80-20 Rule

One for the mouse, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow.

This old adage was once a commonly-cited phrase in the agrarian days of yore. The typical life of a farmer can be understood in just this one saying.  Even in years past, the issue of efforts made and labor lost has been noted as a significant economical factor.

It was only in 1906 that someone began to operationalize this aspect of Murphy’s Law. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, noticed that twenty percent of the Italian people owned eighty percent of the country’s entire per capita wealth. This developed into the 80-20 Rule.

Pareto’s principle can be applied to many different types of situations. For instance, in the workforce, when determining which elements of a program to axe in order to reduce costs, you must keep in mind that a certain twenty percent of resources are taking up more profit than they generate. This principle can even be used to maximize your own personal productivity; you must realize that 80% of your personal time is spent idling time away while only 20% of your time is spent doing meaningful, time-worthy activities.

Saussure Signs

A sign is something that can be sensed through sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. It carries a deeper meaning in addition to its superficial significance. The field of semiotics involves the understanding that an image contains more than just appearances, and with this understanding comes the ability to decode icons as multi-layered entities. Take for example Streptopelia alba. At first glance, this species might seem to be nothing more than just a plain white feathered animal. However, this unassuming bird has a rich history of symbolization. Over the years, it has represented love and tenderness, peace and tranquility.

 

While the term sign encompasses the entire concept of sensory item symbolization, each sign can be divided into both an indicator and its related meaning; these are labeled signifier and signified, respectively. In the above example, the dove is the signifier while love, tenderness, peace, and tranquility are all the signified.

See What You Can See

What do you see when you look at this picture? Why did you see what you saw?

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When we perceive images, we are not simply making objective mental notes of which colors were arranged in what sort of pattern. There is much more going on inside your head than you’re probably aware of. In fact, all that mental processing going on burns a large portion of the calories consumed at rest. In fact, every single moment your eyes are open, taking in the world around you: your brain looks like this:

A busy mind is a divine mind.

Within psychology, there are multiple fields of thought concerning what exactly takes place when we view and subsequently interpret our surroundings.

Behaviorists believe that psychology should not attempt to describe the innermost processes of the mind. Instead, psychology is best understood as a science that examines human behaviors in attempt to observe and measure the world directly.

Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image.

Phenomenologists focus on life experiences as perceived subjectively from a first-person point of view. Our ability to interpret objects within our environment comes from our understanding of its meaning based on previous encounters and experiences.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

Semioticians attempt to discover the significance contained in signs. Our life consists of ongoing connections made between certain images and meanings. For instance, we might commonly associate the color green with new life as a result of both observations of nature and cultural conditioning.

 

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.

While Semioticians can be understood as passive recipients of the allusions present in particular signs and symbols, Rhetoricians focus more on the projection aspect of meaning. They infuse meaning into symbols and manipulate this meaning as a means of persuading other humans.