Destiny’s Quite “Psst”

Both destiny’s kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person’s basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can’t even hear because you’re in such a rush to or from something important you’ve tried to engineer.
— David Foster Wallace

Listen to that still, quite voice in the back of the mind. It might be your destiny trying to get your attention.

A Sense of Urgency

ur•gen•cy
1. importance requiring swift action
2. an earnest and persistent quality; insistence

The difference between a productive day and a non-productive day is a sense of urgency. Today was a good day.

 

It’s a good time to be an introvert …

… in the last ten years or so, there’s been a major economic resurgence for introversion—the “geek” economy. The prototypical geek is really good at thinking, has superb powers of concentration (which tends to be an introvert trait), and works very well independently. They’re often pretty awesomely brilliant people, and they’re fairly defiant about being geeks. They’ve turned this word “geek” into a term that’s almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they’ve been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what’s happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun.

In 2003 Jonathan Rauch wrote a short essay for The Atlantic called Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little understood group. The reaction was overwhelming.

In 2006, The Atlantic followed up with Jonathan in an article and interview titled Introverts of theWorld, Unite!

In 2011 it is as true as ever. It’s a good time to be an introvert.

If You Want To Build a Ship …

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

 

Via Wordsmith.org

Here’s To The Crazy Ones

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

This is from an Apple ad shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the mid 90′s. It always brings a tear to my eye. Adweek has paid homage by adding Steve Jobs to his rightful place amongst these crazy ones.

Here’s the original ad: