Big Picture

The BigPicture is the forest made up of lots of trees, the project made up of thousands of files and millions of lines of code, the fastest line round the racetrack achieved through billions of tiny actions by the driver.

Actually, the examples as I've written them above are all misleading, as they all imply that the BigPicture is made up of distinct (cf digital) components. In fact, the best artists won't see it that way; they'll see continuity and flow rather than individual elements sitting next to each other.

> What evidence is there that the "best" artists (what exactly does best mean here?) see things in this way, or at least exclusively this way? I would assert (with just as little evidence) that the "best" see things from multiple perspectives.

When you analyze and plan, you make some model of the big picture. When you concentrate on small pieces here and there, you might overlook some useful path. Take time to step back now and then.

In our search for answers, or our search to achieve, or our search to refine, it is easy to lose sight of the BigPicture. When this happens, it is said that one CantSeeTheForestForTheTrees. -- BrucePennington