The map that informs our driving recalculates the route after a wrong turn incredibly fast. It’s unbothered. We turn into a cul-de-sac, and it doesn’t judge: instead, it simply advises us to make a U-turn. While we cannot recompose plans and re-strategise at the speed of algorithmic engines, we can adopt the same attitude when a plan fails (regardless of why it does): we reassess the situation, come up with a new plan, and get there at the newly established earliest point.

Who would’ve thought we’d be learning optimal professional behaviour from unaware machines?

Human learning

Falling behind is much easier than staying the course. Indeed, staying the course is only easier than catching up, which is almost unfeasible. The target keeps growing more distant, the work accumulates into daunting piles, and the difficulty of the task becomes insurmountable.

Yet, there is something that’s almost as effortless as falling behind: getting back on our feet. Not getting back to where we’d planned to be by now, but getting back up, ready to go again.

We may get there later than expected, but we may get there after all.

Getting there after all

The etymology of the word parliament points to “talking” and “discussing”. Indeed, only a hundred years ago, politicians argued and discussed, and even changed their minds during parliamentary sessions. Imagine that: a member of a party being convinced by a member of another to vote against the party line, or to influence and change the party line.

It is sad that it sounds so implausible, so incredible, these days. Politics has become a pantomime, and it has opened the gates for those traditionally constrained by universal suffrage to get rid of it with impunity.

The pantomime and the gates

Forming a group for a shared interest is one of the best decisions I have made. As one may guess, the hardest part is scheduling meetings. Of course, the reason for the difficulty is that each member is also a member of other groups. We all do different things. We aren’t just readers, writers, musicians, programmers or storytellers. Each of us can be all of those things and an infinite number of others at the same time.

Arguably, it is the aspects we don’t have in common that make the group more fascinating. Everyone brings that spice of individuality that makes the group special. Therefore, it follows that adding new blood to a group is a healthy practice. Yet, we also fear it. What if the new blood dilutes the old blood? What if it turns us into something else, something we’re not so fond of?

Stagnation is never the answer. Conservatism is futile. Everything changes. We might as well have a hand in the mutation.

New blood

Some of the people I have the most respect for have lived abroad, wherever abroad may be in relation to where they come from. They may share nothing else, but there it is, the common ground of having inhabited uncommon ground.

We spot each other quickly, forming bonds that tend to be fast in both the rapid and resilient meanings of the word.

Unsurprisingly, such individuals are open-minded, embrace doubt and uncertainty, and question the reality they inhabit. Perhaps even more unsurprisingly, they aren’t welcome in the polarised world of ever wealthier tycoons.

Uncommon ground dwellers

Some formulae make storytelling better. Anyone who has read enough has an understanding of storytelling techniques. Overdoing it, though, while it may prove profitable, subtracts from any story.

A solution—and paradoxically perhaps a technique in itself—is adding randomness to a narrative. Throw the dice, spin the wheel, ask someone for an arbitrary occurrence, then add that pinch of chaos to the well-crafted plot. Drama ensues almost inevitably, even if the storyteller must wrestle with the difficulty of attaining coherence, perhaps because of it.

And shouldn’t that inform some of our life choices, too?

Martian Thoughts

Human learning

Getting there after all

The pantomime and the gates

New blood

Uncommon ground dwellers

Adding chaos to the formula