What is 1+1?
It’s a bit of a trick question. It depends on whether you’re counting or adding.
If you’re counting things, the answer is easy. I have 1 pencil, and I get another. Now I have 2 pencils.
In counting, or arithmetic, 1+1 = 2.
If I have one thing, and I add another thing to it, I get a third thing.
1+1 =3
That’s addition: adding two different things together to get a third thing.
Water + Fire = Steam Water + Earth = Mud A hand + a hand = a clap A mom + a dad = a you
Addition is alchemy.
Not addition as you learned it in school. Real life addition.
The nature of each thing is changed by adding them together. They produce something completely new that is more than the sum of its parts.
This is the difference between arithmetic and addition. It’s the difference between accumulation, or acquisition, and alchemy.
Bringing things together not just to “add value” but to create change, to make something that didn’t exist before. That couldn’t exist before.
Look around through this frame. What do you notice?
Examine your own life through this lens. Your relationships, your team, your possessions.
Are you accumulating things or alchemizing?
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