I'm writing to think, learn, and remember in public. I'll be here everyday.
Time seems to accelerate as we age.
One year for a 10-year-old is 10% of his life.
One year for a 20-year-old is 5%.
One year for a 40-year-old is 2.5%.
If you get to 80, it’s down to 1.25%.
Each year is less important in terms of percentage, but also, each year lived provides so many more opportunities. The 10-year-old just hasn’t enough years yet. The 80-year-old has had exponentially more.
What are you filling your years with?
The time is yours.
As a child of the 70’s and 80’s, many of my inputs were curated without my having any control.
My parents, of course, were the initial curators of just about all inputs. Record labels and radio station programming directors initially curated my music, but then, luckily, my bass player and his infinite library of imported vinyl augmented that curation. The big three VHF stations and two little UHF stations curated my TV choices, then cable TV arrived in semi-rural Pennsylvania, and the curator list expanded greatly. The local newspaper and evening news show curated my current events inputs. The public school curated the 3 R’s and my history inputs. My mom’s cooking, plus the limited selection of restaurants in our geography, curated my food inputs. Any exposure I gained to inputs from other cultures, food, or worldviews came through our vacations or curated by my Dad’s adventures as a corporate pilot.
I don’t feel like I missed anything (important). I don’t feel like I needed more choice. But I also recognize that curation shaped who I was and am. Curation is important because curating your inputs affects your mental health, energy, perspective, knowledge, and outlook.
In today’s world, it’s harder than ever to curate your inputs, and it requires frequent attention. Plus, you run the risk of building an echo chamber around you.
Can AI solve the problem?
Oh, for sure, AI will be (already is) curating your inputs. If done properly, AI will definitely solve the problem. Let’s be careful, though. We need to follow the incentives.
Who’s incentivized? What are they trying to achieve? Who’s in control?
AI has no awareness. It doesn’t know what it’s doing. But it’s really good at curation.
My wife and I spent a long weekend in Austin last fall to celebrate our 30th anniversary.
We stayed in an Airbnb in a sleepy little neighborhood a couple blocks east of the famous Franklins BBQ. We’d walk back from the downtown area each night (not that late because we’re not that young) and see them cruising around. A pack of three. Tightly knit. Just spinning around the empty streets in the neighborhood. Coming back around every few minutes. Dutifully obeying all of the traffic rules like a newbie teenager with the instructor and his clipboard wearing a stern expression in the passenger seat. They never got in our way and even stopped noticeably short when we crossed the street in front of them. But it was disarming to see them.
Driverless cars. Chevy Cruise’s to be exact. Testing. Learning. Figuring it out.
Even if you know nothing of ChatGPT, you probably know about driverless cars. And you probably have an opinion. Most of the loud opinions are negative.
Maybe, “I’d never get in a car without a driver!”
Or, “Nobody’s taking the wheel away from me!”
Or, “Ain’t no way a machine can drive better than me!”
In 2023, fully autonomous, driverless (or, more accurately, AI-driven) cars logged 3.3 million miles in California alone. Waymo, the largest driverless car company, has logged 7.1 million miles since its inception. Over that time, it has recorded three minor incidents. If humans had logged those same miles in the same areas, we would expect around 13 injury crashes.
Testing. Learning. Figuring it out.
Fully autonomous cars driven by AI are coming. It’s not an if. It’s a when. Maybe not in my lifetime, but it’s coming.
For now, AI continues on the path of testing, learning, and figuring it out.
I hate cars.
OK, let me qualify that. I love life with a car — the freedom, flexibility, and utility that a car provides for me. I certainly wouldn’t want to have no car. At least not where I currently live. Also, the engineer in me really likes cars and all of their mechanisms and software.
But I hate cars. I hate shopping for them, buying them, selling them, registering them, fixing them, parking them, putting gas in them (or, if I had an EV, which I will someday, I’d hate charging them), and cleaning them. It feels like I spend all of my money on my cars.
And, unfortunately, I have a pile of them. Five to be exact. Ask me some other time.
Americans love cars, or rather, pickup trucks. Americans bought 15.5 million new vehicles in 2023, with the top three selling vehicles being the Ford F-series, Chevy Silverado, and the RAM pickup. The first EV, the Tesla Y, shows up at number 5, and the first car, the Camry, tops the list at 8.
Even though it feels like I spend all of my money on cars, I don’t. The average American household spent 12.8% of their income on transportation. I looked at my own data, and I’m right around there myself.
I guess its like so much else in my life. What it feels like and what the data says rarely align.
So much of modern life is about managing acquisition.
Partner, friends, job, wealth, kids, pets, food, clothing, vehicles, house, trinkets. Look around.
What is the opposite of acquisition? Disposal? Loss?
Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, it seems to me that managing the opposite of acquisition is an underrated human skill.
What if, instead of telling people they are weak, we allow them to be strong?
What if, instead of telling people they need help, we allow them to help themselves?
What if, instead of telling people to blame, we allow them to take responsibility?
What if, instead of telling people to fit in, we allow them to stand out?
What if, instead of telling people they can’t, we allow them to?
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
– Matthew 5:13
Add value.
Live amongst those that add value. Work with those that add value. Surround yourself with those that add value.
Adding value doesn’t require academic intelligence. It doesn’t require special skills, a college degree, or a certification. It doesn’t require a particular worldview or faith. It doesn’t require money. It doesn’t require voting for a particular person or party. It doesn’t require privilege. It doesn’t require followers. It doesn’t require a particular kind of job or business. It doesn’t require activism. It doesn’t require data. It doesn’t require a particular type of diet.
It just requires caring about someone or something else and then acting. Add value to one other person or billions of others. Size doesn’t matter.
Do it humbly. Show empathy. Have a pure heart.
Sometimes, I think we’ve lost the thread.
I was young
I was a hockey player.
I was a drummer.
I was a triathlete.
I was a coach.
I was a father of small children.
I was a college student.
I was a hardcore engineer.
I am middle-aged.
I am a runner and cyclist.
I am a husband.
I am a father of adult children.
I am a student of life.
I am a leader of engineers.
I am an employee.
I am a community member.
I am an observer.
I will be old.
I will be a writer.
I will be a grandfather.
I will be a community leader.
I will be self-employed.
I will be a finisher.
The arc of a life revolves around the movement of our labels between these three lists. Which of the “I was’s” can be moved forward to the “I am’s”? Which can’t or shouldn’t? Which of the “I am’s” can continue forward through the “I will be’s”? Which can’t or shouldn’t?
Emotionally, I think we navigate the arc if we still have a bunch of “I am’s” and especially “I will be’s” that inspire us. Because if either of those lists gets pessimistic, how do we conduct our day and what do we look forward to?
Focus on keeping those lists of “I am’s” and “I will be’s” long and inspirational.
We usually use the phrase “end of an era” to signify a sad or at least nostalgic end. We may feel a sense of loss or disappointment, are trying to cope with an unwanted or unfamiliar transition, or are reflecting on the passage of time itself.
We don’t really use it when we’re happy it’s over. If we’re happy about it, we use phrases like, “free at last,” “dawn of a new day,” and “fresh start.” These phrases signal to the outside world that we’re ready to move on. Happy to move on. Optimistic about what’s next.
Today was the end of an era.
“it’s not as if this barricade
– Neil Peart, Rush, The Pass
blocks the only road
it’s not as if you’re all alone
in wanting to explode”
But the end of an era is the beginning of a new one if you have the right attitude. The right attitude turns an end of an era into the dawn of a new day.
And you control your attitude.
For space, it was the 1960’s.
In physics, it was the 1920’s.
For the internet, it was the 1990’s.
These were the decades of exciting times. New discoveries. New use cases. Leaps forward. Lots of money made.
Sometimes, you need hindsight to know you were in the exciting times. But sometimes you know you’re in it right now.
If you can see that its happening now and you’re in the middle of it, you can contribute, add your voice, make your mark, or at the very least, catch the wave.
Right now, the decade of the 2020’s is the exciting times for AI.
What will you do?
