Reality, Need, Invention, Fiction:
The Glass Book
© Dana Paxson 2024
How do we communicate innovation? It’s complicated.
Our perceptions are deeply conditioned by our experience. Everything we learn in the course of life activates and reinforces patterns in our brains to make us faster, wiser, and subtler in our actions when we deal with the things we’ve learned. This is not true at all when we face something we’ve never encountered before.
At first we think the new thing is familiar to us, and we offer a familiar response, only to get a reaction that makes no sense to us. Then we reject it. Sometimes it seems silly or trivial, other times it seems threatening to our life commitments or investments, and sometimes it appears a threat to our lives. But then, if we are secure in our lives and receptive, we take another look.
Little by little, we absorb the new thing’s character and dynamics. We test its features and compare them to what we know. Eventually we learn its virtues and uses. This process can be slow and challenging, but it is easier and faster when we are motivated to learn.
Our first motivation is need. We have a problem, and the innovative thing addresses it, mitigates it, solves it. Our world of commerce thrives when problems are solved.
Our second motivation is invention. We delight in solving problems. Given any problem, there may be many ways to solve it. Our patent world is a jungle of solutions to problems.
Our third motivation is story. We love to tell the story of how a problem can be overcome and solved. Much of science fiction concerns such stories.
Since I am a storyteller, I rely on the written word to unfold stories exploring and finding understanding. Here are three essay-stories about an idea.
First, an invention called The Glass Book.
Next, a look at writing fiction about the invention: Notes for a Novel: The Glass Book.
Finally, an essay: Some Thoughts on Invention.
Enjoy.