I’m noticing a trend among more and more of my social circles of fear, confusion, depression and malaise. Which let’s be frank isn’t at all irrational given (hand waves) all this.
Rapid changes in technology are slamming into geopolitical changes and it is scaring the shit out of all kinds of people. Personal politics aside, many of the institutions, alliances and people we lived with our entire lives are changing.
But the rate of change is exciting! So much of what we took for granted in our youths is simply changing. Maybe (ok definitely) some of it will be worse for parts of it. It’s normal to be afraid of change. But what if we just need to survive the change?
I’ve been in tech my entire life. I was raised in it by my family. My father absolutely loved gadgets and hardware of all kinds and dove headfirst into selling software. I married someone who works in it with me.
I went to work in it by taking my skills in understanding new tools and translating it to an industry that adopted all of it. What an incredible privilege it was.
I worked in fashion and cosmetics so it was a mixed back but many incredible creative talents made and sold clothes that simply wouldn’t have been possible in an earlier more closed era.
The changes my father and I went through feel like slow lumbering industries compared to the rapid iteration of tooling we are seeing now. How we make things is being changed in ways that is almost impossible to keep up with.
I want to survive the Jackpot of change that is upon us. That’s a William Gibson reference. I agree with Bryan Johnson. Just don’t die. Imagine what we will find on the other side.