Beware of the Concept

Yesterday Alan Ayckbourn's gold-nugget-laden book -

The Crafty Art of Playmaking by Alan Ayckbourn. Faber, 2004, softcover, ISBN 0571215106.
https://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk/s/45898/the-crafty-art-of-playmaking 

- found a new owner. Beforehand, I turned up the following helpful advice (or, 'obvious rules'): 

ix Introduction

'The following is an attempt to describe, as far as I can, this double process [writing and directing, PJ]. Some of it is quite probably unique to me and contains procedures and practices that it would be highly unwise for others to try and copy. The rest is really just plain common sense. But if I've learnt anything it is that it never hurts to point out the obvious occasionally, certainly in the theatre - to actors, directors or writers and sometimes even to designers, stage managers and technicians. Often we quite wrongly suspect simplicity. We go digging around in the creative sand trying to make.our art more meaningful, somehow 'deeper'. Generally all we do is end up with our heads entirely buried, presenting the audience with our rear ends.'

Obvious Rule No. 3
If you don't have the initial inspiration, put down the pen,put the pencil back in the jar, switch off the computer and go and dig the garden instead.
.. 
'At its most successful, theatre views things from a human standpoint. It is after all the most human in scale of all the performance media. My feeling is that that's also a good place for a dramatist to start, at the human level. As a playwright it may be your intention to build a vehicle to take us to the stars. But do make sure you have people aboard.

Initial inspiration - that essential starting point - comes in all shapes and sizes.' p..9.

Obvious Rule No. 49
Beware of the Concept.

DIRECTING

'Don't be talked into anything you feel instinctively you'll regret later. If you must have a concept (God save us from that word) then let the concept be something that's worked out between you. Let it spring from the play and not from the fact that the production manager has 5oo square metres of black lino left over from their last production. I once heard the fateful words, 'I think it's about time we did something with mirrors.' If at all possible, try and persuade the producer, whoever it is, to let you make as many scenic decisions as late on as possible. There will always be an intense pressure to decide everything before you start. This can be fatal.' pp.118-19.

In pencil I noted: 'Hodges' model is different. So, don't panic.' Is it? Really?

I've saved this for the last: 

'Then there is the new old playwright. Far more difficult to deal with. They have probably nursed this script for twenty-five years and they're damned if you're going to mess it up for them when they've waited so long. Especially someone your age who wasn't even born when their harrowing play about World War Two was still raging, dammit.' p.110.

It's not that I believe I'm a (potential) playwright, it's the learning.

See also: 'Ayckbourn' : 'drama'

Tricotyledons, systems and social problems: TAKE ii iii iv

Act I, Scene 3 

'Thomasina What a faint-heart! We must work outward from the middle of the maze. We will start with something simple. (She picks up the apple leaf) I will plot this leaf and deduce its equation. You will be famous for being my tutor when Lord Byron is dead and forgotten.' p.31.

It appears that polycotyledon seed growth beyond tri-form is rare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cotyledon&oldid=1356872880

We must hope that the four-leaf clover is recognised and not just trampled underfoot.

One of the benefits of a four-leaf conceptual framework is that should you have the germ of an idea, you can reflect in (relative?) safety, exploring the conceptual ecosystem, its cognitive environs and nurture it to realisation.

n.b. In care making a difference, does not mean you have to be exceptional. ...

See post i: Tricotyledons, systems and social problems

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2026/07/tricotyledons-systems-humanities.html

Whether, wherever, whatever you shave - you need Occam's razor

Can Hodges' model be honed by students from day #1 - 'Intro lecture 101',
 across all curricula to function as a form of Occam's razor -
a reflective and critical thinking tool
to last a lifetime's learning (and unlearning)?
 

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

Occam's razor: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". "It urges us to choose the simplest explanations or models for any phenomenon we observe." William of Ockham, born around 1285.	"It has been a tool for scientific progress, not to mention a guiding principle for our thoughts, right up to the present day."
Hodges' model: a tool for individual learners and communities of practice.	"He was, I believe, the first person to so clearly separate science from its religious tethers, a move crucial to science's subsequent secular development."

McFadden, J. (2021) Razor sharp, New Scientist, 18-25 December. 252:3365/66. pp.70-71.

Simplicity in Complexity (and vice-versa): c/o Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Frith Street Gallery

INDIVIDUAL
|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

	© Courtesy of Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Frith Street Gallery | Simpleton, Simpleton, Simpleton (Ellipsis), 2021 by Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press

In nursing you must be aware and sensitive to words, their use and meaning. Recognition of the power of words (in-and-out of context), is hopefully also reflected in society; but sadly emotional, social and spiritual intelligence are often found lacking. Long carrying a sense of being a mathematical simpleton, gullible in over-thinking things, and all too easily distracted; the currents of education, life chances (health career), and clinical experience have brought me to a place I shouldn't tread - whether terra firma, or water.

While socially, words become archaic, replaced by others, words can and do also reverse their meaning over time. Although manufacturing is now also 'additive' and not necessarily a subtractive process, the meaning of these symbols in mathematics remains constant: as per their function.

Simple in appearance, Hodges' model can hide complexity: the complexity of care, in all its scope and scales. And yet with the potential to be inclusive in its relational scope. Symbols and model's - conceptual frameworks can be extended in their purposes and functions, as long as we are consistent in how we do (propose) this.

I will learn how well, temperature permitting, I can 'tread' water, while sign-posting for others. . . .

Ellipsis - indeed.

My source: (print version):
FT.com. Something in the water – the rise of aquatic art

Many thanks to and courtesy of Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press and Frith Street Gallery | Simpleton, Simpleton, Simpleton (Ellipsis), 2021, by Fiona Banner

Gavin, F. (2022). THE SHAPE OF WATER, How To Spend It, FT Weekend, pp.44-47.

Playing and working with words and music - étude : ctude

étude

An étude (/ ˈeɪtjuːd /; French pronunciation: ​[eˈtyd], a French word meaning study) is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, of considerable difficulty, and designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tude

ctude

A ctude is a care assessment and evaluation instrument, a composition that is usually short, in summary form comprised of key concepts, and yet capable of representing the complexity of health and social care contexts. The ctude is designed to provide practice material for developing expertise in care assessment, holistic and integrated care that is also person-centred. Coined from étude (/ ˈeɪtjuːd /; French pronunciation: ​[eˈtyd], a French word meaning study) it is a study in care and can be a snapshot, or a dynamic series.

Notes (III) for a 2010 introduction to the Health Career Model

Definition through purpose

The original purposes for the model's creation are as relevant today as they were in 1983-84:

1. To produce a curriculum development tool;
2. Help ensure holistic assessment and evaluation;
3. To support reflective practice;
4. To reduce the theory-practice gap.

Items 1-4 plus safety are all dependent in one way or another upon knowledge. Admittedly, this is a case of stating the obvious and something of a non-statement in that everything comes down to being knowledge (or nonsense). Resort to some global notion of 'knowledge' amounts to non-differentiation and this tells us nothing. On the contrary: this is how the simplicity of Hodges' model can cultivate and give rise to global complexity. This can help explain the model's potential and utility as a cognitive tool, an aide memoire, a mental prompt and structured conceptual checklist to frame:

• thought
• knowledge (ontology)
  
• perspectives
• dialogue
• problems
• strengths - weaknesses
• plans and actions
• outcomes
• and much more ...

Whether student or specialist practitioner various conceptual elements and (care) threads can be acquired, constructed, integrated and mapped from the dual (in-situ) worlds of theory and practice to the cognitive (personal - reflective) and virtual [cogeographic?]. This means the model can be used as a mental prompt helping to inform theory as in a lecture and subsequent essay; or practically during an interview or care assessment. Beyond this cognitive application, the model's produced can then also be captured and represented on paper, or as an electronic record - by various user communities. ... (Notes IV to follow)

[These are notes. If you have any thoughts, views on a new introduction to the model please get in touch:
h2cmng @ yahoo.co.uk What do you feel needs to be explained? Which audience should be addressed in the first instance? What assumptions can be made? ....? Many thanks PJ ]

Notes I intro for 2010

Notes II intro for 2010

Notes (I) for a 2010 introduction to the Health Career Model

.... The structure and composition of Hodges' model can be viewed as a sketch, a back-of-the-envelope idea expressed as a diagram as per (insert figure 1 and 2) and in combination (figure 3). While this is a perfectly valid interpretation it invites the view that Hodges' model is simplistic. In its basic unpopulated form the model is simplistic, in the same way that a blank canvas, computing device display, or piece of paper is simplistic. There is however, much more going on here, consideration of which can lead us to new ways to justify and explain the model.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler"
Albert Einstein

Einstein is helpful because while simple - the model provides the foundation for global conceptual scope (complexity) should this be needed. Hodges' model demonstrates the complexity of health and social care without making it simpler.

"Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means."
Dr. Koichi Kawana, Architect

If Hodges' model is simple, a way to represent the tip of the health and social care iceberg, then why should we then wish for global conceptual scope? The reasons are manifold, but revolve around one factor:

safety.

...

Quotes source: http://www.petefreitag.com/item/496.cfm