Life must be lived forwards, however, it can only be understood backwards.

Man has, through the richness of the intellectual quest, become more knowing, more clever and more skeptical. But we have not become more profound or more reverent. Nor have we found a way to put our learning in the context of the eternal.

I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

This then got me thinking about other examples of muddled thinking... that crop up in the business and design worlds these days (see “MBA Students Have Designs on Innovation” on page 13 of the October 8, 2007 Financial Times). For example: The use of the word “creativity.” Creativity is not a synonym for design. The business community, and some times the design community, too, is quick to imply that design equals creativity. Look it up. It’s not so. Also, the use of the word “innovation.” Same as with creativity; innovation is not a synonym for “design.” Innovation can take place in...accounting or agriculture or...zoology. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with design.

Perhaps most annoying: use of the term "design thinking." When the word “critical” is attached to the word “thinking,” the result, “critical thinking,” is a term that has clear, well defined, and well-understood meaning — certainly in the academic community, if not generally. As a counter example, the same cannot, for instance, be said about the term “art thinking.” This is not a term that can be used in any precise or meaningful way. Why? Because it could mean painting or sculpture; it could mean figurative or abstract; it could mean classical or modern or contemporary. Because it embodies so many contradictory notions, it is imprecise to the point of being meaningless — and therefore, completely understandably, it is not much used, if at all.

“Design thinking” is as problematic a term as “art thinking.” Design thinking could refer to architecture, fashion, graphic design, interior design, or product design; it could mean classical or modern or contemporary. It’s imprecise at best and meaningless at worst. More muddled thinking.

In contrast, an example of simple, straightforward, “unmuddled” thinking is Thomas Watson’s dictum "Good design is good business."

In the lapse of two or three centuries, changes have taken place which, in particular passages, ... obscure the sense of the original languages.... The effect of these changes is that some words are not understood ... and being now used in a sense different from that which they had ... present wrong signification of the false ideas. Whenever words are understood in a sense different from that which they had when introduced... mistakes may be very injurious.

Words do not convey meanings; they call them forth. I speak out of the context of my experience, and you listen out of the context of yours, and that is why communication is difficult.