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Being able to work through big ideas is really just a process of breaking a problem down into component parts and seeing how those parts interact and connect (much like with software). I'd recommend the book "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens for some strategies on how to do that.

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This! I see this as a research question, because to even begin to work through the problem requires proper framing—noticing the history of the problem, seeing what the best of modern thinkers are thinking, discovering what has not been applied yet probably from different fields, etc. This is the hard work it takes to have an opinion about something.

Whether you use metaphors or first principles, to even capture the scope of the problem and the important pieces that influence it is the first task.

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