vineri, 15 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : Apocalypse soon



Apocalypse soon

It's a bug in our operating system, and one that's amplified by the media.

I'm listening to a speech from ten years ago, twenty years ago, forty years ago... "During these tough times... these tenuous times... these uncertain times..." And we hear about the urgency of the day, the bomb shelters, the preppers with their water tanks, the hand wringing about the next threat to civilization.

At the same time that we live in the safest world that mankind has ever experienced. Fewer deaths per capita from all the things that we worry about.

Risky? Sure it is. Every moment for the last million years has been risky. The risk has moved from Og with a rock to the chronic degeneration of our climate, but it's clear that rehearsing and fretting and worrying about the issue of the day hasn't done a thing to actually make it go away. Instead, we amplify the fear, market the fear and spread the fear as a form of solace, of hiding from taking action, of sharing our fear in a vain attempt to ameliorate it.

When we get nostalgic for past eras, for their culture or economy or resources, it's interesting that we never seem to get nostalgic for their fears.

       

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joi, 14 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : The foggy mirror



The foggy mirror

Most people can't resist a mirror. It makes the wait for an elevator more palatable, and we can't help checking--how do I look?

In many ways, though, this is futile, because we can never know how we look through other people's eyes.

No one else has lived your life, heard all of your jokes, experienced your disappointments, listened to the noise in your head. As a result, no one else sees you (and your actions) quite the way you do.

And, to magnify the disconnect, every single person has their own narrative, so even when two people see you at the same time, they have different interpretations of what just happened, what was just said.

The same goes for brands and organizations. No one has experienced your brand or your product the way you have. They don't know about the compromises and choices that went into it. They don't understand the competitive pressures or the mis-steps either.

Even the best quality mirror tells you very little. It doesn't make a lot of sense to focus on this sort of grooming if you want to understand what customers or friends are going to see. Far better to watch what they do.

(But yes, you do have a little green thing stuck in your teeth).

       

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miercuri, 13 aprilie 2016

Seth's Blog : Sharpening failure



Sharpening failure

Losing the election by ten votes or by a million--which is worse?

"Missed it by that much," is a way to amplify how we feel when we don't succeed. So, when we miss the bus by just a few seconds, or finish a math proof just behind the competition--we can beat ourselves up about this for years.

Much rarer, it seems, is the opposite. It's hard to find people still congratulating themselves after winning an election by just a few votes or making a plane by a step or two. Nice that it happened, but we ask what's next, where's the next crisis?

We have a name for someone who expects the worst in the future. Pessimism is a choice. But we don't seem to have a name for someone who describes the past with the same negative cast.

It's a dangerous trap, the regular reminders of how we've failed, but how close we've come to winning. It rarely leads us to prepare more, to be more adroit or dedicated. Instead, it's a form of hiding, a way to insulate ourselves from the next, apparently inevitable failure.

The universe is not laughing at us. It doesn't even know we exist. 

Go ahead and celebrate the wins, then get back to work. Same for mourning the losses. All we can do is go forward.

 

       

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