The same brain that is capable of creativity which allows a person to think and live outside rigid limits … is also capable of logically sequenced experiences that provide structures for brilliant results. Nietzsche compared sequences to the spider and moonlight among the trees, within an eternal hourglass of existence that turns faithfully again and again.
Many of us remember the college classes where we were expected to list the plot sequence of novels, which is not a bad way of reinforcing the fact that sequence adds structure to the work we do in a day. It also helps to develop your left brain tools. Bill Gates is said to be especially gifted at defining, examining and reducing facts to essentials, and then creating a logical sequence that achieves his defined goal. Do you sequence well as a way to achieve a particular goal?
People who compose music tend to create precise melodic or rhythmic sequences. And scientists speak of the genetic code which describes how a sequence of twenty or more things is determined by a sequence of four things of a different type.
We often use sequences to learn and remember unfamiliar facts, because one area of the brain works better in sequences than in random thought. Sequences – learned with frequent repetition will gradually etch familiar symbols into our conscious memory, so that factual learning is increased.
The idea of creativity, or of random innovation displacing sequence is much like expecting the ebb of an ocean tide to cancel the flow of that same tide. Just as movement along the seashore varies, so too the brain performs from the ebb of creativity and innovation on the one hand, and at other times it moves best with the flow of sequence and logical order. In fact many of the best thinkers, including Einstein, learned to navigate the mental process of sequence and connections at the same time as they maneuvered the world of creative configurations and structures.
Mathematicians continually remind us how they try in vain to find the order in the sequence of prime numbers, simply because the structure allows them to probe for the magic. A sequence works in ways that creative varied colors, unordered shapes and random sizes never can. And the sequence is very important to describe many a process at work.
What program construction do you see which could be refined through sequential steps? Find and follow that sequence and you have already rebooted your brain for the further development of this smart skill for formation of facts. What do you think?
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