The hand metaphor

I was thinking yesterday about the hand and its power to represent some truths about the human mind. I googled 'hand as metaphor' and found Wisdom of the Hands. I was intrigued to discover the richness of thought being put up on this blog, and then had the insight to start up my own blog on insight and method. So here I go. From question, to search, to data, to insight, to action! A little case study in itself, a microcosm of what the blog will be about.

I got hooked on the nature of insight in 1992. Actually it was the notion of insight into insight that got to me. Having worked in creativity training, I was already well versed in methods to stimulate creative thinking. But I had never found anything that gave me greater understanding of insight itself. I have since discovered that it is the key to everything. I hope that this will unravel as the blog matures and others contribute their experiences of insight and of what helps or hinders it.

I have called the blog 'insight and method', because method belongs to the mind in its self-management of getting and using insight and doing this particularly through questions. Method can also be extended to groups in how they work, to harvest and mine insights, to test them and to put them to work. IAM is thus our model - insight and method - that I will unravel as we proceed.

Insight matters. Although invisible, it does everything for us - identifies opportunities, solves puzzles, resolves conflict, informs decisions and creates new things.

Although a powerful ally, it does not come on command, but usually arrives when one might least expect it. Such as in the shower, taking a walk, riding a bus, dozing..... But an insight will only come if bidden by questions. Inquiry is the key that opens the human mind. Inquiry takes us through questions, to insight to answers which we can then offer to the world.

Insights can also come moment to moment. As we drive on the freeway, we draw on insights which grasp the real-time possibilities ahead of us, such changing lanes, slowing down, turning.

As we doze on the beach, insight may quietly arise, cloaked in phantasy, about future possibilities for what we might do in the coming year. Or at work, we may search with colleagues for solutions to a marketing problem.

But insights can be elusive and not come when needed. We may not be gathering the data we need. We may be blocking them through prejudice or some other resistance.

Openness and persistence in our desire to understand seem to be necessary preconditions, as are gathering data and playing with it.

So insight is always into some kind of data, whether of sense, consciousness, imagination or memory. It is none of these, but acts like a hinge between them and the words and concepts we use to explain what it is that we have understood.

I will later discuss some examples of insight.

Colours as metaphor

Metaphors point to deeper things, as they capture or reflect their likeness.

Red can point to fire that consumes and makes things malleable, or blood which brings life, or emotion that destroys. Red can convey something of the power of inquiry, of questions which probe and persist in face of opposition, of the energy which carries one forward in the hope of changing things.

Green is the colour of pasture, of land which is spread out - but often not so in Australia where it is brown or dusty red.... Green are the leaves under which we shade and green is the grass upon which we walk. Green stands for the earth, for the ground, for what comes to us through our senses. Green can represent the world and the universe that we seek to find harmony upon and within. It can stand for matter itself, and hence for all that comes through our senses and gives rise to our questions: in short, our experience.

Gold is the colour of what is precious, recovered from the earth after painstaking search, gathering, sifting, washing, shaking. It is resistant to change and has great value when pure. There is also fool's gold, which looks like the real thing, or alloys where gold has been mixed with other metals. Golden is the sun which sheds light and makes life upon the earth and gladdens the heart through its gifts. Gold is like insight.

Purple suggests richness and splendor, maturity and generous endowment. It can stand for the achievement of reflection and the arrival at wisdom. It conveys a sense of royalty and deep leisure. Like knowledge.

Blue is the sky - and the freedom of birds in flight. It opens to the infinite beyond where sits the sun and countless more in space. It suggests our own freedom and courage, to fly in the choices we make, in the decisions we take, in the direction we give to our lives.

Are we not ourselves made up of colour, like a rainbow if we view ourselves through the mist of self-knowledge. And are we not looking to find a fiery pot of gold, there, at its centre?

Open hand and closed fist

The hand is like the mind. When open, it receives, when closed it fights; extended it welcomes, withdrawn it refuses. The hand can grasp a tool to build the world, or clench a weapon to destroy another's. Open or closed, extended or withdrawn, building or destroying.

Though the hand is visible, and the mind invisible, both can be experienced, the hand through our senses; the mind through our attention to its operations.

Insight matters. It is the basis of everything we do. Though common place, it is generally overlooked or discounted. Though invisible - no-one has ever seen one - insights are our creativity. They shape all we do, for good or ill.

Insights can infect the mind with joy, and bring freshness and uniqueness. They provide the poet with facility, the mathematician with dexterity, and the scientist with originality.

Insight identifies opportunities, solves puzzles, illuminates dark places, releases tension. Through insight we communicate, learn and grow.

Insight underpins clear ideas. It brings things together that were previously separated, disconnected or opposed.

Insight comes often unexpected and not at our bidding. But it is likely to come if we are asking questions, and seeking to understand. Many come rushing in, for example, during brainstorming. But, many have to be shown the door, after testing. However, when insight stands up to testing and scrutiny, confidence follows.

No one can give another an insight, for they come from one's own inquiry. They can be communicated, but not necessarily transferred intact. For, one can ignore the data which the insight gathers and makes sense of, or brush aside the question that may lead to one or even block any chance of it arising in the first place.

Insight has power and fertility. "Love at first insight", as my philosopher friend, Tom Daly, would say.