There is no "neutral" perspective from which to make a decision.

Like a painting, some factors are foregrounded, while others recede into the background.

Psychological distance can cause us to underestimate the importance of key factors.

I don't remember exactly when I first learned about Filippo Brunelleschi, but I know I wrote his name in dry-erase marker on the plastic wet wall panel that inexplicably covered the backside of my kitchen.

Brunelleschi was a true Renaissance man, remembered above all as a master architect. But it was his pig-headed, ingenious endeavor to solve one of art’s great mysteries that fascinated me. His objective was so simple that it is almost baffling no one had managed it before the 1400s: Create the illusion of three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional page.

Maddeningly, the geometry required to crack the code of linear perspective had been understood for centuries before Brunelleschi came along. So when I learned about him hitting the streets of Florence with a mirror, a canvas with a peephole in it, and his paintbrushes, I had to know: Why was something a 7-year-old can copy the basics of so hard to get right the first time?

The answer was surprisingly simple:........

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