It’s been 10 years since I started blogging. And for much of it I didn’t really know what the theme was. I was just trying to figure out what I thought about things, mostly things having to do with how technology was disrupting society (and the legal profession, of course).
I’m fascinated by how people react to change.
As we get older we cling to familiar ways, and resist new ones. We all have this tendency, me included. But, over the years, as I paid more attention to “how things tend to work,” I realized that resisting change is not a helpful strategy.
Change is ubiquitous and inevitable.
Everything in the Universe is constantly changing. Interestingly, the stuff we humans have created (e.g. computers, mobile phones, the Internet, GPS etc.) is making the pace of change go much faster. The Darwinian mantra for most species on Earth has been “Adapt or die.” The new mantra for the tech-laden world that we’ve created is: “Adapt quickly, or become disoriented and irrelevant.”
I don’t like being disoriented, so I try to keep up with technology-driven change.
I’ve been thinking about what the theme of this blog should be from now on. It shouldn’t be just about technology, or just about change. I want to talk about fundamental insights, and how we acquire them. Are there some really key insights? If so, what are they? These are the most useful questions to ask, it seems to me.
We have limited lifespans, and we can’t control much of our world (certainly not the way we hope to, or pretend to). But there are some things we can control pretty well, and we should focus on those things so we can create better lives.
The passage in this ancient text says it best:
As irrigators guide water to their fields,
as archers aim arrows,
as carpenters carve wood,
the wise shape their lives.
So the core question is this: what kinds of things can we control to shape our lives better?
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