Economic Vision Logic

I can remember certain minor events in my life that have resulted in my glass getting a little bigger.

Around age 25-26 while in college, I had one of those breakthroughs in mental processing capabilities, where developing a small shift in perspective had enormous consequences.

I took a required Economics class that I had a very difficult time with. It required a lot of reading, and the professor only used essay questions for exams. I would pour over 10 pages of economic theory, listen to the professor drone on and on, and not recall much of anything.

I flunked the first two question essay exam.

One weekend at a book fair I picked up a book called “Economics Mathematically Speaking” for 25 cents.

Now although I had taken numerous math courses throughout my education, I barely got by in that subject. I learned the mechanics of algebra and calculus, but never really the applications. In fact, I hated “story problems.”

But this book approached math from a different perspective. It defined a concept such as “taxes” and then said, “Now let us call that ‘T’”, and so forth with other economic terms. Then, the author would introduce a formula.

After 10 years of math classes, I finally "got it".

Suddenly I realized that a single math formula captured 10 pages of economic theory discourse. And, most importantly for me at the time, I could generate 10 pages of essay by just knowing the formula, and the definition of the variables.

It was like the formula and definition came in as input to the left side of my brain, and then the right side of my brain would “see” stuff, and then my left brain would attempt to verbalize that (verbalizing has become the bigger problem for me these days).

My Economics grades shot up, I started acing Physics tests, and I developed a love for story problems.

And I think it helped lay the groundwork for my eventual interest in the process Enneagram 20 years later.