Pablo Santalla

Departamental Thinking

We humans are obsessed with classifying and organizing, drawn to ideas that look great on paper.

We all do it: pens with pens, books with books. It seems wired into us.

I think we do it for mental clarity, but also because the process feels satisfying. A dangerous kind of satisfying. We get lost in the segmentation, start treating numbers like objects.

And then it blows up.

We forget about natural connections and the consequences of breaking them. We push the wooden barrels to the back of the warehouse, then stand there confused when the wine leaks out through the front door.

Even the most complex things come down to connections. DNA and proteins. Pollination. The rise of a tribe. Wealth. Transport. It doesn’t matter. And chances are, you can create outcomes you’re not even able to imagine yet. Talk to a photographer, an economist, a baker. Anyone holding onto ideas you never thought to link up with. New connections bring new outcomes. Repeated ones, the same results. You choose the stage.

So maybe let’s keep the barrels somewhere they don’t belong. Next to the rice, the beans, the veggies, the pans. Somewhere we actually go. Because maybe, while grabbing something for dinner, we’ll catch the leak before it floods the place.