Machina

There's nothing worse than when you have to do something that's difficult. Having to do something that's easy? That's not so bad. Wanting to do something difficult? That's not so bad either, after all, you want to do it. But if you really don't want to do something that you have to do, and on top of that it's extremely difficult, it's not going to happen. Instead, you'll find ways to alter the task such that the person handing down the orders won't notice, and then do the task, which is now easier or more enjoyable, and if the results pass muster, you're left with what you should have been asked to do to begin with.

A human being will never be a machine. If you try to get a person to behave like machinery to produce a complicated product, it's not going to come out right. Sure, it might be good enough, but the human aspect of the production process will work its way in somehow.

So how do you, as a leader, circumnavigate such difficulties? You alter the task in a way that makes it suitable for a human to process. And you may not be able to specify things perfectly in terms of this new framework, but if you can, the results will be much more reliable.

The problem is it's too inefficient to treat a human being like a human being. Too inefficient to judge people by their merits. So we treat them like machines, not realizing that we've only offset the inefficiencies directly into the workplace.

(Probably for the same reason fancy pottery breaks like that.)

That something so grand as the human intellect exists in so fragile a physical state is perhaps nature's cruelest joke of all.

Darwin's Helicopter

"Incredible!" he shouted, as the wind sliced through his fettered hair. "I can't believe it! I'm flying!"

Darwin threw his arms outward, soaring over the crashing waves below. It had not taken him long to realize his dream, for he had come to realize what few dared to think: that life could adapt. That life could change. That nothing prevented nature from tinkering with her own creation, leaving circumstance to determine her successes and her failures. That the form of life was not confined to the mold God had created it from: that it could stretch out, spread its wings, and realize its true potential.

Moreover, Darwin had dared to ask a question that man had asked throughout the ages: could a man fly? Could a man shed the confines of the Earth and soar amongst the birds, and experience the heavens firsthand? Throughout history, man had turned to mysticism for the hope of flight, but Darwin knew better. Darwin saw the world for what it really was. His precious finches had taught him much, but their final contribution would prove as tantalizing as his theory of natural selection: the knowledge of flight.

It had long been presumed that a natural, physical basis for flight was what lifted the birds to the skies, but it was a phenomenon that had escaped the understanding of man. Darwin, however, had gained an intimate understanding of the finches that he studied on the Galapagos Islands, and it was not long before careful observation had led him to the conclusion that the substance of the wind was present in the air all around us. It simply required an appropriate tool for its harvest.

Darwin's finches had such a tool: their wings. With these simple structures they were able to generate their own 'wind,' and use it to sail through the air as a ship does the seas. But surely such a privilege belonged only to the birds. Surely a flightless creature such as a man could not be permitted by nature such an unnatural right?

Darwin's eyes had been opened. Knowing the secret of the birds and knowing that nature was not so confined an arena, Darwin took to work. Through his uncle he was able to commission the building of a machine of flight, one that a man could adhere to himself and thus adapt himself to the environment of his dreams! For many months Darwin worked, knowing that his machine would change the world. It would guide the evolution of man!

Of course, if nature has indeed guided the evolution of man since the beginning of time, it has been by a cruel means. For every successful adaptation there have been countless failures, and Darwin, being an intelligent man, came to this realization as he plummeted downward, aided by whatever awful contraption he had strapped to his back, into a jagged precipice of irony and death.

Suburban Vista

Surely you've driven through these new neighborhoods. The ones that are miles across, spanning entire valleys, filled with mass-produced homes consisting of a handfull of designs. And you see the wives, and the cars, and the gardeners, and street after street of the exact same thing, and it becomes eerie how much capitalism at its finest can look like communism.

I think, therefore I am, therefore I think?

So I'm watching my fellow students, and I notice how thoroughly most of them depend on one another for their sense of self vindication. I see it in their facial expressions. I see it in the way they dress (alike). I see it in the way they talk to one another without any attempt at being genuine. And I take solace in the fact that I am not so dependent upon others. That I define my actions and my desires. And this leads me to a strange question: how is it that I define myself? What I mean is: how can anything possibly define itself? I think I've been duped.

Just because she's prettier, doesn't mean she's not still pretty.

Juxtaposition: the general arrangement of everything you want relative to the one thing you really want.

I've always assumed that I would be the one to get what I truly desire out of life, leaving the rest to waste their years questioning whether they possess the necessary will and resolve to get behind everything they tell themselves. I see such people in all walks of life. They cannot hope for more out of fear of losing what they have. They cannon take the leap. In recognizing these people, I have led myself to believe that I am merely an observer to this depressing psychological phenomena.

The missing information leading to such a naïve conclusion has proven to be a factor of scale: the problem, as perceived incorrectly, is that of the fear of trading the comfortable for the uncomfortable, of one for the other. However, the world will not stand to have things so simply arranged. Up the ante: everything in exchange for the one thing greater than any one thing you have.

Why not have it all? It seems as though the higher we go in our list of desires, the greater the number of incompatibilities with everything below.

To follow your dreams will lead you away from your home and your friends. To follow your love will lead you away from every other person who has ever kept you up at night.

Are great men known for everything they've done? Or are they known for the one great thing that they threw everything else away for?

I wholeheartedly sympathize with everyone who succumbs to their fear.