Dealing with Uncertainty
Keely Adler and
Dealing with Uncertainty
But you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumstances are as anticipated means that there isn’t much slack in the system to respond when the unanticipated happens. Optimization is intrinsically brittle , because it’s about closely matching the
... See moreMandy Brown • Against Optimization
When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly... See more
Oliver Burkeman • Oliver Burkeman's Last Column: The Eight Secrets to a (Fairly) Fulfilled Life
trust your gut, intuition
Stuart Evans and • 26 cards
Different as it sounds, this kind of triumphalism had something in common with paralysed heartbreak. One rested in arrogant assurance, while the other rested in despair. Both saw the future as something offstage, rather than as the thing we were always creating in every moment, whether we acknowledged it or not. And both forgot that essential truth
... See moreJenny Odell • Dear Future, Here’s the One Lesson I Want to Pass on to You
We keep trying to manage ambiguity, and it keeps proving itself unmanageable, ungovernable. I’m coming around to thinking that ambiguity, like change, is a constant companion. And maybe instead of manipulating or avoiding it, we need to listen to what it has to say.
12 54 p.m • Disambiguation
Radical Curiosity is fueled by awe—rather than fear—of the unknown.
Seth Goldenberg • Radical Curiosity: Questioning Commonly Held Beliefs to Imagine Flourishing Futures
Poetry fearlessly enters the horizon of the unknowable, the fuzzy. It lives there. That is why it is so significant in an uncertain, threatened time like ours.