the self-assigned borders of thinking

Design is a creative business. And as a creative business it demands open thinking in different directions. This is already quite difficult for people without any obvious inner regualtion and rule catalogue. But it becomes even more complicated, if people stick to a certain way of thinking with embedded do’s and do not’s.

As for the fact that his way of thinking was taught to children since the very beginning, it is not possible for the upgrown child, to think outside of these borders. The regulations fulfill themselves only by preventing the thinker to think about them. They are just given and used intuitvely.

An open mind needs the possibility to move everythere and and to connect to everything. This is the idea of creativity and this process normally generates the best outcome. If the thinker has some forbidden areas in the mind, the process turns out to become less intuiutive and more complicated.

Humans are not free. The only thing that gives them a certain freedom is the content of the brain and the ways, how this content is used. The mind content does not grow in the brain but the mind has the ability to connect content.The Freedom human can achieve needs content. This Freedom needs knowledge.

On the other hand each thought is already defined by language and brain structure. Humans can never think out of this structure. This is one of the necessary restrictions of thinking. Without any restrictions it is random thought which will lead to nothing but confusion. Lucky are the ones who are able to change the starting ramp of their thoughts and to adjust the perspective.

Temporarily out of order…

and structure and common sense and some other things a proper working society would need. Egypt does not make the best impression these days. Police on strike, riots everythere in the country, lack of basic goods, government without direction and opinion and so on. Nevertheless, most of the people I meet and see are not affected by all this at all. As I read on Twitter: They could not care less! Egypt is on the edge and nobody really wonders. This creates as situation there it could be possible that someone with a strong arm just takes over. The situation could not be better and  some people are already calling for this strong arm. If the strong arm would be able to repair the situation is the other question. But it seems to be a quick solution. And this kind of solution has always been very tempting for mankind. Everything seems to be possible at the moment and it will go in some direction anyway. Surely this direction won’t be pointed out by the will of the majority of people but by other players.

The end of times

These days I often think about the reasons, why sometimes ideas seem to be a reason for violence, no matter which idea it is.

Thoughts that come to my mind elaborating this question are often related to compensation of a lack of something. The history is full of examples of people who were aware that they lack something and tried to compensate this with the exaggeration of the state they would be in, if they would not lack something.

Now mankind lives in a time which provides a lot of knowledge from a scientific point of view. This knowledge might collide with some ideas certain beliefs provide. Even people who are not able to read and who have no direct access to this knowledge, might feel that there is a nameless threat to their perceived reality. As people are normally afraid of changes in their environment they try to protect it.

So it comes, that the subconscious or even conscious experience that things are changing and that some aspects of the scientific reality as well as the lived reality are about to invade a long fostered image of a particular belief.

At all times it was a normal human reaction to defend oneself with violence. And as the defended thing it now the possible core of a reality of a particular person or groups of persons, the defense is fierce and emotional. This defense is necessary, to show to oneself and to the others, that the own reality is still valid and exists, against all threats. The stronger the sign, the stronger is the support for this particular reality. So one can see burning objects and can see burning persons. An idea is protected with the destruction of important real things because it is this destruction, which transfers the idealistic weight of the destroyed objects to the idea.

A law of nature is that no transformation can be done without a loss of substance. To deny an already perceived new reality is always weaker than the positive support of a new idea. Nevertheless the fight of the desperate ones is the fiercest and most determined possible.

who has the bigger ego contest…

Mursi release some new rules which make him somehow untouchable. Not nice and not smart. Nevertheless these rules are needed to ensusure a safe transition until the constitution is ready. The big mistake of Mursi was it, not to include the secular parties in his thinking and decision process. Now the secular parties see their dawn coming and play with the fire of civil war. For me it does not look like people who try to find a solution but more like people who follow up their own ego interests. This is politics. Not only in Egypt.

Second year

My second year here in Cairo started a few days ago while I was in China to do some workshops and a lecture. This might be a sign for the future.

Protests started again at the GUC and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. No step can be done without being watched by an artifical eye. Most of the students just want to study and to learn, others just want to have their student union election. Yesterday marks the first day with real clashes between security and some students. The state media reported, that the security attacked students. There seems to be some proof, that this is not true. Nevertheless we can read the report as a sign, that the direction of the storm has changed and that it is now blowing into GUC’s face.

We will see.

 

update

I was wrong! The president did his job and the military  seems so be out of charge. Things are developing not too bad and president Morsi confirmed several times that the country is not turning into a theocracy. Space for optimism left.

On the other hand the semester started. Working under special conditions. The story will be told some day, but not here and now. It takes some time to think the things through.

chagga whagga

Egypt has a president. Without any power. The parliament is gone as well and the military has all the saying for the upcoming events. Besides of this the German government is prosecuting militant Salafi organisations in Germany. The mixture makes it somehow interesting.

People Downtown are celebrating the victory of Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, in a peaceful way. At least it seems that he is the winner. Of course not accepted by his opponent Shafik. The final result will be published on Thursday. The military wants to hand over power at the end of June. (Whatever that means under the actual circumstances).

We wait and see.