Steve Jobs mused during his Stanford University commencement speech in 2005: “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
What if we could connect the dots moving forward? Why is it only an option when we’re looking back via hindsight? Why can’t we wield and apply forward thinking? True forward thinking led by knowing. I see things before they happen every day. The less I seek the more I find. It’s really a rather simple premise. I have faith not only in others, but also in my own understanding. While I concetualize logos I play a little game.
On a hunch I decided to use Joshua as inspiration for my three act play in early development. It’s far different than what anyone might imagine. I decided to base the title on Joshua 11:11. Completely by chance there are two references to 11, the H contains to 1s and the words eleven eleven have 1s hiding as Ls. I follow these little breadcrumbs as I move forward guiding me along the way to arriving at the solution. It’s true forward thinking where the dots connect moving forward, not backward.
While I’ll agree with Steve Jobs on his commencement commentary, I do fully believe we can wield Leonardo da Vinci’s observation that once we learn to see, everything is connected. Past, present, and future don’t exist. All we have now is in this moment that’s already gone before we know it. Time is cyclical, not linear. Nothing is linear. There are no rules.
Just now I was thinking about dice games — Dungeons & Dragons, Yahtzee, Monopoly and the like — and literally the next words I heard in a song that I had no recollection of was talking about “rolling the dice.” Sometimes my mind is in inline sync with the universe. It’s during those times when connecting the dots moving forward are revealed in the most fundamental sense. To deny these connections is to lie directly to our own souls.
“‘Principles to the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.’ The less I seek, the more I see.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath of the High Renaissance, painter, sculptor, draftsman, theorist, architect, engineer, and scientist