The whole time you read this lil diddy about braids, don’t think you need to know what they look like to a mathematician. The image above will work just fine because whether it’s a braid in someone’s hair or a braid being studied in knot theory or physics or cryptography or chemistry or group theory, whatever — the physicality of how it spatially exists is the same.

The super major absolute thing that is required of a mathematical braid is that the place where it starts and the place where it ends is on total lock down. It is fixed. It is anchored. It is moored. Neither the start nor finish of each of the ‘strings’ making up the braid can go anywhere. But in between those two points, those strings can loosen or tighten. They can stretch, they can bend, they can contract (but they can’t deform). Just like a braid in someone’s hair can loosen or tighten in areas of it throughout the day, and depending on what angle you are seeing that braid at different times, you have a changing perspective of it.

But you’re just looking at it. No touching!

A purpose of mathematical braids is that they represent an ability to find, and then observe, and – when they are in groups – compare them to others within that group. But the mathematician doesn’t interact with the braid. Sure, they may rotate it or or rotate themself around the braid, looking at it from different angles – but there’s no interaction. No chance of affecting the start or the end of the braid, because that’s on lockdown.

Today I offer you a braid as a visual representation to inspire the possibility of going out and gaining a new perspective on something that exists and that you have formed an opinion about at some point, in the past.

Go to a sporting event and sit somewhere in the stadium you have never sat before. Have you ever seen a stand-up comic? No? Then, go. Are you curious about a particular place of worship? Go.

Here’s the cool thing: the event is going to have the start and the ending it is going to have no matter if you show up or not — BUT, it might affect you. Hopefully in a good way, possibly in a bad way, who knows. Just remember, here’s the super major absolute thing that is required of you: Don’t intercede. Don’t interrupt. Don’t engage or participate. Just take it all in.

This is not about going to that bookclub that you have missed for a few months. Or that poker game. Or that monthly happy hour or weekly status meeting. This is all about total observation from a position that you haven’t observed this particular thing before. You don’t want to become the cause of a tangle happening in that braid (which is totally a math thing! Tangles don’t just happen in yer hair, they happen in mathematical braids in a very similar way to a braid in yer hair! I know. I know)!

Let us know if you gain some new perspective that maybe gives you a little reset at this time of year. Then shout it out on the socials :)