Kiev, Ukraine
Kiev is idyllic in the summer, but most people aren’t paying attention.
If you do pay close attention, you can start to trace the lines beneath old Kiev, Soviet Kiev, and new Kiev. And as you do, there’s a slight haunted feeling.
A lot of blood has soaked into these streets.
A couple years ago, my close friend Kai Zau and I were having a conversation when, very suddenly, a phrase was spoken that weighed very heavily.
“Life is a game you can lose.”
I forget which one of us said it originally, but it doesn’t matter. It was clearly something true and important, something oft-neglected during times of luxury and ease.
You can lose.
In olden days, you might not even be able to control that. A thousand years ago, you might have been farming in a little village when brigades of deadly horse archers showed up and laid your civilization to waste. Unpredictably, out of nowhere.
Life is a game you can lose.
It seems like most of us have more control and choice now than we did 1,000 years ago; much more control, even, than people had 50 years ago. Many tragedies are preventable. Many good things can be made to happen. Many bad things can be avoided or mitigated.
But most people don’t dedicate themselves relentless to this… it seems like they almost don’t realize the magnitude and gravity of — well, of life itself .
People are so often breezy, casual, careless... which would even be alright if they were willing to accept the consequences thereof.
The consequences of being careless, of course, are rather predictable.
But, no — people feel crushed when some area they’ve neglected bites them; when hindsight shows them how much of their life they’ve wasted; when a preventable bad event occurs because it wasn’t prevented.
The title of this book is Pragma — we’re looking to develop more pragmatism. Not all of the book is easy reading, but if I’ve written well enough, all of it should be highly profitable.
The first section is Danger Flags , a concept that is simple but critically important: before a person does something bad, there’s often predictable signs that they were going to do it. We look at a bunch of historical cases of bad things happening from as far back as the Punic Wars and the assassination of Julius Caesar, to as recent as three Cold War episodes. The goal is to be able to spot people who are likely to do bad things, and to mitigate against those — and likewise, to spot dangerous elements in one’s own character and work to improve those, to be more trustworthy and reliable.
The tone gets a bit lighter in Limit Breaks . We inquire: what are the limits holding us back from making a terrific life? How do we break through those limits? We cover time on large and short scales, action, automation, project success rates, bottlenecks and constraints, perception, combinations, success and failure, and getting right to the heart of an issue. Limit Breaks contains a lot of immediately practical items that can be put into action right away for higher effectiveness.
Finally, in Lingua Franca , we look to drill deep into the nature of thought and communication. We become very skeptical of words and look to trace the underlying meaning of them. Many words have changed meanings, many important concepts don’t have words associated with them, and language has been a chief battleground across history for shaping how people think, communicate, and act. We’re going to sort our language out, in order to be able to think more clearly and lucidly.
Each of the chapters here was originally published at The Strategic Review. If you’re not already subscribed, you can get a steady dose of history, productivity, and sheer practicality for free every Thursday at:
http://www.thestrategicreview.net/
And if you like this sort of thing, you’d also probably like the Ultraworking Pentathlon:
http://www.ultraworking.com/pentathlon
Some of the concepts we cover here in Pragma will be difficult reading — harsh truths that rarely see the light of day. History’s ghosts will speak to us – if we will merely listen. Sometimes they speak calmly and elegantly; other times they speak in dread wails.
Harsh truths – often unpleasant – but what is the alternative?
To stay willfully blind to the greatest risks and challenges? To let the consequences of negligence overtake us?
No, a thousand times no – pragmatism is the way. We walk the Earth now, but will not forever – and there’s so much to do before the bell rings. So let us take our blinders off, arm ourselves, and venture forth now into hard and dark realms. Let us take a place at the feet of the ancients and listen to their wisdom – so that perhaps we might take our place alongside them.
There is so much to be learned. Are your boots on? Are your eyes open? Shall we?
MARSHALL