28 January

There is no ‘big picture’. The big picture is just a picture. This is one of the key ideas for my entire life. Whether it’s in your life or work, ‘zooming out’ will just show you another picture, with different details. You don’t see more. Apparently profound sayings, like ‘everything in moderation’, or ‘all you need is love’, sell greeting cards but are otherwise completely empty of content. There’s an emotion that goes with big picture thinking, an emotion of numinosity. Especially in what feels like troubled times, people retreat to these feelings of ‘oneness’ and ‘awe’, or ‘love for all things’, or ‘connectedness’. I never trust those feelings, they’re false Gods. Everything is always specifics, never retreat to the numinous. It’s a test I live by, if something is confusing or stressful, I’m missing what’s specifically going on. When you find that specific thing, everything becomes clear.