Frameworks are useful to notice on blind spots. When you feel difficulty to fill a blank, you realize what you had not thought of before.
On the other hand, the framework forces your thought into an existing fixed pattern.
Let’s take a look at the U curve model again. The Downloading state is a state that you are caught in the frame of thought. You are staying in the existing frame. And you are not observing the outside world. The small circle shows your viewpoint. The large circle shows an existing frame of your thought. Your viewpoint is trapped in the frame.
In the Seeing state, you observe the outside world. However, you do not let go of the frame of thought. In this state, your viewpoint moves to the edge of the frame. Now you can observe outside. However, you didn’t leave the existing frame. You didn’t accept new observations.
In the Sensing state, you accept new observations. The frame of thought started to fluctuate. However, you are feeling fear of letting go. The viewpoint moves outside the frame. The circle with a dotted line shows that the frame of thought are fluctuating.
Truely new information exists outside the existing frame. However, when you fill in all the blanks in a framework, you feel like you’ve examined everything to consider. In such a case, you are in a Downloading state. You are caught in the thought of the framework and do not properly observe the outside world. The framework makes a new blind spot. Sometimes you need to abandon the framework and observe the world sincerely.
Many people try to organize their observations by putting those into an existing framework. In many cases, they found observations that won’t fit into the framework. Some of them throw out those observations. They are in the seeing state. They do not accept observations that do not fit into the existing frame of thought. Those observations are important for creating new thoughts. Do not throw them away.
After you collected a lot of observations that do not fit in the existing frame of thought, one day, you need to abandon the framework. Some people are afraid of this. They are in a Sensing state. They feel fear at letting go of a frame. The more the framework works effectively, the more they feel fear to let it go.
The framework is like an addictive medicine. It works very well if used a little at appropriate timing. If you overuse it and continue to use it, it will be harmful.
This is also related to the concept of “exploration-exploitation tradeoff” learned in Chapter 2, (2.2.3.1) Exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Repetitive use of existing well-functioning patterns is efficient in the short term. On the other hand, if you repeat it, you can not search for new ones. The balance between exploration and exploitation is important. As a similar concept, Jiro Kawakita explained in his book, “What is creativity,” that it is important to make maintenance and creation a half by half.
- Note 17: Jiro Kawakita, What is Creativity, Shodensha, 2010TODO