Brainstorm through analogy not components

Here, Zalea said, this ceramic bowl is 400 years old. I'm giving it to you as a gift—take good care of it. Lenz took the bowl into his hands, admiring its beauty. Then he raised it up high and threw the bowl upon the ground where it shattered into three thousand pieces.

Why have you gone and shattered this precious bowl?

Do not worry said Lenz, it is such a beautiful bowl, I wanted to understand the pieces that make up its beauty, and now I know.
—Parables of Sand

To understand a large concept, or to brainstorm ideas, often the first approach we take is to break an idea down to smaller components. What are the elements that make up a city? What makes this bowl beautiful? To break a concept like this is often little more than enumeration of those facts which are already plainly obvious. Enumerating that a city is made up of buildings, trees, roads, and hundreds of other things does not give any new insights about a city.

Instead, Insight comes at the intersection of ideas. Do not shatter the bowl but look at it in different contexts and settings to understand its beauty. Place the idea of a "city" in the context of "education," how does a city help us to learn? Or in the context of a "book," how do you read a city? Through these questions you can not only be more specific in your search but also spark new questions and curiosity.

Breaking down a concept usually means looking at the intersection with "parts" or "systems," but there are thousands of words with which you can intersect a concept, each will produce unique insights and questions.

Idea: Imagine intersecting two ideas as a "query" for your mind from which questions might arise. How might you reframe these questions as a new query to delve further?

• City × Book
• How do you read a city?
  • City × Read
  • Reading involves understanding a vocabulary of words as well as the grammar structure which creates meaning between them. What is the vocabulary and grammar of the city?
    • City × Vocabulary
    • Types of places, design elements
    • City × Grammar
    • The arrangements of spaces next to each other, how does the arrangement of physical space create meaning?
    • Street is like a sentence?
      • Street × Sentence
    • What are the verbs and nouns of a city?
      • City × Verbs
      • City × Nouns
    • How are streets punctuated with signs? Signs create meaning — and are dependent on their relation to space
• Book × City
• How can you explore a book?
  • Book × Explore
  • Explorers chart uncharted waters, venture to unexplored places, reading any book is a kind of personal exploration but how can it be made a bigger exploration of ideas and new areas of human knowledge?
• Can there be a map for a book with multiple paths and routes?
  • Book × Map