redelbee

This is a marketing piece that can’t be taken seriously without that context, or maybe one that can’t be taken seriously at all. And yet I can’t help thinking we’re missing the forest for the trees. We don’t need to decide where future productivity gains should accrue if we acknowledge and live in reality: we don’t need any more productivity! We have more than enough to go around.

Of course it would be great to make use of AI to solve cancer or fix other intractable problems, but we all know this isn’t the way things are going to go. The cancer is in our minds, our societies, and our norms that push us deeper and deeper into a grow-at-any-cost reality where the need for productivity is neither questioned nor considered in any real way. They say: we must grow! They say: we must be more productive! And we sit around thinking about who is going to control the productivity instead of acknowledging the real issues at hand.

I can only imagine a solution where we can all collectively agree that enough is enough. I’m not hopeful it’s possible and I think it’s probably the only way.

I understand the following isn’t the point of this piece and yet I still can’t help wondering: How much better off we would all be if “senior management” stopped playing these games to get things done and instead spent most of that time really considering the things getting done and whether they are ultimately good for individuals and society at large. We don’t need another product from the “fruit company” and we certainly don’t need most of what our collective work is making today.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love and crave the experience of working with other people to make things. And I cannot for the life of me understand why seemingly intelligent and talented people like Rands would fritter away their lives and those of others in such trivial pursuits in many cases, and downright evil doings in others.

Here I am, worrying about how I am going to afford housing after a divorce, and I’m reading insightful leadership advice from an author who has seemingly spent their career building this leadership expertise at one company that makes the most insanely technologically advanced gambling distraction devices imaginable, another company that makes war and mass surveillance products seemingly out of a corporate strategy to profit from human suffering, and the least objectionable company that only made the most distracting communication-platform-cum-torture-device when it convinced us all email wasn’t fast enough to get things done™ and that now embodies an actual AI hallucination as a company strategy. Why can we not have good leaders in making a society where divorce doesn’t threaten basic human needs? Or maybe one where healthcare is a given? Food being widely available?

Instead we band together and create more than $5 trillion worth of “value” in three companies that make absolutely nothing of worth to real human needs. And then we read about the games played inside those companies by humans who could be using their skills for anything else useful and we come here to argue about the merits of middle management.

What are we doing? How did we get here? Can any leadership help us work together to dismantle the horrors we’ve created to make room for making things that address real needs?

First off, I appreciate the thorough explanation and review of the ZSA Moonlander. That said, I’m here to discuss the “visual ergonomics” of this post.

Why is justified text so bad on the web? And why do people still use it, despite how terrible it looks? When I was in journalism school I learned how to properly justify text with line breaks, tracking, and other techniques to make sure we didn’t have “rivers” of blank space through the text or other hard-to-read layouts. Is there no way to achieve the same readable outcome today with CSS, or otherwise?

If not, I beg of you: Please don’t use justified text on the web!

Interruptions are productivity and creativity killers. Middle managers are of questionable utility but that layer of an organization would be much more effective if it focused ruthlessly on removing distractions.

I worked at a small company where a significant portion of my effort went toward shielding my team from the distractions created by a CEO who couldn’t seem to help meddling in every aspect of the business. I think it’s because he started out doing, or at least being involved with, many of the functions of the company and had a hard time letting go as we grew. Even after the organization grew to 50+ people he couldn’t keep himself out of the nitty gritty details, but the format of the distraction changed over time. Instead of walking up to people and interrupting them in person (a double whammy according to this study, including both an “important” person and the in-person aspect), he would send what we called “Slack attacks” throughout the day. These were paragraphs-long Slack messages without any semblance of organization, punctuation, or line breaks. Fortunately, many of these messages were sent during the very early hours of the morning so they could be dealt with first thing in the AM, but that wasn’t always the case.

In the first phase I literally moved my team location and reorganized the desk arrangement so it was harder for him to get in and bug everyone. I had to “guard” the area and try to stop him from physically entering the space, which was always a strange dance. I couldn’t control his Slack messaging behavior so I worked with people to understand that while yes “the CEO is asking you for urgent work in Slack” seems like a valid reason to switch gears, but instead let me work to figure out what actually needs to be done and we’ll catch up later about what to do.

It was a weird dynamic but there was no doubt the distractions were a drag on performance. Every time he went on vacation we saw a marked increase in productivity, and more creative solutions seemed to come up as well. I don’t wish this type of environment on anyone but in a way I’m glad to have gone through it and learned some lessons about interruptions and how to avoid them.

So we’re back to the idea that only philosopher kings can shape and rule the ideal world? Plato would be proud!

Jests aside, I love the idea of incorporating an all encompassing AI philosophy built up from the rich history of thinking, wisdom, and texts that already exist. I’m no expert, but I don’t see how this would even be possible. Could you train some LLM exclusively on philosophical works, then prompt it to create a new perfect philosophy that it will then use to direct its “life” from then on? I can’t imagine that would work in any way. It would certainly be entertaining to see the results, however.

That said, AI companies would likely all benefit from a team of philosophers on staff. I imagine most companies would. Thinking deeply and critically has been proven to be enormously valuable to humankind, but it seems to be of dubious value to capital and those who live and die by it.

The fact that the majority of deep thinking and deep work of our time serves mainly to feed the endless growth of capital - instead of the well-being of humankind - is the great tragedy of our time.

I too have survivorship bias that I try to explain away with self serving theories and ideas that pit my special nature against the tendencies of the inferior masses. In my case I literally survived alcoholism after I was lucky enough to come out alive after an accident. I used this as motivation to do the hard work of getting and staying sober. My brain sometimes tells me that I have some special power of “working hard enough to change myself” that has also helped me become an entrepreneur and make other positive changes in my life. I tell myself people sometimes fail because they didn’t go through this and can’t work hard enough to change themselves for the better. In reality it all comes down to luck and circumstance that I was fortunate enough to take advantage of.

In this post the author tries to set up an unassailable scenario where two very similar people end up with strikingly different life outcomes because of “how some of us have chosen to live their lives.” Conveniently, the author is the successful one because he is part of “a small set of humans who don’t act like their lives are predestined.” The majority, and the person he compares himself to, obviously couldn’t succeed without this special character aspect. In reality, it’s the “small set of humans” part that shows the way to the truth. The analysis that says successful people are different because they chose to act differently and not live a “predestined” life ignores all the people who also made that choice without getting lucky and achieving success. It also leaves out the people who lived a “predestined” life and succeeded despite their lack of willpower or special abilities or whatever else we can point to as an explanation.

Like I said, I am victim to the same fallacies in my own reasoning about my life, but I try very hard to overcome them or at least recognize them. The takeaway from this article isn’t that “you are the master of your own fate” but instead something like “be careful when trying to explain your own life’s circumstances, especially when your explanations put you in some special class that only few people have achieved.” Luck, by its very nature, is only for the few.

There are many ways to reason ethically about your situation, and you could start by using historical philosophers as inspiration.

Bentham might apply if you consider the overall outcome: is the work your company does positive or ethical for the majority of people the majority of the time? It seems like the “greatest good for the greatest number” would allow for some small unethical aspects so long as the outcome is good for the majority. This could also be seen as a shortcoming in that philosophy because it justifies some pretty terrible actions for the greater good (some of which, like the Manhattan project and its outcome, are mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

Kant might make you look at your company and imagine that all companies acted that way as a way to reason ethically. If all companies acted the way your company acts would that be good or bad for humanity? Kind of like the golden rule, but more rational.

There are many more to consider but it’s my view that most of them will get you to the point where you probably shouldn’t work for an unethical company, even if your particular work or area of focus is perfectly ethical. Mainly because you working for the company allows or helps it to exist in some way, and we don’t want unethical companies to exist. So maybe you could reason your way into working there if your sole focus was finding a way to destroy the company somehow. Otherwise it’s probably better to work elsewhere.

I think a better title might be “Memorize Exponentially” because that seems to be the true gist of the article.

There are undoubtedly many areas in which memorization is useful. I tend to use memorization as a second-order tool, in the sense that it is only useful to memorize once I’ve learned that memorization would be necessary.

I memorize combinations to locks I unlock frequently. I memorize names of items I sell in my shop so I don’t have to look them up over and over again.

In school I often memorized equations just long enough to get by. The few that are still with me are not those I used most frequently; they are the equations I understood at a visceral level. Obviously this means I am more conversant in Newtonian happenings than quantum concerns, so maybe there is a place for memorization. Or perhaps I lack sufficient experience in the quantum to really feel the laws that govern the smallest realms.

Either way the article paints a dull picture of learning. What of the feeling in the minds and hands of those future carpenters swinging their first hammer blows? What of the deep learning of the pianist that happens only after the transition from the first concerto as audience to the latest as featured virtuoso?

An exponential increase in the type of “learning” furthered by spaced repetition might be useful to some. I still prefer the linear road to understanding.

It was a cool job until the newspaper business imploded.

I have yet to experience anything even remotely close to the buzzing productivity of a newsroom minutes before the press deadline. Election nights were always fun because all the information was coming in later so we had to scramble. Obviously we knew about the time constraints beforehand so we could plan for it to the best of our ability, which of course usually fell to the curse of best laid plans.

I’m nostalgic for slower paced information flow and newspapers remain a near-perfect example.

I was a newspaper layout designer in a previous life. The only complaint I have about HN is the line length on large-ish screens.

In my newspaper days we stuck to around 60 characters as an optimal line length for readability. I've seen up to 80, but even that seems to be pushing it. Once you stretch out the lines so much it's hard to track back and forth from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line.

I'm reading the parent, top-level comment on a Macbook Air with a 13 inch screen and the first line is a whopping 194 characters long. Reading anything of length on this screen is decidedly uncomfortable when browsing HN.

I agree that simplicity is a noble and useful goal, but when it comes at the expense of usability it's hard to swallow.

I love used bookstores and my retail business is right next door to one that I mostly despise. The shelves are literally overflowing and there is no rhyme or reason to shelf organization. The prices are high, which I normally wouldn’t mind because usually it comes with great curation or presentation or a point of view. But this shop has none of those redeeming qualities. The employees also don’t seem to care about reading or books, other than to point out how quickly some categories of books fly off the shelves. It’s all very transactional.

It’s the weirdest experience because I want so badly for it to be like other shops I’ve browsed and loved. I’ve even considered opening my own bookshop down the street to fulfill my desire for a great used book shop in my city. Maybe someday.

The article explains this but the link scrolls to the third paragraph. For anyone who missed it:

If you are a guitarist, you might notice that there is something strange about her technique. She was left-handed, but rather than stringing a guitar in reverse the way lefties usually do, she just played a standard-strung guitar upside down. She had to learn her own idiosyncratic chord shapes, and she played them by alternating bass with her fingers and playing melody notes with her thumb. This must have required some dedication! But none of it is as important as her sound and her material.

Actually the current REI return policy has a time limit of 1 year. It changed in 2013:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rei-now-limiting-retur...

Before that there was no time limit though. I remember becoming a member in 2011 when I moved to a city with a local REI and that was one of the main benefits they pitched. I don’t miss it because I never returned anything after a year (or even a few weeks).

REI started a trade-in program that serves a similar function and probably manages to foil most of the people who would have abused the system in the past. I think it goes well with their overall “earth friendly” ethos and brand identity as well.

https://www.rei.com/used/trade-it-in

According to the 2020 census data linked below the percentage increases to around 24% for individuals who worked full time all year. I don’t think there is any easy way to find the more specific groups you mentioned. That’s not a large enough increase to consider making six figures as easy as “prioritizing” it or whatever you’re proposing.

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/pinc-01/...

In any case what you’re proposing is selection bias. No one should be surprised that people who work full time are more likely to make six figures than those who don’t. And yes, if you cherry pick a group of “professionals” who receive larger salaries of course the percentage will increase. And it’s back to survivorship bias for the “prioritization” examples you mentioned. Unless you happen to have a random sample of people who don’t make six figures but would prefer to.

What if this article is missing the forest for the trees a bit? In my experience performance advertising is almost always paired with awareness advertising. The latter makes you aware of the brand/product/whatever then the former nudges you to act/buy/whatever.

So if you’re buying or even just evaluating performance ads without considering the bigger picture you might come to erroneous conclusions.

Take the Lego Movie example from the article. The $65 million movie is no doubt an awareness play. Could you make the case that you should also increase your performance budget to help capture more of the demand you just generated with the movie? Or should you just hope that people go from the movie theater to buy Lego unprompted? Is it worth it for Lego to advertise to people who walk out of the theater and search for “Lego Batman set” or whatever? I think so, even though evaluating such branded search campaigns individually might make them seem inefficient.

It seems very easy to dismiss the performance advertising as a scam when you evaluate it in a vacuum. As noted in the article it’s important (and very difficult) to understand the incremental outcome of any channel or campaign. That incrementality includes awareness campaigns.

After more than a decade in advertising and marketing I am now more than ever unwilling to accept simple or definitive answers to highly complicated questions. At best I hope that we can unwind some of the overall complexity so we can have a chance to trust some of those definitive answers.

I started working for a newspaper just after 2007-08 hit and hastened the decline of the already struggling industry.

One day, after working diligently on the job for a few months, I pitched my editor an idea for an online-only story with some interesting multimedia elements. He told me I could definitely work on that story “on my own time.” I was an hourly employee so I asked him to clarify if he wanted me to schedule the work around the other stories I was working on at the time. He laughed and told me that he couldn’t justify paying me for any project meant only for the website. I was welcome to work on the story and publish it on my own time of course.

I decided to leave the publication and the overall newspaper industry that day. I still miss the feeling of working in a buzzing newsroom, there’s just nothing like it. Similar to the author, I’m nostalgic for the days when the news cycle was limited by time and column inches.

I don’t think we’re ever going back to anything resembling the heyday of newspaper publishing. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where halfway decent reporting happens then maybe subscribing to the print edition makes sense. Unfortunately I am not so lucky. I read magazines for my “news” and try not to check the headlines too often on my phone.

I grew up with a morning and afternoon daily. I never knew how good I had it. Two comics sections! News stories with same day updates! Imagine such a wonder…

If you were intrigued by the headline and ultimately let down by this post (like me) then I highly recommend reading “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I think Taleb can be polarizing but I find his style approachable and interesting. I also laugh out loud frequently when reading his works, which is decidedly not the case for other books that cover similar topics (trading, probability, etc).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38315

It’s interesting that you chose 2019 to grow, wasn’t that an off year for elections and political spend?

Either way congrats on starting your own agency! I was an early employee at an agency (not focused on politics but likely similar to yours in other ways) and when I started out there were fewer than 5 employees including two founders. It was very top-led in the beginning, but as we grew to 20 people or so that became unsustainable.

At that point it became about building a system instead of trying to get everyone up to the same skill level. At a basic level we decided that we were really working with clients to set expectations and then meeting (and hopefully sometimes exceeding) those expectations. We too had issues with last minute changes, until we changed our contract and statement of work language to specify the framework for making decisions (usually budget/spend/creative related etc) and how those decisions/changes would be implemented. Same thing with mistakes: part of the expectation from both sides was built in time for QA to catch mistakes before they happened. The more you can set up the framework for success early on in the sales/pitch/onboarding the better. And clients will probably like you more for setting up reasonable guardrails in the beginning.

The framework also allowed for some influence/involvement from the top, which was helpful in filling those inevitable skill gaps. We used some version of the framework until we got to about 45 employees, and then it had to change significantly again to fix some of the bottlenecks that were coming from the top down. It also opened up more time for people at the top to work on business development and sales.

I left out a lot of details but overall it took a “systems thinking” mindset to fix issues once we got to a level where the top-down approach was no longer feasible. The system was set up from top down, but once implemented it could basically run itself with a few tweaks throughout the years. Maybe you can focus on setting up those systems instead of trying to level up every employee to be a mirror of you and your partner.

Hiring/firing when there is a strong system in place also seemed easier: look for people who can grasp/appreciate the system and their place in it, give them agency and opportunity to grow within the system, and evaluate them based on the system and the expectations it sets. We almost never lost talent to other agencies and we rarely had to fire anyone. Maybe we were just lucky, or maybe the system did its job!

My two cents on growth/profitability for an agency: The existence of other agencies, however inferior they may be, means there is a limit to how much of a premium your agency can charge. At some point someone with control over the budget is going to balk at your price and go with the competitor who is also saying they can do everything you can do. Which means at some point you will need to grow your client (and employee) roster or be satisfied with stagnating profits.

I read Don Thompson’s “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art” last year. It was published in 2008 (interestingly the day before Lehman went bankrupt) so it felt like I was missing out on some interesting context from the intervening years between publication and my reading. Overall I think it was a decent, if shallow, overview of the market and I learned a lot about one way the rich spend their time and money.

I’d love to see a “tell all” type of story from an insider at an auction house etc but I suspect the gains to be had from publishing are much less attractive than selling art, especially at these astronomical prices.

I check back on Derick Sivers recommendations often at https://sive.rs/book

See below for some recommendations based on my 2020 reading.

Fiction recommendations:

- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book absolutely wrecked me emotionally (in a good way) for weeks after reading it

- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this even more than the Underground Railroad, which was also great. Both also won a Pulitzer for what it’s worth.

- The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. This book gave me a glimpse into what it’s like for Mexicans who immigrate to the US, and the storytelling was just wonderful.

Non-fiction recommendations:

- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Mix together equal parts science, indigenous knowledge and myth, botany, and wonderful writing and you get this book. I love Kimmerer’s voice (both in terms of her writing and her performance of the audiobook) and I read Gathering Moss by her this year as well because she’s just that good.

- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. In my opinion is the definitive book about the atomic bomb and Oppenheimer. I also read The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman and I think that was a pretty good follow up about the arms race and Cold War that came after.

- Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. I knew nothing and cared little about surfing before this book. I couldn’t put it down after I picked it up though. I’ve heard the audiobook is great so I might just read it again in that format because it was that good.

Good luck with your reading!

I would opt in to this. I read 100+ books a year, not all digitally however. If this was real my reading would probably look like this:

1. Buy ebooks and read them at the same rate as I do now 2. Use the proceeds from reading to buy physical copies of the “best” books I want to have a hard copy of for rereading, reference, or gifting

In looking at my read books from 2020 I probably would have purchased hard copies of about 40 out of the 131 books I finished.

So using the example in the post I would get $131 for my reading (assuming I finish 100% of the books I buy). The post doesn’t say anything about the cost of physical books but I could see them priced at 2x the cost of the digital version for $10. That price would put me at $400 for the physical copies, for a net of $269 for the publisher.

That’s obviously less than the publisher would get if I bought all the books outright. However my current book buying strategy is to wait until digital books go on sale to buy, and the physical copies I purchase are 95% second hand from local book shops. So the publisher might actually stand to make more from me with the Kevin Kelly method.

It’s definitely interesting to think about even though I think this scenario is highly unlikely to become a reality.

Fact: You are conflating two separate instances where Trump bullied reporters to make your point.

Instance from 2018 (with what you termed “racist” insinuations): https://youtu.be/OXp5GJjuOvQ

Instance from 2020 actually relating to COVID-19: https://youtu.be/N5NQdmHzBTY

I’m going to take this as a reminder that we should all carefully consider sources of information, even when those sources are our own recollections and experiences.

I agree with your use of “chilling” but more in the traditional sense when it comes to expression: that any censorship/bans/etc will likely have a chilling effect on this type of speech. In this case I think “this type of speech” comes down to people expressing their violent fantasies or plans, and I don’t think it’s bad if we have less of that particular kind of speech. As the classic argument goes, however, you can’t have it both ways with both total freedom of speech and some kind of moderating censorship.

All that said, if we can make our way past the obvious consequences of limiting speech we might get to a more interesting place. In particular I’m more interested in how social media moderation might change our opinions and laws about speech itself. Does everyone’s speech deserve to be treated the same way by the algorithms that decide what gets traction and what doesn’t? Should the algorithms or platforms themselves be restricted in their “speech” in some way? How do we square our desire to allow corporations to develop algorithms to increase commerce when those same algorithms also necessarily foment rage and violence?

I don’t think it’s worth arguing whether free speech is worth protecting (it is, despite the evils you also have to protect) but I do think it’s worth considering how we think about what constitutes speech when commerce, social media platforms, and algorithms come into play.

This is an interesting approach and I hope it results in great work/results/progress in the climate change space.

Are there any other examples of funding at a relatively low dollar amount that have resulted in outsize successes, in this space or others? A $1k grant is great but to me it doesn’t seem like that would be the barrier to getting an idea going. Maybe I’m speaking from a place of privilege and not considering other knock-on effects though so I’d love to know of any other successful examples of small grants like these.

In the meantime I’m going to think of some $1k sized ideas to see if I can come up with anything worth submitting!

Increasing ridership can come from tech but I think it’s much more likely to come from better and more bike-centric infrastructure and norms. Separated bike paths, bike storage, showers at offices/work, etc would all make it much more likely for someone to decide to bike.

We could tell people: Decide to bike and save money. Decide to bike and save health. Decide to bike and save the environment.

We can tell people those reasons now but there is still a huge hurdle, and it has nothing to do with the bikes or technology. What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology? That might work. Is any one company big enough to make a difference if it went at it alone? Probably not.

I don’t look forward to environmental catastrophe but I do think it could help move cycling into more of a mainstream solution. Then perhaps we could have the will to tackle some of the infrastructure and norm issues that keep cycling a hobby at best.

I agree with everything you wrote, and struggle with how to come to grips with my own privilege that allows me to take more risks than others because of a safety net (I do not have a trust fund and could definitely be wiped out if things went downhill, but I trust that my family could help me with a roof over my head and food in my belly).

That said, I think the quote was taken somewhat out of context. Here’s the original paragraph from Altman:

It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US, but this is certainly not the case in other parts of the world—the amount of energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the US is quickly becoming the new benchmark.

The preceding paragraph talks about finding your joy/purpose and working hard at it as well. He also has an entire section about how to make it easy to take risks (cover your basics first) so you can take advantage of any lucky breaks where you could work hard and reap the potential gains. I agree that it is presumptuous to assume that everyone can “cover the basics” and still not have time to work hard on other things and I do think that our society and culture of individualism are to blame.

At the end of the article there’s an HN comment amended that advocates for universal basic income and laments the fact that opportunity is “unevenly distributed.” So there is an acknowledgment of the true problem, even though it’s almost negated by the assertion that since Altman has seen people go from rags to riches it’s definitely “possible.” I hope for more than the “possibility” of success for anyone when they are working hard, and I would hope that everyone else shares that sentiment.

Anyway, it’s a slightly more nuanced take than what was quoted for this article, and it’s probably worth a read in its entirety:

https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

I never took a job just for the pay increase, but I definitely continued down a career path I knew was the wrong one because of the money.

I tried to start multiple companies right out of college and failed at all of them, all while taking any other work I could to pay the bills. Working in a call center was by far the worst of the “other” work I did and it led me to consider getting a “real” job based on my skills and degree.

I ended up convincing an advertising agency to hire me and decided to give it my all, despite my misgivings about the industry in general. I worked hard and even enjoyed some of it, and my title/pay/prestige all followed an upward trend as a result. After the first raise I said it would only be another year. Then I got promoted and I decided it would be another year after that. Then I got another raise and a promotion, then we were acquired, then a few more significant yearly raises after that. At some point I tried to convince myself that this was the right path, but I knew it wasn’t. I still wanted to be my own boss and run my own business.

Seven years later and it was incredibly difficult to justify leaving all that money. I also hadn’t saved particularly well as I instead grew my lifestyle to match the money. None of it made me happy or gave me satisfaction, and I felt tied down to the job. As a solution my wife and I decided to move back to my hometown and start our own business together, even though we had tried to start another business together right after school.

Thankfully this time it worked out, although we still have our disagreements about what the future of the business looks like. My advice to everyone is slightly different: chase the money if the opportunity arises, but don’t change your lifestyle. And keep working on other things on the side if you can. Maybe I wouldn’t have progressed as much in my “real” career had I had other side hustles, but I’m sure it would have been a less painful path than the one I took.

I am doing this now with my wife. We are aligned on many areas relating to the business but, as you can imagine, we don’t align perfectly all the time. Usually we can work it out but not always.

Example: Our company is a small retail business in my hometown. I want it to be more than that and my wife would be happy if we kept things the same, so long as finances allow (they should, barring some unforeseen catastrophe).

So we are aligned on nearly every “important” aspect of the work except this one. It’s tough because one of us either has to become aligned with the other’s views, or has to work without that alignment if that’s not possible.

I feel very privileged to have this kind of problem as opposed to not being able to pay the bills etc, but it still feels bad at times. I think that’s life though, where you need some of the bad to appreciate the good.

My paternal grandmother has Alzheimer’s, just like her mother before her, and it makes me worry for my father, myself, and my brother. I am often hyper vigilant to any perceived changes in my dad’s mental acuity and I worry that it hurts our relationship, even though I try to stay focused on the current moments I’m enjoying with him at any given time.

So far all seems well with my dad other than some expected age-related slowdowns in memory and processing, at least from my perspective. I can’t imagine what it would be like to deal with this so early in life.

I read “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande this year and it was very helpful in some of the conversations I’ve since had with my family about the future and how we should think about death. I wouldn’t have had the courage to ask my parents what they cared about in life and in death before reading the book, and for that courage I am grateful. I recommend it to everyone because death is the only fate we all share.

I also feel more focused today, but I don’t think it’s because of any of the platitudes in this post. I think it is actually because of circumstance and has nothing to do with conviction, divergence, convergence or anything else in the article.

I think it’s more like the feeling you get in times of real and potentially catastrophic danger, when the brain slows down time perception and you focus in on the situation and how to survive.

I once felt this when I accidentally backed into and fell about 25 feet into a 50-foot drainage pit. As I fell I had the time to map out the pit in my mind and think about what I suspected, but didn’t know, could be parts of its construction like drainage pipes and other dangers to my falling body. Based on those thoughts I decided to curl my legs underneath me and pitch my upper body forward in hopes that I could land with my lower body first instead of headfirst. My brain also had time to complete one of those “life flashes before your eyes” compilations and I felt an upswell of emotion around images of me and my family, especially my mother for some reason. I hit the water mostly feet first and made my way back to the surface, then swam to a safety ladder as my manager yelled at me to get the hell out of the pit immediately. He later told me that the pit was indeed lined with drainage pipes and that I was incredibly lucky not to have landed on any of them.

I have no recollection of any of the actual physical aspects of the fall and I didn’t immediately thereafter either. All of my focus was inward, and - impossibly - I had enough time to both think about how to fall the best way and to reminisce about the life I might soon be leaving. It was only because of the circumstances that was possible, and I’ve only felt similarly during other high stakes situations like a car accident since then.

It seems like an immediate and physiological response to danger and the extreme narrowing of potential futures (life or death), and one that countless others have detailed throughout history. The end result is an incredibly narrow focus that completely changes everything from perception of time to clarity of thought and emotion. I think the same is true on a more macro scale of life, where it’s much easier to focus when potential futures are limited.

Right now my potential futures (and the related decisions, thoughts, anxieties, workload, etc associated with each of them) have been artificially limited because of the pandemic. I have vastly fewer options in almost every area of life as a result. And with the removal of all those extraneous potential areas of focus or distraction I end up with a surplus of focus for whatever I’m working on or toward. I’ve been working toward the same exact things and nothing has changed to make them more of the “right” things to focus on, and yet my focus is undeniably much stronger because of a lack of other things to focus on.

When the horizons inevitably expand I expect to be in the same position as I was before, looking and mostly failing to find focus for what I need to work on. I don’t plan on casting about for something else that will hold my focus, but instead I hope to bring this newfound perspective to bear and try to somehow artificially narrow my options so that I can bring my focus back. If anyone has any suggestions for just how to do so I’d love to hear them.