the challenge
We are playing In Reverse today. It starts with exploring and seeking something interesting that catches our eyes. Based on that Insight we should then come up with a new Seed that we can use for future explorations.
my insight
You can find many strange things walking in the street. And when walking in Tel-Aviv, things are as strange as it gets.
I found this necklace of bagels hanging on a wall. Strange as it is, you might think it was placed outside of a place selling food. Only that it wasn’t. Just a plain wall facing the street, with no apparent context.
Which is exactly why it caught my attention.
Trying to come up with a Seed inspired by this Insight was fairly easy but the result surprised me. Here’s what I came up with:
reflection
This exercise provides a glimpse into one way seempli is evolving and new Seeds and Prisms are being created. Much of the content that makes seempli what it is is the result of such explorations.
What makes this reversed transition from an Insight to a Seed interesting is that often it starts with just stating what I see, and then abstracting it or spicing it to allow surprising interpretations and takeoffs.
When I captured the Insight above, I thought literally about a chain of bagels. But a chain of bagels sounds a lot like… A chain of bagels. Interesting as it is when you see it, the verbal description seems too concrete to be used as a trigger for future Insights. At least, that was my intuition.
So, I took a metaphorical step backward — I zoomed out and blurred what I saw in front of me, trying to ignore some details. Now I saw a chain of beads, or a chain of food.
“Beads” by the way is a great potential Seed, but let’s go for the second option: a chain of food. It still sounds too concrete. The chances of running into this kind of insight again are not high. It’s not open enough for interpretations.
And then the magic happened. My brain made a leap and just reversed the order of the words: Food Chain.
This phrase immediacy triggered thoughts about food chains in nature and metaphorical food chains and so on. And that’s exactly what I was looking for. This is a great phrase to play with which different people can take to different and unexpected directions.
mental notes
- Abstracting what you see and playing with it is a trigger for more cycles of exploration and new Insights
now it is your turn… be creative!