The Beginning
Introducing Twentitude
2020 made it obvious the future won't be like the past. Perhaps people felt like this in 1914 and 1939 too. But 2020 is not 1939. We aren’t rushing into a world war (yet! 🤞🏾), but in a clever plot twist, the challenges of the future are outside the human realm. The virus doesn’t care about IPOs and stock options. Neither does climate change. Humans have to adapt to a brave new world in which they are both the prime movers 🚘 and the prime target 🎯.
What's it going to take to flourish in the coming decade - perhaps the most important in all of human history? Do we have the creativity and the wisdom to solve the wicked problems of the future?
Tidbits
Assassination Drone
While you were waiting for Amazon to chopper your groceries, nimble entrepreneurs were making a killing.
The Last Mushroom in the World
Mushrooms aren't 'mushrooms.' Wait, what? Mushrooms aren't standalone living beings in the way trees and plants are, even though we are inclined to believe so. They are more like sprouts blooming out of a vast underground fungal network. Forest freckles.
People
Burn baby burn
I am more interested in people creating a better world, but in this first letter I'm going to highlight a fantastic essay about a man with one of the worst reputations in history - you need to know what to avoid when creating a 'personal brand' don't you?
No one has had a worse rap than Nero, the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned. This article says: yes, true and it was awful but what if he was a failed fiddler? What if he responding as an artist facing a tragedy?
Failed artist isn't the best excuse for Hitler was one too, but Nero's justification might have been better. Read this long article with an open mind.
Ideas
The Rise and Fall of Creativity
Creativity is everywhere. Companies hire CCOs alongside CEOs, but it's a term with a short history. No one talked about the Creative Class in 1800 while everyone does so now. Why?
Science
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
Breathing is primarily controlled by the autonomous nervous system, which is outside of cerebral control. A good thing for otherwise you would have to get up every second instead of sleeping through the night. Dolphins sleep one hemisphere at a time - swimming with one eye open and surfacing to breathe with the one awake hemisphere.
Highlight
A Pattern Language
A Pattern Language is one of my favorite books. Christopher Alexander is an architect, but his impact on software architecture has been a lot more influential than his impact on physical architecture.
This week's highlight is a summary of Alexander's work.
Alexander is a mathematician by training but he often talks in a religious vein - read his Timeless Way of Building to get a taste of his mystical style. Harmony between the built environment and the natural world is a big theme in Alexander's work.
His seminal book is the highlight of the first issue of Twentitude because we should adopt some of Alexander's ideas to build a better world.
Futures
Blockeley
Students and parents across the world have had to deal with remote 'education' during the pandemic. All the more important to respond with creativity and imagination. I thought UC-Berkeley students' recreation of their commencement ceremony in Minecraft was awesome.
DIY
The 1% tax: a mindfulness technique
Here's a typical guided meditation:
One method is to sit in a straight-backed chair or sit cross-legged on the floor or a cushion, close one's eyes and bring attention to either the sensations of breathing in the proximity of one's nostrils or to the movements of the abdomen when breathing in and out.
Here's a modified version of this practice. I call it the 1% tax. It should take 2 minutes each time, ten minutes/day.
- Set an alarm for every two hours.
- When the alarm rings, stop whatever you're doing (the obvious caveats apply - unless you're driving etc)
- Write down a single word - the thought or emotion you were having when the alarm rang; ~ 10 seconds.
- Scan your body and notice what you're feeling; ~ 20 seconds.
- Sit down or stand up and bring your attention to the passing of breath on your nostrils; ~ 1 minute.
- Quit.
Try it for a few days and see what you notice about yourself!
