NLP Style Metaphor Teaching Story
The Shortest Distance
by Silvia Hartmann
| What is the shortest distance between two points? It is held
to be a direct line but that's NOT the whole story ... |
Here we have one of those cases where real reality isn't like modelled
reality, for example in maths.
Let me show you a picture to explain.
What do we have here?
Two computers who won't talk to each other, yet they are side by side. 2 1/2
inches separate them. One has a file that is needed by the other, but ne'er the
twain shall meet, right?
If it wasn't for the fact that one file needs to pass from one to the other, it
wouldn't even matter just where they are in time in space - what links them, and
makes that distance appear, is a common task that requires both to communicate.
But hey! There's help at hand. Both are connected to the Internet. So we can
send our file to the third party server. Which lives in California, on this
occasion, and happens to be 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles) from
where the two computers are sitting near London, 2 1/2 inches apart from each
other.
So the file travels 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles) as one computer
uploads it to the server, and then 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles)
back again as the second computer downloads it from the third party location.
Now, the task has been accomplished; the journey is at an end.
And the moral of the tail?
In this case, the shortest distance between two points which were 2 1/2 inches
apart, turned out to be 10,912 MILES.
And that is either a useful neurological NLP metaphor, or just simply, the story
of my life ...
SFX :-)
© Silvia Hartmann 2006
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