The Tempest (1610-1611)

William Shakespeare

Illustration from The Tempest, by Heuristic Media (2017)

 

“Most of the time we ignore so much of the world around us. We are sleepwalkers in our own lives, relying upon crib sheets and lecture notes in place of the full spectrum of experience. We walk through the world and don’t pay attention to it. We see without seeing. We quickly classify others as ‘others’ and don’t see them as individuals. We classify new ideas as ‘crazy’ and don’t give them a second thought. We tread the same old paths and don’t look to the left or right. Like the magician’s daughter Miranda in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, we are prisoners of our own islands of thought until some foreign intruders come to our shores. Then we realize the wonder and perils of interacting with this ‘brave new world’ outside the scope of our former mental models.” — Yoram Wind and Colin Crook, The Power of Impossible Thinking¶