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Malcolm Gladwell's Blink

807 Words4 Pages

"There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis"

Some of life 's most critical decisions happen in a split second. In the novel Blink, Malcolm Gladwell teaches about the power of split second thinking and deepens our understanding of the ability of our own minds. Connecting to the experiences of others mentioned in Blink teaches you things about yourself that you have never known or merely thought about before. It allows you to reflect on past experiences and decisions that you have made and wonder how you came to the conclusions that you did.

"Did they know why they knew? Not at all. But they knew."

Walking through the big city of Hong Kong, it often becomes hard to navigate. When it becomes inevitable …show more content…

They see faces with equal importance as they do any other object. Therefore, complicated and even basic facial expressions are difficult to determine and process. This does not mean that they are stupid even though that is a word closely associated with the disorder. Albeit, as shown in Blink, thin-slicing and making fast pace decisions can be very troublesome. While expressing this, Gladwell quotes a man in a fast, stressful situation. "When he started towards us it was almost like everything went into tight focus, - When he made his move, my whole body just tensed up. - All my senses were directed forward at the man running at us with a gun. - I didn 't hear a thing, not one thing. - All I know is the next thing I knew I was standing on two feet looking down at the guy. I don 't know how I got there." Gladwell uses this man 's and others ' stories to support his idea that we all become temporarily autistic when put in high pressure situations. I had never thought about this myself before, however, when I heard it I immediately remembered times where I have been asked stressful questions on the spot and have found myself dumbfounded,. As much as we can try to prepare ourselves for stressful situations, the difference between training as an officer to being in the position where you are compelled to shoot someone, or reading a speech to your family versus in front of a large crowd, is

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