Indeed an exclusive focus on community will kill it.  Only the Word of God can create an  enduring community life and love.

Everyday Church, p.68

Chester/Timmis: relationships

We want to build relationships with unbelievers on their territory, but we also need to introduce them to the network of relationships that makes up the believing community.  Indeed people are often attracted to the Christian community before they are attracted to the Christian message.  And our approach to mission should involve three elements: (1) building relationships; (2) sharing the gospel message;  and (3) including people in the community.

Everyday Church, p65.

Quick Review: The Christian Atheist

...by Craig Groeschel (Zondervan)

Well, when I was given this I thought the title was redolent of various books of recent years of the Christianity-has-been-possessed-by-modernism-and-ruined-everything-but-now-my-book-tells-the-truth-(humbly) variety.

But no.  In fact it's not even the lightweight volume I suspected it to be after discovering that the author is a bible-believing pastor (I think he's the fella behind the church behind YouVersion).  It's a straightforward challenge to get the things we believe, to be functional in our lives: the Christian atheist is someone who believes in God but lives as if he doesn't exist.  There's a massive issue if ever there was.

In a series of short chapters, written attractively and simply, with plenty of self-deprecating illustrations, Craig Groeschel runs through "When you believe in God but..." are ashamed of your past; but not in prayer; but don't think He's fair; but still worry all the time; but not in His church...etc etc

A really helpful book, for new Christians, for more long-term Christians who need to look at some areas where they have been held back, and an easy read.

Svenson: thoughts on time-pressure

A proverb in Ecuador states: “Everything takes longer than it does.”

If you want some breathing room, increase your margin of error.

Because progress gives us more and more of everything faster and faster, the obvious result is steadily increasing options, opportunities, and obligations. Meanwhile, we are stuck with the 24-hour day. The inevitable collision between this escalating context and a fixed time frame catapults the word No to the front of the class.

 “No,” says author Anne Lamott, “is a complete sentence.” Speaking to a seminary graduation, she continued: “Believe me, we do not need hassled, bitter ministers. We don’t want you to talk the talk about this being the day the Lord hath made and that we should rejoice and savor its beauty and poignancy when secretly you’re tearing around like a white rabbit; we need you to walk the walk. And we need you to walk a little more slowly.”

Margin (loc.1949ff) 

Svenson: resist the clock

Progress tricked us into trusting it—then it exhausted us. But we are not helpless. The clock can be resisted.

Margin (loc.1946)