There was once a craftsman who built a fine house.
As the years went by it served him well until one day he noticed a crack along the ceiling. He was disappointed to see this flaw in his otherwise exemplary work and quickly fetched his ladder and some spackle and went to work sealing the crack. A few days later, he noticed that the crack had reappeared. In frustration he grabbed his ladder and spackle once again and made the repair. Again the crack made an appearance and again the man repaired it. This went on for weeks until finally the man gave up in bitter frustration. As the years went by, the crack consumed his attention and agitated his frustrations to the degree that he could not enjoy the rest of his home which exhibited exceedingly fine craftsmanship in every way. Unfortunately the man was so focused on the ceiling crack, that he had overlooked the other crack down below in his foundation which would have revealed that his foundation itself was shifting and unsecured.
Moral: When you feel that you have encountered an unresolvable flaw in your reasoning, step back and check your foundational premise.
Expectations and Assumptions
Here’s a couple of great quotes from Kevin Christensen’s paper Eye of the Beholder, Law of the Harvest:
“If during the course of my investigation, I run across something that I did not expect, what happens if I then pause to reflect and ask, ‘What should I expect?'”
“I learned that I could not trust the institutional arms of the Church to provide me with all the information I might need. If I wanted to know, to be prepared, I had to take personal responsibility. In retrospect, my program involved three elements. Keep my eyes open. Give things time. And re-examine my own assumptions now and then. The alternative is to not pay attention. Insist on final answers now. And never re-examine my own assumptions. Either choice on these three points has consequences in life.”
http://www.sarkassoc.com/engineers-blog/symptoms-of-foundation/index.html
