743 – The Anti-Fuse

I wrote this yesterday. I had been pondering some frustrations and wanted to express them. On re-reading, it sounds a bit daft, and would not unreasonably cause you to think “I’m not having you sit next to me on the bus”. But it’s quite entertaining so I’ve left it as it is.

What does a fuse do?

It allows an electrical device to operate safely. If something goes wrong then there is a risk of fire or electrocution or damage to electrical or electronic devices. Either can result in death, loss of property, loss of information.

I would like to introduce the idea of an anti-fuse. This is not a physical device, it’s a mental concept.

Let’s develop this; the fuse provides a particular path. When a fuse blows in an electrical device that path is no longer available, but when a fuse blows in the brain, by its nature another path automatically opens. But what causes the fuse blow?

Ideas are what causes the anti-fuse to blow, but I am interested in a particular suite of ideas; epiphanies, eureka moments, realisations that all lead the person who had idea to walk a different path to the one they had been on before.

I am going to be a little bit narcissistic because this really is about me. It’s my anti-fuse. I’m waiting for that anti-fuse to blow that will send me off down a path. The danger is of course, that the anti-fuse will never blow and I will go to my grave with it intact.

There are two big questions (well, there might be three or possibly more – I haven’t got there yet) 1. Can we know what it is that will make the anti-fuse blow, and therefore cause it to happen? 2. If the anti-fuse blows, what path will that guide us down? And the 3rd (see, I said there were more than two) – what would we like to be at the end of the path that the blowing of the anti-fuse has lead us down?

I think, to be honest with myself that it is only the second and third questions that we can even begin to answer because it is there that we can explore our hopes, dreams and frustrations.