4 Steps: Think Abstractly
Carry through on that new pathDespite — rather, because of — the absurdity of your new path of thinking, carry through with the new idea on paper as far as you can take it. You should try and take this section as seriously as possible, and hope to determine why this new path won’t work and more importantly, how it might work.
Example 1: You have several problems to overcome, including the fact that no one speaks Spanish. So the actual words you choose wouldn’t much matter. Visual information — and even vocal inflection — would be far more important. As a puppet show, you would need to re-examine your narrative structure; instead of directly addressing a group, a puppet show might employ a dialogue, a question-answer between two characters, to express the information.
Example 2: Not surprisingly, it turns out few of those you interview know much about global warming, if anything. So you are forced to change your focus and start asking different questions — ones that get to the heart of one’s actual day-to-day experience with the climate, for instance.
Filter it down to a workable approachHaving used your imagination to carry through with these oddball and rather impractical ideas, filter out their more obvious absurdities and look for more usable, practical routes. Apply these to your project and, if necessary, repeat the steps.
Example 1: Would a dialogue be effective for your presentation? Maybe not, but mapping it out in a Q&A format might ensure that your end product addresses questions people would inevitably ask as well as those you may not have foreseen. And while the idea of using visual aids is not a novel one, it could move your mind off the text and get you thinking in terms of analogies that would click with audience, more effectively than if you just rolled out the information.
Example 2: Your new line of questioning can lead you to research into a new set of answers. For instance, you discover that in the '70s the fear was not about warming, but about a new ice age or population explosion. Perhaps global warming can’t be understood as a set of dire statistics; maybe you begin to believe that scientific forecasting is hardly reliable. So you decide to concede all statistical evidence to your opponent, instead focusing on the ulterior motives of doomsday language or on the notion that life on Earth has always exhibited a resilience in the face of other seemingly drastic changes.