incrementalism

Hypothesis: The cosmic fabric of growth is incremental.

Beginning something new is a war against complexity.  

The inner voice says “Don't publish something until it's perfect.”  “Don't voice an emotion until you're finished feeling it.”  “Don't start a company until you know your exact path to success.”  “Don't film the video until you have all the right equipment.”  “Don't say something until you know it's true.”  For very human, mimetic reasons we expect mastery, before submitting to publishing v1, the crappy draft version. We expect ourselves build Rome in a day once all the arbitrary conditions for performance are met.

This internalized expectation robs us of motivation in the present, which is where all meaningful work happens. If we are not Caesar now, why should we care about the state of Rome?  If the desire to do is a mask worn by the desire to be or have, then we forfeit our right to pleasure when progress is made.  We delay meaning, assigning it to a (frankly meaningless) moment when we are labeled "Caesar" or "influencer" or "founder" or "genius" or what-have-you.

We substitute the desire to be for the desire be thought of as, optimizing our neurochemical feedback for reputation rather than progress.  We are not wired to sustain this type of desire.  Neurochemically we are rewarded for the process rather than the product, the work instead of the title.

Memory-informed expectations prime us to experience newness in light of the past, bounding novelty before we even get our hands on it.  This top down, expectation-driven architecture of desires sabotages the ability to begin.  One must approach new things as a child, as one who has never seen before, in order to become native to newness.

Innovation moves at the speed of iteration, not the speed of perfection.  One step at a time.  One version at a time.  One test at a time. One word at a time.  Big things are just small things connected to each other.  Small things are just smaller things working together.  All of life is a conspiracy of the micro, be an imitator of life.

Take courage and approach novelty unashamed.  It is as eager to discover your intent and resilience as you are to explore and leverage it.

I want to be able to write my thoughts well.  I want my thoughts to scale across other minds.  I want to open source my mental architectures and reach millions of downloads.

But it starts with a baby step :)

& this is mine.