Follow Your Talent
“People conflate a lack of focus with a lack of talent. Intelligence and talent are correlated with success, but the strongest signal of future success is your perseverance and resilience: what the books in airport bookstores call “grit.” Unless you are supremely disciplined, your career will have to be something that gives you some enjoyment, but don’t mistake focus for your “passion.” People who tell you to follow your passion are already rich: Follow your talent. The accoutrements that accompany being great at something (relevance, admiration, camaraderie, money) will make you passionate about whatever “it” is.”
Also, this from the same piece:
“Sector dynamics will trump your talent (I realize how awful that sounds). However, someone of average talent at Google has done better over the last decade than someone great at General Motors. Be thoughtful … any opportunity you have when you are young to choose among different paths is a profound blessing.” (Scott Galloway)
__________
Remote Work
Interesting analogy…
“Referring to the internet as an “information superhighway” is retro in the most cringeworthy way. But here, the metaphor seems apt. Decades after the construction of the U.S. highway system allowed high-income families to move from downtowns to the distant suburbs, Zoom might do the same. Remote work could do to America’s residential geography in the 2020s what the highway did in the 1950s and ’60s: spread it out.” (The Atlantic)
__________
Task Masters
“Moravec’s Paradox describes the observation that our AI systems can solve “adult-level cognitive” tasks like chess-playing or passing text-based intelligence tests fairly easily, while accomplishing basic sensorimotor skills like crawling around or grasping objects – things one-year old children can do – are very difficult.
Anyone who has tried to build a robot to do anything will realize that Moravec’s Paradox is not a paradox at all, but rather a direct corollary of our physical reality being so irredeemably complex and constantly demanding. Modern humans traverse millions of square kilometers in their lifetime, a labyrinth full of dangers and opportunities. If we had to consciously process and deliberate all the survival-critical sensory inputs and motor decisions like we do moves in a game of chess, we would have probably been selected out of the gene pool by Darwinian evolution. Evolution has optimized our biology to perform sensorimotor skills in a split second and make it feel easy.” (Eric Jang)
__________
Taxes
“Everything we do has a toll attached to it. Waiting around is a tax on traveling. Rumors and gossip are the taxes that come from acquiring a public persona. Disagreements and occasional frustration are taxes placed on even the happiest of relationships. Theft is a tax on abundance and having things that other people want. Stress and problems are tariffs that come attached to success.” (Ryan Holiday)
__________
Proudest Monkey
“Proudest Monkey” is my favorite DMB song – and this is an extraordinary version featuring Hugh Masekela on the trumpet. I love the way the energy builds as the song crescendos. Almost as noteworthy as Masekela’s contribution is the blistering guitar performance by Tim Reynolds.
Proudest Monkey Live in Johannesburg with Hugh Masekela
Before you could just look up the words to a song on the internet, I’m pretty sure I thought the first line was “Sweet innocent tree”…which kind of works too! Here are the lyrics:
Swing in this tree
Oh I am bounce around so well
Branch to branch,
limb to limb you see
All in a day’s dream
I’m stuck
Like the other monkeys here
I am a humble monkey
Sitting up in here again
But then came the day
I climbed out of these safe limbs
Ventured away
Walking tall, head high up and singing
I went to the city
Car horns, corners and the gritty
Now I am the proudest monkey you’ve ever seen
Monkey see, monkey do
Then comes the day
Staring at myself I turn to question me
I wonder do I want the simple, simple life that I once lived in well
Oh things were quiet then
In a way they were the better days
But now I am the proudest monkey you’ve ever seen
Monkey see, monkey do
Monkey see, monkey do
– Dave Mathews Band “Proudest Monkey”