Everyone is missing out on the good shit in life focusing only on the forest but not the fine details, the forest only exists because of millions of small beautiful details.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m on the spectrum but I hope it isn’t, I wish everyone could experience the same joy I get from all the small things.
This saying actually means the opposite of what you think it does. “Missing the forest” in this context means to ignore it. So the saying is more about not being able to see the big picture because you’re too caught up in a single tree.
Hopefully this can help mitigate some of the iritation the saying has for you.
I actually use this saying alot to explain hypersensitivity to neurotypicals.
I get so much heaps of sensory input from the smallest of things i cant possibly process it all, fixate on and lose the ability to understand my environment as a whole.
What the saying is trying to convey:
Sometimes people focus on a few small details of some problem to such a great degree that they completely fail to consider the larger context and purpose.
It isn’t trying to say details are unimportant. Only that the larger context matters and should be considered while investigating the details of a problem.
I am trying to think of a good example. The one I found online is something like, “the senator was so focused on the wording of one subsection of the bill he didn’t stop to consider the bill was too unpopular to ever pass regardless of the wording”.
Ok how about this. Let’s say a company is to unify access control across disparate systems. The overarching goal is to be able to set policy in one place not in each individual application.
A team is in the process of evaluating a candidate product. They want to complete the evaluation in a set time frame and focus on a particular scenario (web app, specific tech stack) for a proof of concept that isn’t representative of many of the typical scenarios in the company (web, database, API, etc).
The team spends their time focused on getting the evaluation done and discovers the product doesn’t integrate as well as originally expected with a key system. They focus on coming up with a solution so they can complete the proof of concept.
They consider their efforts a success when they finish up the eval on time.
But the evaluation wasn’t useful because it didn’t really consider the overarching project goals and in the end the solution didn’t even meet those goals!
Hope this helps.
I think the saying is about not losing sight of the big picture while focusing on the details. I think you may focus on the trees and the animals and the mushrooms. But you should also see the whole and the interplay between the individual parts. Presumably.
That’s literally what the saying means, dude. When you “miss the forest to see the trees” it means you’re focusing on one small aspect of a larger picture. You’re not seeing the details because you’re preoccupied with looking at something obvious.
That saying really bothers me too, but mainly because I’m always hearing it. For example, programming is often really difficult for me because I have a hard time thinking about the big picture, and I struggle to break the task down into parts that work together. I often get too hung up on small details.
What helps me is to view a program purely as a pipeline of data transformations. You have an input shape that enters the pipeline, and an output shape that is your result. This allows me to immediately write the types I need for the main function, and then I can split off smaller chunks of logic by only focusing on what data I can provide and what result I expect.
In general, it’s always good to start with the function signature. Makes it much harder to get lost in the weeds, because you can focus on the happy path and leave details for later (with appropriate comments, to remind yourself of what you still need to do).
I know some people at work who use it simply cause they know it, but it never translates to anything of value from them. They just say it, amd say it, amd say it. So annoying.
It’s also occasionally lobbed at me as a criticism from losers who clearly are jealous at my attention to detail.
I find this true of most colloquialisms, people don’t really know what they mean, but they’ve heard it before and recognize it as a thing you can say.
I wish everyone could experience the same joy I get from all the small things.
I feel you, man. I am definitely commiserating.
Don’t get me started on “have your cake and eat it too”
That confused me for the longest time because colloquially, “to have cake” means to consume cake, so why can’t I eat my cake and also eat my cake?
So for those who continue to be confused by this, “have your cake” means having the cake sitting in front of you untouched. Maybe you want to admire it because it’s pretty or save it for later. Whatever NT people usually do with cake.
No, you’re absolutely right. But also, to imagine having my cake (untouched and sitting in front of you) and eating it, means literally the same as “eat your cake”. Because if it’s not in front of you, how else are you gonna eat it?
“Eat your cake and have it”? OK, now we can communicate
(for the record, I asked politely not to get me started)
No, to have in this instance means for the cake to exist in your possession.
Once you eat it, you don’t have it anymore. You can’t share a cake you ate, or put it back in the fridge, or add more sprinkles, it’s ceased to be a cake.
So have your cake and eat it too is impossible. The saying means something is an impossible desire.
Aye. I think part of the confusion is that… Who has a cake without having the intention of eating it? Another is that we tend to think of cakes as large objects that produce leftovers.
I would say to think about it as “to have your car, and to sell it, too,” but we’ve reached an age of such rent seeking that people – mostly car dealerships – have been doing this for years.
That phrase used to drive me nuts. It’s so obvious its meaning is conveyed a lot better by flipping it around!
Pick one:
- I have cake.
- I ate my cake.
I’m all forests and leaves; no trees in sight
