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.