Yeah, that's a phrase from Dr. House.

But in the world of analytical thinking, it's no different from what I do. You see, the work I'm doing is in many ways similar to having a patient. Patient tells me what's wrong, I take a look. If I find it, I'll see if I can fix it. Based on the symptoms, you throw out possible causes and cross them out one by one.

If I can't find it, I'll try harder.
If I can't fix it, I'll try harder.

If by trying harder, I can't fix or find it, I then begin thinking outside the box. What is wrong here can be symptoms of something wrong somewhere else. And if you look for that, you may in fact be on your way to finding a solution.

If that's not the case, you brute force your solution. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes, it unexpectedly brings up the real solution out, and sometimes it breaks everything.

Other times, you have to give a temporary solution while you work on the problem. Because the patient needs to get by with his life while you sit in your office straining your brain cells as to what could be wrong. I may need to go the person's house to even find out what's wrong by looking at the stuff he uses or the things growing in his closet.

And I'm all writing this because I'm in the middle of something I couldn't solve and I'm burning my brain cells out.

Come on Quentin, think harder.