Mental Pivot #55: Constant Curiosity
Sage advice from Albert Einstein to a young student, an introduction to David Allen’s Getting Things Done, and a business case for NFTs.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
—Albert Einstein in a letter to Carl Seelig (his biographer), March 11, 1952.
Following Albert Einstein’s death on April 18, 1955, Life magazine published a story titled “Death of a Genius.” As part of the tribute, magazine editor William Miller shared a cherished memory about a fortuitous encounter with Einstein a few months earlier.
One day, Miller, along with his college-age son Pat, and family friend Professor William Hermanns (an old acquaintance of Einstein’s) arrived unannounced at the scientist’s home in Princeton, New Jersey. Per the elder Miller, “It was not an errand of idle curiosity but hoped that such a meeting might help give some inspiration to Pat.”
By Miller’s account, his son Pat was beset by doubts about the purpose of life and humanity’s significance. Presumably, an encounter with the most brilliant mind of the 20th century might fix his child’s ennui?
Shortly after their arrival, Einstein agreed to a brief meeting, despite the imposition.
During the encounter, the elder Miller mentioned to Einstein that his son “can find no reason why he should strive to achieve.”
Here’s how the conversation unfolded:
Einstein looked at Pat and simply asked, “Does not the question of the undulation of light arouse your curiosity? (The nicest thing about the question was his simple assumption that the boy would understand it.)
“Yes, very much,” said the boy, his interest brightening.
“Is not this enough to occupy your whole curiosity for a lifetime?”
“Why, yes,” said Pat, smiling rather sheepishly. “I guess it is.”
“Then do not stop to think,” said Einstein, “about the reasons for what you are doing, about why you are questioning. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives.”
I imagine both Millers got the inspiration they had hoped for that day, and then some. Thanks to their written account, we can too.
If you’d like to read the entirety of this encounter with Einstein, check out this scan of the original Life magazine article (from the May 2, 1955 issue). Google Books also lets you view the entirety of the Life magazine issue.
Note: The newsletter is taking a break next week on account of Thanksgiving here in the States (my favorite time of year!). The next issue will come out on the 3rd of December. In the spirit of the holiday, I want to thank everyone reading this newsletter; it is a privilege and honor to share the things I find interesting with you.
Now onto this week's recommendations…
Thinking Tools:
An Introduction to GTD (Getting Things Done): GTD is David Allen’s now two decades old productivity system (originally published in his eponymous 2001 book). In a 9-part blog series, Tyler Suzuki Nelson offers a condensed overview of the system, from the rationale for implementing GTD to the actual nuts and bolts of implementing GTD. Having used GTD in the past, I am a fan of Allen’s method. In particular, his teachings were instrumental in helping me develop a diligent note-capturing habit.
How to Take Progressively Less Stupid Notes: This long piece by photographer and film-maker Nicholas Seitz is nominally about note-taking, but the author is especially thoughtful on the topic of interacting with information and reflective learning (a point that gets lost when note-taking, mistakenly, becomes an end-goal).
Stop Letting OKRs Masquerade as Strategy: Roger Martin reminds readers not to conflate goals with strategy with respect to “OKRs” (Objectives and Key Results). OKRs are a method of defining an objective (e.g., “become #2 in market share”) and tying key measures to that objective (e.g., “reduce customer churn by 25%”). OKRs have their utility, but “must be a complement to strategy, not a substitute for strategy.” Well said. For more reading on the topic of what actual strategy is, check out my book notes on Richard Rummelt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.
Write Thin to Write Fast: Blogger Breck Yunits’ ponders the benefits of narrow column widths both for reading and writing—hey, it’s worked for newsprint for centuries! He cites no science backing his claims, but it’s something I’m planning to try with my writing (I like the idea of easier scanning and re-reading).
Reading Enrichment:
The Great Organic-Food Fraud: Ian Parker’s long-form article for the New Yorker investigates the “largest known fraud in the history of American organic agriculture”—nearly $250 billion in fraudulently labeled conventional crops were sold as organic over nearly two decades starting in 2001. The story is a case-study on what happens when loose government oversight and a lax certification process meet with strong economic incentives (organic labeled products command 2x the prices of their conventional counterparts) and a complicated supply chain: cheats and bad actors enter the system and skillfully exploit it.
How 12th-century Genoese Merchants Invented the Idea of Risk: Fascinating history lesson on the emergence of “resicum” (the Latin cognate of “risk”) in maritime shipping contracts and the financial innovation of assigning a price to contingency.
How NFTs Create Value: An examination of what NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are and the business opportunities they might enable. Whether or not the authors’ assessment is correct, this article does point out some interesting digital trends including online personal identity, status, and ownership rights.
My Life Without a Smartphone Is Getting Harder and Harder: Jane Wasserstein writes about the increasing challenge of making a go of everyday life sans smartphone (the author still uses a Nokia flip-phone). No doubt the post-COVID world has made things more acute for holdouts, whether it be QR codes, online-only restaurant menus, digital vaccine records, and ride hailing.
Too Big to Sail: How a Legal Revolution Clogged Our Ports: Matt Stoller sets his sights on key trends in the shipping industry and the current logjam in the States—mega-container ships, industry consolidation, antitrust exemptions, deregulation—in his ongoing narrative on the politics of monopoly.
What Major Themes Will We See in Global Media in 2022?: Venerable management consulting firm, McKinsey, asked dozens of journalists, editors, and media executives two questions: 1) what business/economic/policy story will dominate 2022?, and 2) what topic will be overlooked and warrants greater attention? While most of the responses aren’t earth-shattering, I’m a sucker for prognostication of any sort.
Odds & Ends: Retro Edition
Merriam-Webster’s Time Traveller is a year-by-year time capsule tracking the first appearance of new words entering the English-language lexicon. A drop-down menu lets logophiles skip back in time more than 500 years to see a collection of new words for a given date. For instance, a trip back to my birth year includes such gems as “aspartame”, “floppy disk”, and “metacognition.”
My 80s TV is a nifty website that lets Gen-Xers relive the past by simulating television of the period. The site features an 80’s-era CRT television as the viewport. Viewers can select a year and channel-surf or specify a desired genre. Clips are pulled from YouTube and a faux static filter adds a modicum of authenticity to the experience. Old and younger readers need not despair, the website also offers retro experiences for the 60s, 70s, 90s, and 00s. Very cool!
Timeline of the Human Condition: A reference of milestones in evolution and the history of human innovation maintained by ecology professor C. Patrick Doncaster. Although the timeline isn’t comprehensive, it does paint a vivid picture of human progress (e.g., the earliest recorded poetry, adoption of the 7-day week, first commercial radio broadcasts, etc.).
Cross-Promotions:
The Sample: A newsletter discovery tool. Based on your interests and feedback, The Sample sends a new newsletter recommendation to your inbox on a daily or weekly basis.
The Veggie Digest: A weekly newsletter about the latest trends in sustainable food innovation. My daughter, an environmental policy student, writes it and I periodically contribute to it.
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