Below are excerpts from the Wander Purposefully audiobook that introduce important concepts revisited multiple times throughout the book. This webpage is a resource for audiobook listeners to recall the definitions of these concepts without needing to find and rewind to the original explanations.
White Space
White space is a period in our day when we are performing an activity that needs to be done, but doesn't require critical thinking.
Great examples of white spaces in most people’s lives include their commute, their chores, and their daily shower.
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm shift is a realization that alters how we see the world. Controversial American author David Foster Wallace explains paradigm shifts in the form of a joke:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, "Morning boys, how's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit and eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
The younger fish have been living in their world without thinking of water, precisely because it is everywhere. It is everywhere, and thus imperceptible.
Paradigm shifts change your prior conceptions of the world. Thus, the things you were thinking about before a paradigm shift occurs become obsolete. You, like the younger fish in the joke above, now know that water exists. This newfound discovery colors everything you thought you knew previously.
Absorbent Learning
Learning done in the white spaces of our lives.
Active Learning
Whenever we specifically take take time out of our day to learn, we are actively learning. Great examples of active learning include going to school, doing, homework, reading a physical book, or watching a documentary.
Weak Tie
A person in your life who is not among your closest circle of friends, but can still act as a networking contact.
Strong Tie
A person among your closest circle of friends. One of your best friends.
Attunement
A comfortable feeling that arises when we know our conversation partner cares and understands us. We have a feeling of reassuring attunement when interacting with someone who knows who we are, where we come from, and how our minds work.
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts people subconsciously take when solving problems and making judgments.
Activation Energy
The minimum quantity of energy that a reacting species must possess in order to undergo a specific chemical reaction.
Cognitive Dissonance
The uncomfortable sensation felt when two contradictory feelings or ideas are present within your mind.
Bay
A body of water composed only of saltwater that forms an indentation upon a shoreline.
Estuary
A body of water composed of both saltwater and freshwater, typically formed when a freshwater river flows into the ocean from its source.
Estuaries are especially vibrant ecosystems with the ability to house species normally restricted to either freshwater or saltwater. Accordingly, estuaries are home to striking biodiversity not found anywhere else in the world.
Parallax (adj. parallactic)
The displacement in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different points of view. From the website Shmoop:
To get your own personal idea of parallax, hold your right hand up in front of your face. Stick up your [index] finger and then close your left eye. Without moving your finger, close your right eye and then open your left. Go back and forth, back and forth, and you'll realize that it seems like your finger is moving. As your vision switches from one eye to another and back again, your finger seems to be displaced. This is a small and simple example of a parallax.
By thinking in a parallactic way, you can now fathom both sides of an argument as simultaneously true and simultaneously real.
Pride
Pride entails the belief that who you are, and what you are doing, is the right thing to do. Pride is the driving factor behind our daily decision-making.
It is the opposite of cognitive dissonance. When you are proud, the uncomfortable feelings of cognitive dissonance are not present.
The virtue of pride is sometimes cast in a negative light, and for good reason. The dark side of pride occurs when a person acts without our next virtue: poise.
Poise
Poise is the glue that keeps society functioning.
To be poised is to roll with the punches when you are unable (perhaps because of cognitive dissonance) to be who your pride dictates you to be, or to do what your pride dictates you should do. Pride might tell you to do something, but a poised person is aware of the negative effects on others his or her pride might incur.
In other words, poise is parallactic, not selfish.
Courage
Courage (whose root word comes from the French word for heart — “Coeur”) involves taking action to live life according to your pride. You, through pride (the opposite of cognitive dissonance), "know" what is right. I put "know" in quotation marks because your knowing first needs to be dictated by the parallactic features of poise.
As with pride, there is a dark side of courage — occurring as a consequence of the dark side of pride.
Halo Effect
Daniel Kahneman gives an example of the Halo Effect in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He explains a hypothetical situation wherein you meet a woman named Joan at a party and find her to be a delightful conversationalist. After meeting her, you are asked whether or not Joan would be likely to contribute to a charity. What do we know about Joan? Kahneman writes:
You know virtually nothing, because there is little reason to believe that people who are agreeable in social situations are also generous contributors to charities.
But you like Joan and you will retrieve the feeling of liking her when you think of her. You also like generosity and generous people… you are now predisposed to believe...Joan is generous. And now that you believe she is generous, you probably like Joan even better than you did earlier, because you have added generosity to her pleasant attributes.
We don’t actually have any reason to think Joan is generous, but we do anyways because of our heuristic Halo response to her character.
Market Norms
Market norms occur when you walk into a shop, pay a specified amount of money for a good or service, and then receive said good or service in return. The course of events is predictable, and the value of goods has been established. There’s rarely any meaningful or memorable interactions when we act according to market norms.
Social Norms
When attunement is the focal point of a relationship, we start to act more in accordance with social norms than market norms.