Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home; he attributed the secret of his success to “visits by elves” while he worked in the tunnel: “While I’m digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem.”
Wikipedia cited a rather entertaining Time article as a citation for this.
Funny, Jacob Gellar just made a great video about hole digging.
I actually learned this from a comment on that video. ;)
Full circle
We found Colin Furze’s dad!
I’m pretty sure he was kidding about the elves. In the article he says:
“I work for three hours, and then I get stumped, and I’m not making progress. So I quit, and I go and work in the tunnel. It takes me an hour or so to dig four inches and put in the 4-by-4s. … Then I go back up and work some more.”
It’s a common technique when dealing with a difficult research/creative problem.
- gain a good understanding of the problem (even if you’re stuck on how to solve it)
- go do something unrelated work (preferrably physical, like gardening or housework or… working on your basement apparently.)
I think it gives your subconscious a chance to work on the problem without your conscious mind interfering.
There’s a sort of labyrinth called Troy Town labyrinths that supposedly have the effect of solving problems for anyone who walks it. It’s obviously pseudo numble jumble, but there might be something to it.
It’s not a labyrinth as such, because there’s only one route from the entrance to the center and no choices to be made. It’s laid out so that the turns go both left and right and the length varies between turns.
Walking through it requires very little thinking and is not super exciting, but the changes ln direction at unpredictable times are enough to keep the consciousness occupied so the subconscious mind can get to work.
Historically they were used for worshipping, which aligns with the idea of getting revelations.
I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than a regular walk in the park, but I think there’s a point to it, because it removes all conscious choices and gets you into the zone of just “doing” something, allowing the brain to work without interference.
Try it, if you can find one.
I found this description interesting.
Dale Gribble?
so is he then the father of tunnelling protocols?
Who doesn’t understand the urge to dig?
The children yearn for the mines, but many of us lose that sense of wonder as we get older.
Thank god the Republicans are ushering in a new era of children working mines
TIL I’m a 30 year old child
My wife, unfortunately.
You know now that I think of it, I could probably get a decent tunnel going through my neighborhood…
Or up into your neighbor’s house. Then slowly steal your neighbor’s house, one board at a time, and add it to your own house!
A couple years ago someone on r/TwinCities posted about finding a boarded up tunnel in their basement. Turns out that it went to the neighbor’s basement.
Apparently they aren’t that unusual in certain neighborhoods with houses of a certain age - they were used historically to move coal for heating the houses.
I only know her as Kala. She is amazing!!
Dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel.
Dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel.
Dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel.
Quick before the
hyeenasmagic elfs come!I am a dwarf and I’m digging a hole
Diggy diggy hole
Digging a hole.
I wonder if he is at all related to Colin Furze (who also seems to love digging under his house)
Hehe, I was about to mention Colin. XD
Something, something, a series of tubes.
How we wrote code before Minecraft.
He Cray.
Cray!
I remember sitting on the Y’s bench :)
Who else?
Haha, sounds like AI gone off rails.
