If you want to annoy me, say, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" Sayings like these were called bromides after a primitive sedative. It was widely observed at the time that people under the influence of potassium bromide lost their spark. They were perceived as boring.
Hammers and nails, by contrast, are very interesting. The Engineers Post identifies 25 different nails. Each nail type is designed with a specific form for an essential function in joinery. One might surmise then that there are 25 different kinds of hammer, each one matched to a specific nail. That’s almost true. However, The Engineers Post lists 32 different kinds of hammers. How is that?
Many hammers are designed for purposes that will never include touching a nail. When we moved in together, Susan saw my rubber hammer, also called a mallet, which is used when one needs a force firm yet self absorbing in order that the energy doesn’t transfer beyond the object struck. It’s mostly used for tapping joinery or sheet rock into place without leaving indentations. Susan looked at that hammer and saw sheets of baker’s chocolate that needed to be rendered into smaller pieces for baking.
However interesting these hammers and nails are, I’m not optimistic that fashion houses will start to make them. I can’t imagine a Louis Vuitton hammer or a Ralph Lauren nail. I can imagine Pharrell Williams sending an attractive model down the runway with a hammer hanging from a carpenter's belt on the jeans, but the hammer itself won’t be fashion. It’s a thing that does the thing the thing does.
I could lend you, or give you, any tool I own. If I needed to replace one, the next one could be exactly like the one before.
Except for my grandfather’s hammer. It’s a completely ordinary 10oz claw hammer with a wooden handle; replacement cost $6.97 today at Home Deport. It’s a thing that does the thing the thing does.
Did I say it was my grandfather’s hammer? When I hold it in my hand, I can feel my grandfather having held it in his hand. For me, it’s not just a thing. It has stories adhered to it. Those stories don’t make it any better at its essential function than the $6.97 hammers at Home Depot. And yet, I experience it differently. It generates stories and generates ideas.
This duality shows up in the cognitive process we call Observer at Kairos.
Observer is the process that makes meaning from visual information. Like hammers and nails, this process is very interesting. Our Observer process finds meaning in two distinct ways. It recognizes Essential meaning: “That’s a useful tool.” And it finds Symbolic meaning. As I scan the rack with my hammers, it calls out my grandfather’s hammer in a different way. It’s not either – or.
We do both.
I can recognize the hammer as a lightweight driver of small flat-head nails, and I can recognize it as a tool I watched my grandfather use. As a symbolic object, it generates memories and ideas. In its dual Essential and Symbolic nature, it helps make memories as easily as it helps mend a fence. We do both, but most of us lean one way or the other.
My grandmother tipped strongly Essential. She would be amused that I call out stories from an old hammer. My son leans strongly into the Symbolic. He curates objects for their meaning. I just gave him two careworn toys from his childhood on the occasion of his newborn.
If all I had was this hammer, I’d use it to attach 6D nails, while I’m remembering Grandpa.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_all_you_have_is_a_hammer,_everything_looks_like_a_nail
25 different nails: https://www.theengineerspost.com/types-of-nails/
32 different kinds of hammers: https://www.theengineerspost.com/types-of-hammers/