Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin submitted this U.S. Customs form after the Apollo 11 Moon mission:
In next few decades when or if we become a multi-planet species, I wonder what immigration forms will look like when people arrive from Mars, and Alpha Centauri.
“This event is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances” is the perfect line for 2020.
I hope we get more comfortable with that phrase.
2020 taught me:
1. People know jack shit about what’s going to happen next.
2. It’s okay to change for experts to change their mind as more data is available
3. Back yourself and your intuition.
I’m reading a book about alternative realities all happening in parallel. This quote from Twain popped up. Enjoy but don’t think too hard about it, just enjoy the possibility of many possibilities. 🤩
Nothing exists; all is a dream. God, man, the world, the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars – a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space – and you!
Mark Twain
“Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purposes, and his wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat“
This fitting tribute for this peaceful explorer reminded me of the William Blake poem:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake
“To See a World…” (Fragments from “Auguries of Innocence”
Have you noticed how the same new ideas and inventions emerge simultaneously, even though the creators are strangers and haven’t shared their workings?
We see patterns, and we piece them together. There’s synchronicity with strangers.
I think 2020 disrupted that synchronicity with less travel and in-person pollination of ideas. I wonder what is born after the last 12 months of digital calls, lockdowns, and no travel. What ideas has covid impregnated into people’s brains and what we are working on right now that will blow us away in 2022?
People worry about two things: When will it start, and when will it end. Everything else is noise
Have a bias for action and get started! Then surrender to the momentum once you are up and running.
Reading the first chapter of a new book is like going on a speed date dinner with the author. It’s a conversation where you get to know the author’s voice, how fast they speak, and the language they use. If after a couple of pages I’m not curious or intrigued then it’s time to get the bill and move. Just like life’s too short for shit wine, life is too short for a book that doesn’t suck you in. it’s okay to close the book and find a new one. Don’t suffer through it, there are a limited number of books you can read in your life, so make them count and be picky!
Sometimes attacking fast and quick is victorious and successful. The risk is that you teach the enemy their own strength. There’s always the risk that you waken the sleeping giant. You win the battle and lose the war.
Fern : Bo never knew his parents, and we never had kids. If I didn’t stay, if I left, it would be like he never existed. I couldn’t pack up and move on. He loved Empire. He loved his work so much. He loved being there, everybody loved him. So I stayed. Same town, same house. Just like my dad used to say: “What’s remembered lives.” I maybe spent too much of my life just remembering, Bob.
Nomadland – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/characters/nm0000531
Life is about the detours and accidents. The flat tires, good food, fights and friends, running for the train, missing the train, reunions, breaking bread. Remembering isn’t living. Living makes memories.
Amateurs are shocked and surprised when shit happens. They don’t think it’ll happen to them so why would they ever need a mitigation plan? It’s a dangerous cocktail of hubris and inexperience.
Professionals are just as shocked and surprised when plans fail, but they have a plan B. They accept that things go wrong or single points of failure emerge – but they also mitigate these risks by planning for the downside and learning from past mistakes.
