Can You Find the Tie-In?

In late April, I'll be speaking at Korea's Toastmasters conference at one of our education sessions. I specialize in finding topics I like and making them into presentations. I thought I would should those who follow this blog one of my advance activities.

Central to my view of how to be creative is to integrate concepts and information. That point is not original to me, of course, and it comes largely from Leonard Peikoff, whose influence on me I firmly believe made me more creative.

The activity I have planned is to have participants at my presentation do a little integration of their own. That means taking a list of items, then finding a common principle underneath them. This idea, too, is adapted from Ayn Rand, again via Leonard Peikoff, who would have her best proteges pull principles from a hat and make a correction. This is slightly different: group some of these in a greater category.

Leonard Peikoff actually had a radio show where he would have tie-in contests. He'd give three examples of a more abstract principle and ask listeners to identify the wider generalization from these ideas.

So there you go. 

To do that right, I need to find some interesting single-item bits from the same author, items some of which could conceivably be lumped into a higher principle or higher bit of wisdom, of which the items given are simply examples of the broader principle. 

To do this means using examples from Jordan Peterson, who is skilled at meaningful epigrams, which I have excerpted from https://www.42rulesforlife.com/42-rules-for-life/. (I have my issues with Dr. Peterson's views, but I tend to regard most disdain for him and his work to be uninformed, unfounded, and uncivil.)

There are a lot of possibilities in your answers, for what it's worth.

And now... the instructions:

Choose three to five of these principles and assume they go together somehow. Identify the larger principle they can represent. Please write that principle, identify the items below that go with that principle, and explain a little of their relationship.

1. Be precise in your speech.
2. Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful.
3. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
4. Do not do things that you hate.
5. Do not transform your wife into a maid.
6. Dress like the person you want to be.
7. Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
8. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
9. Nothing well done is insignificant.
10. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
11. Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.
12. Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping.
13. Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible.

Yes, feel free to write your own comments on this blog of what these relationships would be.