The kind of kisses people give each other

Here’s an exciting thought experiment teachers can use at schools.

The objective is to teach the value of critical thinking, the power of language, the beauty of curiosity and the possibility of imagination. When the bell rings, write the following question on the chalkboard.

How many students are in this class?

Most likely, a kid will raise their hand, quickly count the number of butts in the seats, and respond with an answer like twenty.

Tell them they are correct. But then tell them that twenty is not the only answer.

And just wait. Watch the hamster wheels inside their young brains start to spin.

Now, the number of ways you can answer this question are effectively infinite. All depends on how creative people want to get.

Because twenty is the right answer spatially. Then again, it all depends on what you mean by the phrase this class. Maybe you’re not only referring to the number of students a teacher faces during a given period of instruction, but the entire group of students at the same level in an institution, like the senior class.

In which case, the correct answer collectively is two hundred.

But what about spiritually? The word in is used to indicate inclusion within a physical place, however it could also indicate inclusion within something abstract and immaterial. It’s not unreasonable to say that the spirit and energy of all the students who have ever been in this class is still present and active.

If the school has been in operation for thirty years, and there are a thousand kids each year who sit in that particular room, then the correct answer is thirty thousand.

Next, let’s consider the word student. This usually means a person formally engaged in learning, particularly as a pupil enrolled in a school or college. And yet, ask any teacher, and they’ll tell you they learn just as much from their students as their students do from them.

Guess they’re students too. Which means you have to add one more individual to the total number.

Wait a minute! We can also break down the word in differently. Because while twenty students may be in their seats, that doesn’t mean they are engaged with the school work. Half of those punks are probably on their phones, zoning out, drawing pictures in their notebooks or daydreaming.

One could make the argument than only ten of the students are truly in the class.

As you can see, this thought experiment could continue forever. If you had a room full of twenty teenagers, they would probably come up with some fascinating variations on the brain teaser.

I remember my calculus teacher spending an entire day on a problem like this.

Five kissing cousins met at a family reunion. Each cousin kissed each of the other cousins just once. How many kisses were given in all?

According to the principle of combination, the answer should be twenty. Because you can’t kiss yourself, so five people are each kissing four other people.

Makes sense right?

Not necessarily.

That day during calculus class, my friend raised his hand and cleverly asked the teacher:

Wait a minute, what kind of kisses are people giving each other?

The class erupted in laughter, since we were all sixteen, incredibly horny and obnoxious. But our teacher said, excellent question. That distinction matters.

He wrote on the chalkboard the number ten and the number twenty. And my friend deduced that if you receive a kiss on the cheek from another person, that means they’ve just kissed you, but you haven’t kissed them. Which means the total number of kisses is twenty.

Whereas if two people smooch on the lips, then they’ve both just kissed each other. Which means the total number would be cut in half to ten.

Isn’t that fascinating? It’s critical thinking. The power of language. The beauty of curiously. And the possibility of imagination.

To be honest, I don’t remember a single goodman thing about my high school calculus class. I basically failed, but my teacher had pity on me and gave me a passing grade anyway.

But I’ll never forget that kissing cousins exercise. The brain teaser truly had a lasting impact on my thinking. Wonder if any of the other students remember it as clearly as I do.

Point being, engaging with possibility for possibility’s sake is a good use of our time and energy. I understand possibility isn’t always attractive to the human mind. Our caveman brains prefer the certainty of practical, proven paths. They’re evolutionarily advantageous.

Debono, the late great godfather of modern creativity, wrote about this in his last book before he died.

Possibility opens up all sorts of nonsense. Science has forever been trying to flee from superstitious nonsense. Possibility seems to suggest that any fanciful theory has a validity. Maybe there are hidden spirits moving atoms around. Maybe the world is flat. Maybe the sun is a fiery chariot drawn across the sky. But the irony is that the driving force of science has indeed been the possibility system.

Are you a possibility thinker? What is something that you used to think was impossible, until you finally did it?

If that’s too much blue sky thinking for you, I completely understand. Imagination, the outreaching of mind, can be frightening to the human heart. Imagination requires sustained encounters with uncertainty, and that’s biologically revolting to a certain degree.

The bombardment of our conscious mind with all these creative ideas and hypotheticals can seem like the noise on which we should turn down the volume.

But lest we forget, poverty isn’t the absence of money, it’s the absence of possibility. Imagination is the sole vehicle by which we increase knowledge. It is the user interface that steers our reality.

To choose imagination and possibility is to confront cynicism. If we don’t continually flex and build our creative faculties, then when the surety of solid ground is nullified under our feet, we will fall through the cracks.

If we’re not willing to enter the space of unknowing as the old answers become obsolete, then the changing world will pass us by.

Hell, if we live long enough, everything we’ve accepted as bedrock will be eventually be up for grabs. May as well get the jump on considering possibilities, even if they would have seemed farfetched a generation before.

Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re hosting a family reunion, and I’ve got some cousins to kiss.

What is something you used to think was impossible, until you finally did it?