A few days ago I was talking to a friend when, like a snake in the grass, he sprang on me with a deadly question:
“What do you think of the law of attraction?”
Uff.
I told him two things. And if you want, I’ll tell you as well.
First, I think the law of attraction doesn’t have to be actually true, but if it makes you act like it’s true, then it will still help.
And two, even though I don’t actually believe the law of attraction to be real…
Sometimes I experience weird coincidences that make me say, what the hell do I know?
Because I read an interview several years ago, and it changed the way I see the world. The interview was with a cognitive scientist named Donald Hoffman, whose big thing is claiming that “reality” is not real.
Hoffman had all sorts of technical explanations for why this is true.
But all I remember is a powerful metaphor he used.
If you turn on your computer, said Hoffman, you’ve got a desktop.
On that desktop, there are likely to be some files lying around.
It’s a useful way of thinking about the computer and what it does.
Of course, it’s completely untrue. Those files are not on the desktop. In fact, there isn’t even any such thing as a file (the way you think of it). What you really have is a bunch of random electrical signals, cut up and spread around your hard drive, along with algorithms for how to piece this vibrating mess together and present it in a meaningful way.
It’s all a big mishmash and it’s way too complex to be useful to an end user.
And that’s why the little file icon, sitting pretty on your desktop and ready for you to double-click it, is so useful.
This desktop-and-file-icon idea is Hoffman’s metaphor for every mental concept.
And to me that includes the law of attraction.
Sure, it’s just a made up way of looking at the world.
But if the messy true nature of the world (the coleslaw of attraction?) is too complex for our limited minds to grasp…
Then why not choose the most helpful and useful file icons to help yourself manage it?
Anyways, that’s the way I look at it, after reading the Hoffman interview and discovering his desktop metaphor.
Anyways, that’s the way I look at it, after reading the Hoffman interview and discovering his desktop metaphor.
Maybe this will help you in case you too can be too rational and skeptical at times.
For less ethereal discussions, such as how to write advertorials that spawn clients out of the ether, channel your positive energy and direct it this way: