Please note: This book was written by the author for the Czech people and is therefore available only in the Czech language.
The book, whose third, expanded edition was published in January 2023, is another in a series of strange literary achievements. For some readers, it will probably remind them of The Big Book of Nothing and, in hints, of The Chronicles of Khrut. We hope that the chosen mode of explanation - from the difficulties of human perception, to errors in thinking, to procedures for examining systemic structures - will hopefully eventually lead you to a clear understanding of the meaning and importance of a systems view of the world. On first skimming, you may get the impression that this is a hoax. A full third of the pages are blank except for the squares. The blame falls on the author, who thinks that you have to do a third (and maybe even half) of the work yourself. The blank pages are for your notes and drawings. The guide is written like a very long lecture and is not entirely easy to understand by mere passive reading. It will help a lot if you use the blank pages on the right from the start, so please have a pencil ready. The title implies that the book is about systems thinking, a discipline whose name is made up of the words system and think. The first pages are therefore devoted to human perception, followed by an exploration of one particular pyramid. The connection between thinking and systems is not made until the final chapters. After reading the entire book, you will find that systems thinking merely lays the foundation for the next steps on the path to understanding the causes and consequences of human decision-making in every imaginable situation and domain. The solved examples at the end of the book are not a definitive list of the possibilities of systems thinking, but they are chosen to cover as large an area of human action as possible. If you don't find your field in them, that's okay. Create your own examples and diagrams - you'll already know how to do it. Eventually, if you realize that systemic structure is responsible for all behavior in and around us, and discovering it becomes an important part of your approach to problems and the consequences of solving them, the book will have served its purpose. It will also be an invitation to another, even more serious encounter with systems and their dynamics, but one that will not involve a computer. We are about two hundred pages of text and an equal portion of your notes away from that. You will be guided through the book by a lady named Mika. We tried to raise her as best we could, but you know how it is with kids. They have their own minds and stand in opposition to their parents, so we are only partially responsible for her opinions. Especially the controversial, offensive, even hateful remarks.
