And prepare for death.
Posted: July 17, 2016 Filed under: #aardvark, #hughcards, 2016, Uncategorized Comments Off on And prepare for death.
More thoughts from the #hughbook etc.]
YOU WILL DIE ONE DAY
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” -Samuel Johnson.
“To study philosophy is to learn how to die.” –Cicero.
“Be happy while you’re living, for a you’re a long time dead.” –Scottish proverb.
“Life is short. Make it amazing.” – @gapingvoid cartoon.
The British author, John Mortimer once described Life as “A tiny blip of time, separating two vast expanses of eternity”.
The insanely brilliant stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius famously coined the phrase, “Live every day as if it were your last, for one day it will be.”
The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell thought that religion came about once human beings first became aware of their own mortality.
Ain’t that the truth. I believe all these great thinkers were right on the money, in their own way.
Without death, life would have no meaning. It is death that gives life its edge. And it’s that edge that gives life its meaning. That gives us the experience of being alive. Which is what the meaning of life is really all about.
To know life, is to know death. And maybe, just maybe, be OK with it.
Now go do good work, with all your heart. Yes.
You don’t need to do it full time.
Posted: July 16, 2016 Filed under: #aardvark, Uncategorized Comments Off on You don’t need to do it full time.More thoughts from the #hughbook etc.]
More thoughts from the #hughbook etc.]
YOU DON’T NEED TO DO IT FULL TIME
You don’t need to do it eight hours a day.
An hour or two before breakfast is plenty. After few years it starts to add up.
The rest of the time, you can actually go out and interact with the real world, make a proper living, act like a grownup.
I did all my best work when I had a day job, when I had to “steal time” to get it done.
Stealing time made it more satisfyingly urgent and real, somehow,.
Sure, your bohemian friends will call you a sell-out if you take this route.
Fuck ‘em.
Get yourself a Creation Myth
Posted: July 16, 2016 Filed under: #aardvark, Uncategorized Comments Off on Get yourself a Creation Myth
More thoughts from the #hughbook etc.]
GET YOURSELF A “CREATION MYTH”.
1. A very dated-looking photograph from 1978. Eleven young, goofy-looking techies. They turn out to be the founding members of Microsoft, including Bill Gates.
2. Michael Dell founding his computer empire in his dorm room at the University of Texas.
3. Ben & Jerry’s started making ice cream in a converted gas station in Vermont.
4. The business guru, Tom Peters often writes about how his time as a young man serving in the US Navy helped evolve his now-famous worldview.
5. The Beatles playing those early gigs at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.
6. The famous tech blogger, Robert Scoble talking about his job working in a discount camera store, back when he was a kid, and how that informed his career.
7. How a bunch of young, angry social misfits start a small nightclub, the Cabaret Voltaire, in 1916 Zurich [at the height of World War One] and in the process invent Dada, one of the 20th Century’s most influential art movements.
8. Abe Lincoln was born in a log cabin.
9. Mssrs. Hewlett and Packard starting a elecctronics firm in a garage in Palo Alto.
So… What do these all have in common?
They’re all Creation Myths. That’s right; just like The Garden of Eden.
We humans seem to need them, somehow. They manage to articulate who we really are, somehow. The help explain our core values, somehow.
And for whatever reason, REALLY successful people are even more likely to have them, even more likely to need them, somehow.
Does your schtick have a good creation myth? If not, maybe it needs one?
Think about it.
On joining a “Scenius”
Posted: July 16, 2016 Filed under: #aardvark, Uncategorized Comments Off on On joining a “Scenius”
More thoughts from the #hughbook etc.]
ON JOINING A “SCENIUS”:
1. Eventually the rock stars leave when they no longer need you.
That’s what Bob Dylan did with the Greenwich Village folk scene. That’s what Madonna and Keith Haring did with the New York downtown scene. Ditto Kerouac and Ginsberg with the Beatniks.
And the ones who get left behind… feel left behind. So they spend the next couple of decades droning on about how great the scene was before so-and-so sold out etc. I can think of better ways to spend one’s later years.
2. Sceniuses have short lives. Very short lives.
The first year, nobody knows what’s happening. The final year, nobody notices the thing ending. In between that, you have maybe one to three years of people doing cool stuff in the spirit of mutual cooperation. Then the hangers-on move in and take over like weeds, the whole thing becomes tedious, the aforementioned rock stars move to Hollywood, and everything implodes.
3. A scenius is a great place to launch a career, not a great place to sustain one.
Like the previous point says, people move on, and move on quickly. So you need to be ready for when it happens.
4. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal at the time.
Me and my former scenius pals spend a lot of time on Facebook nowadays, posting old pictures from the scenius years, talking about how amazing and fun those times were.
The thing is, they may have been the best of times, we just didn’t know it then. We were too busy trying to hold down day jobs and pay rent and get laid and all that other day-to-day crap to notice. Had we known how special a time it was, we probably would’ve spent less time being miserable and insecure.
5. It’s nastier, more cliquey and more political than people like to admit.
Yeah, it’s junior high school repeating itself. Especially if the scenius revolves around a charismatic leader a-la Andy Warhol or Andre Breton. You have been warned.
6. You can’t plan for it to happen.
You may think the crowd you’re hanging out with is the most culturally significant group of party people since Max’s Kansas City, but the more seriously you believe this, the more likely you’re wrong.
