Hard To Solve

October 28th, 2023

A coin has two sides. So does a fence, a door, a window, a wall, a piece of paper.
With a fence, it’s easy to find yourself on one side, or the other.
With a coin, it’s easy to see both sides.

For most things in life, though, it’s complicated. There are emotions, and history, and context, and nuance.

Yes, there are the facts, but also how we feel about those facts.
There are the facts we don’t know, and the facts we don’t want to know.
And then there are the facts that change, when we discover new information.

Complicating the narrative, as Amanda Ripley puts it, is hard, but needed sometimes.

Things that don’t have two sides:

• a story
• a person
• a news article about people
• political issues
• social issues
• engineering problems
• scientific theories
• a piece of art

Some things are hard to understand and hard to explain.
And when it’s hard to understand, and hard to explain, it’s hard to talk about.

And when it’s hard to talk about, it’s hard to solve.

A good story makes things easier to solve.