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Approximate Thinking Creativity Fuzzy Thinking Knowledge Measurement Psychology Work

What did your CV leave out?

B = A + E ; Representations of Reality are always incomplete (approximate thinking). How does that work on a CV?

Find the E · 01

A CV compresses years of work into titles, dates, and a few selected achievements.

What useful ability disappeared in the compression?

This is the first round of Find the E, inspired by my marginalium B = A + E: our representations of reality always contain an error. An incompleteness / blind spot / identity conflation / social inertia. A is the reality; B is the representation we use; E is the error, omission, or distortion between them.

Here, the CV stands in for a much more complicated person.

Let’s recover a missing line.

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Marginalia Digest

From the Margins – Oct 2026

Ahmad Hijazi · Monthly Marginalia

From the
Margins.

Ideas & Connections

October 2026   /   7 notes

Three films related to OTS, a couple of ideas, and three books.

This month, in the margins

8 1/2 [Fellini]

01  ·  Film

8 1/2 [Fellini]

8½ | Federico Fellini | Italy, 1963Keywords: Metafiction, Creation, Identity, Fragmentation, Beauty, Reconciliation A filmmaker struggles to create a masterpiece while memories, dreams, desires and contradictory identities overwhelm his vision. His inability to construct a coherent work becomes the work itself. This film was…

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Films OTS

A Ghost Story

02  ·  Film

A Ghost Story

A GHOST STORY | David Lowery | United States, 2017Keywords: Loss, Lingering, Memory, Recurrence, Time, Transcendence A dead man remains in his home as a silent ghost, witnessing love, loss and centuries of transformation. An intimate meditation on what survives when everything familiar disappears. The courage or cowardice…

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Films OTS

Kurusawa’s Dreams (1990)

04  ·  Film

Kurusawa’s Dreams (1990)

Keywords: Dreams, Symbolism, Folklore, Beauty, Art, War, Hierarchy, Mortality, Tranquility. The eight dreams, in sequence: (1) Sunshine Through the Rain; (2) The Peach Orchard; (3) The Blizzard; (4) The Tunnel; (5) Crows; (6) Mount Fuji in Red; (7) The Weeping Demon; (8) The Village of the Water Mills…

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Self, Culture, Mind Films OTS

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Art Beauty Creativity Culture Production Stories Work

My Last Sculpture

My Last Sculpture, Creativeness, The Atlas Stories, The Mask is the World, The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom

THE ATLAS STORIES · III

Creativeness

A short story from The Mask is the World

A sculptor is preparing his final work: a giant white bird that will carry his soul into the sky.

But after a lifetime of statues, mistakes, destruction, repetition and change, he begins to wonder whether his greatest work is really the sculpture in front of him.

READING TIME · approximately 4 minutes

My Last Sculpture, Creativeness, The Atlas Stories, The Mask is the World, The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom
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Art Beauty Creativity Culture Incompleteness Knowledge Stories Wisdom Worldly Wisdom

We will Cross the Bridge

THE ATLAS STORIES · II

Intent

A short story from The Mask is the World

For generations, a bridge has been rising across an ancient sea. Its builders are certain that one day the two shores will become one.

But what happens when a vision of the future becomes powerful enough to demand almost anything from the present? Would you build a future you may never live to see?

READING TIME · approximately 5 minutes

We will cross the bridge Intent The Mask is the World The Atlas of Worldly Wisdom
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Creativity Incompleteness Knowledge Stories Wisdom Worldly Wisdom

The Path to the Perfect Map

THE ATLAS STORIES · I

AWARENESS

A short story from The Mask is the World

What would the perfect map of human knowledge look like? Could it show us what matters, what we do not know, and where we should go next?

Idriss has spent a lifetime trying to draw it.

READING TIME · approximately 5 minutes

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Approximate Thinking Art Beauty Creativity Cultural and Creative Industries Cultural Resources Culture Innovation Research Systems Work

For the Love of Europe

The Reservoir and the Rupture - Europe Accumulation Cultural Resource Sets Creative Networks

Excess, Cultural Accumulation, Creative Intensity, and the Legacy of Colonial Wealth

Cultural Resource Sets, the Reservoir, and the Ruin

I was walking through Brussels, following an Art Nouveau tour (Voicemap, by Derek Blyth), listening – surprised – to the fact that Brussels had 19 communes, as I crossed from one to the next, each with relative administrative freedoms (something very relevant to what I’ll discuss here) when I found myself lost in the meanings behind the elaborate, somehow rebellious, buildings…

Art Nouveau Brussels
Art Nouveau Brussels

The unnecessary detail and exuberant elements, rising against similitude and economy, suddenly looked like evidence of sorts. Someone could afford that curve or that material that needed extra care, and that – sometimes – was the only reason they got them…

It was the same story, all over again. Beautiful, but not completely innocent. I remember feeling the same looking at the marble columns in Rome and the gilded churches in Spain.

That excess… Grand sometimes, symbolic sometimes…

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Approximate Thinking Approximation Art Beauty Creativity Culture Fuzzy Thinking Incompleteness Knowledge Learning Prometheus Shot Psychology Research Science Stories Thinking Worldly Wisdom

What is Beauty? Does it Matter?

The Prometheus Shot : Creative Inspiration
Creativity & Great Work

[The Prometheus Shot – EK04 :: Beauty ]

This post is part of the Prometheus Shot series.

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Books Cultural Products Education Fuzzy Thinking Incompleteness Knowledge Learning Psychology Science Thinking Wisdom Worldly Wisdom

Knowledge and Books : A Mini-Series on Reading, Knowledge, & the Life of Ideas

Knowledge & Books Ethercast
Knowledge & Books

In a noisy world drowning in information [and indifference], how we engage with books – and why we choose to read or skip them – matters more than ever. The Knowledge & Books mini-series of EtherCast is a thoughtful exploration of the practice, psychology, and meaning of reading, asking about what we read, why, how, and to what end.

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Approximate Thinking Approximation Books Creativity Fuzzy Thinking Incompleteness Innovation Knowledge Learning Measurement Prometheus Shot Psychology Research Science Stories Systems Thinking Wisdom Work Worldly Wisdom

Approximate Thinking: The Creative Mental Model

The Prometheus Shot : Creative Inspiration
Creativity & Great Work

[The Prometheus Shot – EK03 :: Approximate Thinking ]

This post is part of the Prometheus Shot series.

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Approximate Thinking Creativity Fuzzy Thinking Incompleteness Innovation Knowledge Learning Measurement Prometheus Shot Psychology Research Science Systems Technology Thinking Wisdom Work Worldly Wisdom

Inevitable Incompleteness of Knowledge: Gödel, Polanyi, You!

The Prometheus Shot : Creative Inspiration
Creativity & Great Work

[The Prometheus Shot – EK02 :: Incompletness, Gödel, Polanyi, You! ]

This post is part of the Prometheus Shot series.

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