Ever since I got my CCNA certification, I’ve been seeing the OSI networking model everywhere. In human interaction, for example. Eyeballs (and photons) make up the physical layer. The part of your brain that interprets the images into faces and bodies constitute the datalink layer. The portion of the brain that then identifies people and matches names to them (sometimes inaccurately) is the network layer. This analogy continues with the session layer – holding a conversation – and even all the way to the application layer – where you can have a long-term relationship with other individuals over many conversations and meetings.

I skipped some layers because the metaphor isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close.