I was reminded of this recently when I was showing Ward pictures of flowers that I had taken for a Second Look. He seemed to be staring at them for a long time and I finally asked him what he was doing. He said that he was looking at the Fibonacci crisscrossing spirals in the middle of the flowers. Translated, that meant that he was seeing spirals in flowers and thinking math. I, on the other hand, was seeing petals, leaves, and colors and thinking plants. We were looking at the exact same things, but we were seeing different things.
I hope that I remember this example the next time that Ward and I have a "discussion", and we can get to our light bulb moment sooner rather than later.
What do you see?
Note: Ward plans to do a post on just the middles of these flowers and the Fibonacci series.
That's FABULOUS! I sometimes wonder if men and women just see the world totally differently. Have you ever seen/read any of the work if Christiane Northrup? She's an MD specializing in women't health and she used to do programs on PBS now and then. Anyhow, in one of her talks she tells a story about she and her husband on an airplane - both are totally engrossed in different books. She's reading something called "The Power of Passion" or something like that, and she gets curious about what her husband is reading... turns out it was "The Guide to Lawnmower Repair." She thought it was a wonderful metaphor about how men and women experience the world differently.
ReplyDeleteCatMan and I can almost not communicate at all in terms of navigation. He has some sort of internal map, and sees the world like he's hovering above it. He always says things like - and then the road curves to the northeast, and I'm thinking "Northeast?!? How on earth does he know which way northeast is?" I'm totally lost in that world - I see things as a trail with landmarks along the way.
Anyhow, I'm babbling... I just find it totally fascinating, and it makes me wonder if men and women really are just wired differently.
Several years ago, Ward and I read "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" by Debra Tannen. The book looks at gender differences in communication styles and I found it quite fascinating. Ward and I have a lot of differences in many areas, and I had attributed most of them to differences in our backgrounds. However, according to the book, every difference that we thought was significant could be attributed to gender. It had little to do with our backgrounds. What I found interesting was the results of many of the studies were consistent around the world in different cultures and economic conditions. So, yes. I do believe that men and women are generally wired differently,of course with many shades of gray in-between.
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