A place where I organise the chaos of my mind

Author: David Alade (Page 2 of 15)

I am a student of the world. I learn, build and share.

Navigating a Conflated World: The Power of Fundamental Virtues

The world is more polarised and people are more conflated about their identities. This has been followed by an endless series of finger-pointing, scaled division in society and in some way the rise in the confidence disease as Shakespeare put it “the fool doth think he knows what he does not know.” I was reflecting on this when I remembered the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, the last good emperor of the Roman Empire.

In a scene in Gladiator, and in what would be the last scene for the good emperor Aurelius, Commodus was seen lamenting how he doesn’t possess the fundamental virtues his father has told him were important for anyone who will fill his shoes. The virtues were wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance.

“As I read the list, I knew I had none of them. But I have other virtues, Father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness, courage, perhaps not on the battlefield, but… there are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family and to you. But none of my virtues was on your list…” – Commodus

What shall we make of the son who grew up with a father who was in no doubt clear about what was required? But still, he failed to build and develop in the right way. But I digress with that. This isn’t about Commodus and his failures as much as it is about what kind of virtues are required to lead the zen (for lack of a better word) life in today’s conflated world. 

Initially, I believed that the four values of Marcus Aurelius would suffice, but I was mistaken. In our modern world, we require different virtues, just as the old and new Testaments of the Bible have different virtues. Upon examining my life, I considered the factors that have kept me away from trouble, helped me form strong and long-lasting relationships, set a good example, and provided me with peace. As a result, I have compiled a list of seven virtues that I find essential.

Fundamental virtues that guide me

Responsibility, Self-awareness, Temperance, Wisdom, Fortitude, Love and Curiosity

Responsibility

“There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.”J K Rowling said in a 2008 Harvard speech. Many years ago this was the first lesson that set me on the right trajectory in my life. I read in a book the meaning of the statement above and decided from then that I would take responsibility for everything in my life, good or bad. I was the architect and there is no one to blame or hold responsible. I remember defining it then from a perspective of money and I told myself “The only set of people I believed I could expect money from were my mother and father. Anything outside of that is not to be expected.” Invariably it meant I must learn to live within what they gave me and never have to look at an uncle, aunt friend etc with a bad eye for not extending cash to me. I was right. But beyond that narrow definition, I took virtue seriously ever since and it has helped me to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

Self-awareness

“With self-awareness, you triumph over trivialities.” For a world conflated about its identity and constantly burdened by trivialities and innuendos rising from a ‘lack of backbone’, those with great self-awareness arm themselves with a shield that’s not easily broken. We need to spend more time with ourselves. How much of yourself do you know? When you are angry, why are you angry? When you comment silly things on SM, why do you do it? When you argue endlessly, why do you do it? When you love what some hate and hate what some love, why is that? When you are riled up because some strangers assume an identity for you, why is that? Do you know thyself? “You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” Richard Feynman

Temperance

“Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation” – Ben Franklin. Increasingly, the virtue of moderation or call it self-restraint is becoming an important one in our world more than ever before. We are a world that doesn’t know when to pause or even hit the stop button. We do and overdo. We need to be temperate to control our emotions and live a more balanced life. I used to pray a prayer that I have taken as one of the most important prayers: “Give us the grace to let go of details that won’t matter in a decade and the wherewithal to make the most of the moments whose memories will endure beyond decades.” Think about this.

Wisdom

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding” – Proverbs 4:7. For the most knowledgeable, the world is complex enough and extremely difficult to navigate (see the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes). What about you? Yes, you, with no apparent wisdom to make sense of the world around you. Can you see that the news that you read is driven by some incentives? Can you see that the division around you is to some people’s advantage? Can you see that the seeming peace was traded for freedom? Wisdom amidst all of these helps you to be rightly placed and to avoid trivialities.

Fortitude

“No good story is without failure. May we have the fortitude to stand failure.” I genuinely feel like the quote and the image is enough to drive home the importance of this message. So I will link one of my conversations on Twitter here if you want more.

Love

“…On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Which two commandments? “Love God and love your neighbour as yourself.” The world has always needed love and it still does. It’s one of those things that is universally agreed. Of course, the degree of love that each ‘divides’ of the society subscribes to differs. But I am not aware of those with a zero-love philosophy. And I agree that you may not love equally universally. But have you experimented with your home… If you loved your wife unconditionally and gave yourself to her, what kind of home would you have today? If you loved your husband with all their faults, what kind of home would you have? If you operated with this principle, how would your comments on SM read differently?

Curiosity

We live in a constantly evolving world and the rate of change in our generation is so much that if we are not careful, we get lost and forget change is happening or worse we get overwhelmed by the change. Curiosity is how you grow, learn and evolve.

This is not a blueprint for a perfect life. Rather they are virtues that I have cultivated over the years that have helped me love my life. And I thought by sharing it you also could pick a thing or two and eventually lead you to love your life. In 2020, I read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. In the course of his life, he identifies 13 virtues that he wanted to live by. I was driven to also live by these virtues after reading them. But Ben Franklin is brilliant. He said, “A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.” I share this to highlight how good your life can become when you choose to live by a set of virtues. Your life could be so good that you will become hated for being faultless.

Finding Fulfilment in Any Job: Lessons from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

In a recent podcast, the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, spoke about his work philosophy, which, in my opinion, aligns more with reality than the average idea that’s thrown around.

He said, “A lot of people say, find something you love. I don’t know about that. I guess I’ve fallen in love with many things that I do. I loved it when I was a dishwasher. I loved it when I was a busboy. I loved it when I was delivering papers. I loved it when I was waiting tables.”

I wrote on another platform about a similar idea some days back, noting that “the quest to separate work from life is a product of a mismatch between the work we are doing and the work we think we should be doing.” Jensen’s idea implies that we should “stop” looking for the work we think we should be doing and love what we are doing now, for therein lies self-emancipation.

I completed the article with this summation: “The most important thing then is a recognition that 1. We are meant to work, and there’s no escaping it. 2. Satisfaction can be found in any work. It’s a matter of perception in most cases. 3. Looking for an opportunity to bring your total self to work is key to attaining satisfaction. 4. Solving problems that give you a sense of pride and fulfillment is all that you need.”

Most people do their work with great dissatisfaction because they think that is not what they should be doing. But what could happen if, for a moment, they give up the idea of “what I should be doing” and embrace the idea of “my working is adding value to XYZ so I will do it well”?

Reminds me of this fine quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'”

The Arc of the World Bent In 2020

These are my reflections on the transformative year of 2020

The world shifted in an indescribable way in 2020, and its significance will continue to unravel for decades to come. It’s impossible for any individual to fully comprehend the profound changes that occurred. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to articulate some of the things that I’ve observed. Please join me on this journey, as it’s complex, and I hope I won’t stumble too much.

My perspective is that 2020 was a year of profound change, but it’s important to recognize that many of the trends and issues we saw were in motion long before then. In fact, some of the things that came to the forefront in 2020 were the result of underlying trends that had been building for decades.

One trend that had been developing since the 1980s was a decline in the rate of borrowing. By 2008, this decline had reached a historic low of nearly 0%. Despite this, the world continued to experience unprecedented growth in almost every area. People became accustomed to seeing growth in all aspects of life, which led to a perception that taking risks was not only safe, but necessary.

In 2020, the world was hit by Covid19, and as a result, governments started printing more money, leading to too much money in circulation. This caused inflation, and interest rates began to increase. Money custodians were left in a difficult position, and as a result, Bank 1 collapsed, followed by Bank 2, and Bank 3 was closed before it could collapse. These events have led to a period of higher uncertainties in the market, and no one knows for certain what will happen to interest rates, which is a terrifying prospect.

In addition to the financial uncertainty, Covid-19 also brought about an “employee market” where companies were aggressively hiring and competing for talent with higher pay. However, this was short-lived as the economic reality of higher borrowing costs and dwindling revenue set in. This led to thousands of layoffs, which continue to this day. Interestingly, even tech companies, which were previously seen as immune to such layoffs, are now partaking in them. It appears that these tech giants have become like any other mature company that needs to optimise its costs to sustain and continue to grow. In fact, some of them have even hired consulting firms like McKinsey to help them in this endeavour.

It’s interesting to note that tech analysts in 2020 were discussing how unexciting the tech industry has been in the last decade. There hasn’t been much groundbreaking innovation like the iPhone or Facebook. Even attempts to hype up Blockchain technology fell short due to its lack of utility beyond payment. However, there have been some recent developments that have caught the world’s attention, such as Mid-Journey, Dall-E, and the various iterations of ChatGPT. Suddenly, people are once again intrigued by what innovation may bring. This has put companies like Microsoft and Google on high alert, recognizing that it is no longer “business as usual.”

PhD students are starting to worry about the value of their research in light of ChatGPT and other LLMs. And I can understand why they’re concerned. It’s amazing how we now have access to all the knowledge in the world in a truly transformational way. Some even argue that AI alone is enough, and we don’t even need AGI. The possibilities are endless and within reach. It’s mind-blowing. And what’s even more incredible is that someone like David, who doesn’t even know Javascript, can build a functional website that can do everything he wants it to.

This is one of the most exciting things to happen in recent years! It’s incredible to think that we are now able to see more of the universe and gain a deeper understanding of it. The James Webb telescope has been in development for so long, and it’s amazing to finally see it come to fruition. With its advanced capabilities, we’ll be able to observe the universe in a way that we never have before. It’s truly mind-blowing to think about what we might discover and what new questions we’ll be able to ask about the cosmos.

Certainly, it is overwhelming to comprehend the magnitude of changes happening in our world. It’s like we are living in a new reality altogether, with new rules and new possibilities. The shifting world order, the rise of China, and the struggles of many African nations have added to the complexity of this new world.

As we try to make sense of it all, it’s important to ask ourselves where we fit in. What role do we want to play in this new reality? How can we adapt to the changing times and make a positive impact? These are the questions that we should be asking ourselves. It’s easy to feel small and insignificant in the face of such immense changes, but we must remember that every individual has the power to make a difference in their own way.

So, let’s take a moment to reflect on our values, our strengths, and our aspirations. Let’s think about how we can use them to contribute to the world around us. We may not have all the answers, but by asking the right questions, we can start to carve out our place in this new trajectory of the world.

One Way To Navigate Uncertainties

Here’s a piece of advice to guide you amidst the cruellest type of uncertainties.

“When you are confronted with choices amidst uncertainties, say yes to as many options as you can. Since you are uncertain, what you should be optimizing for is regret minimisation, not efficiency optimization. And minimising regrets comes with knowing that you did attempt all that you could.

There should never be if I’d done that, I might have this option now. You would take comfort in the fact that you said yes to all options possible.”

It does not apply to all uncertain situations but watch out for situations when it is applicable and it will be your saving grace.

One prevalent example of this in my world is venture investing. A highly uncertain environment where 1% of what you said yes to tends to determine your outcome.

Another application is about your work. Many times, we aren’t even sure of what we want from work. And while the temptations might be there to optimise for certain types of experiences, a more sustainable strategy is to take as much and diverse experiences as possible. Broaden then narrow.

Some helpful advice to lead a great life

I want to share with you some helpful advice to help you lead a great life. They are simple and effective. They ensure you have a great relationship and become the best version of yourself.

Be a Learning Machine

Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger are two great delights to watch and learn from. They have not only built successful companies that few can only dream to dare. They have also both taught us and me in particular some of the most enduring life lessons.

Here’s one that Charlie Munger teaches:

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, but they are LEARNING MACHINES.

They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they woke up.”

Be a learning machine.

That’s the prerequisite. You don’t have to be the best or first. Just go to bed smarter than you woke up.

How to respond to someone who have acknowledge their fault

When people have recognised their faults, the best thing for you to do at that point is to make them feel not alone. Make them realise it is not an uncommon fault and if you have made a similar fault before, it presents you with a unique opportunity to share it and how you are dealing with it or dealt with it.

You are making them see that they are not alone, not because it’s a nice thing to say. No. Rather, it’s because it is a complete truth. We are all humans with many faults. And no fault is unique to any one person.

What you must not do is gloat. What you must not do is make them feel worse than they have already admitted. What you must not do is shame them.

One success nullifies 99 failures

When you have faced rejection for far too many times, the next thing is that you begin to doubt yourself and your capabilities.

Unfortunately, there’s no antidote to this feeling than for you to persist because all you need is ONE success and the shadows of doubt that surrounds you will disappear.

An equally helpful advice – The Right Time To Ask For Help On Your Work

The Right Time To Ask For Help On Your Work

Let me do a quick reflection that’s just for me as it can be for anyone who may read this later.

Since joining my new company, if there’s one lesson I have learned that determines a lot of your success, it’s the importance of seeking help and feedback early.

We work in a fast-paced environment where keeping up is itself a lot of work. Aside from the environment being fast-paced, the complexity of nearly all your tasks also means you are most likely not going to have all the answers in the palm of your hand. If you observe enough, that’s what you will see. And I think that point is obvious enough that it sometimes doesn’t need to be spelt out.

So no contention.

Where the bulk of work is though is knowing the balance. Knowing when to seek help, when it is too early to seek help when it is too late to seek help and balancing them all.

Seek help and when to seek help dynamics

You need an understanding of what is expected of you. If you don’t know what it is you need to find out immediately. Often not by asking but by reflection. I said that because I believe the job wasn’t handed to you over a platter of gold. You interviewed for it and it was made clear. What reflection also adds are other subtle expectations or boundaries of expectations.

Knowing this is critical because if you are not clear on it and you ask for help for what should be an obvious thing (consistently), it may impact people’s perception of you negatively. And in a world where perception is the bulk of what takes you far, that’s something you want to protect.

3 things I’ve introduced now. Seek help, the time to seek help, and the perception you have to protect.

Again, you can’t do all the work alone. So to seek help can be eliminated from what needs serious consideration. That is a given, you will have to seek help.

When to seek help is what most people struggle with the most.

Seek help too early, and you appear clueless. Some people might even see you as not taking initiative. Seek help too late and you might run the risk of slowing the whole project down and that’s not good for you my friend.

So what’s the in-between? Before I answer that let me tell you that seeking help also builds a collaborative environment. Humans like the saviour status. We like to be there for others and to have contributed to the success of others. Fostering a collaborative environment also means people want to work with you. And since they will need help now or later, they will also feel confident to come to you for such help.

Now to my question when to seek help?

In my experience, the best time to seek help is when you have given thought to the challenge/task yourself enough to come up with what can be termed a v1. That is version one of the potential final state.

Sharing a v1 would have allowed you just enough time to do some research and enough time to show that you have put in some effort.

Most importantly though, it also makes helping you easier.

It is easier to say, “oh, you are thinking about it this way, but this is how to think about it” than to go expecting the helper to do all the work for you. Remember it is your burden in the first place.

Sharing a v1 also means you are iterating fast. Like in an agile environment, you get feedback fast enough to change course when needed or maintain course when you are in the right direction. And this also boosts your confidence.

Do it this way, and your reputation will also be preserved. No one will see you as being clueless and no one will say you have delayed a deliverable. And until the end of the project, as you implement the feedback, go back with a v2 to confirm again. Repeat until the end of your task. It helps.

Hey, I know these can’t be applied to all tasks. But I trust that you will understand the spirit of the word.

Effective Leadership

Leadership has always been dear to my heart. Can’t remember how that grew but I know it has always been there.

The first attempt I made at bringing people together far back in the University was when I created a group on Leadership. It was after I have taken a course on edX on Inclusive Leadership (also the first course I ever took after discovering the beauty of MOOCs).

When I join any organisation, the first thing I am looking to understand is also Leadership. How do they lead? What kind of examples do they set? What sort of behaviour do they incentivise? and so on.

It matters greatly because humans thrive and fall based on the quality of the Leadership that guides them. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to witness some of the finest Leadership. And often, I wonder if I will ever match them, yes they are the finest. I also never shy away from asking them about their mindset to understand why they can lead finely.

I got a few of those this week that I love and it resonates.

1. Be yourself ( granted that you are fundamentally not broken)
2. Trust your team and
3. Know your people beyond work.

I find those 3 awesome because when I look back, it summarises a bunch of what I have observed in a lot of those I admire.

The most subjective is #1, it’s why I added the clause as well. But it also drives home an important point that if you are not a good person yourself, it will be hard to be a great leader. It also means different people will do leadership differently and that’s okay. As long as it helps achieve the goal and sets people up for success.

Important to add here that being a great leader doesn’t mean everyone has to like you. No! And your goal should never be to be liked. That’s a journey you don’t want to embark on. Rather, your focus should be on bringing the best out of your people, giving them a sense of purpose (building something bigger than them), and delivering on your core responsibilities. Otherwise, everyone will go home if they can’t deliver.

On Crypto, This Time Is Different

When the crypto market started plummeting earlier this year, I and together with a host of others (I believe) thought that it was just one of those short-term market pullbacks. In fact, I remember vividly how the laser-eyed team of Bitcoin ran pools to ask if people still believe we will see Bitcoin at $100k. An overwhelming number of people believed in the possibility then and until 3 days ago, I might say maybe some of those still live in their bubbles. See this pool:

Of course, the same guy still says things like this:

https://twitter.com/rovercrc/status/1549296732508282885?s=21

That’s beside the point though. I am not here to talk about Twitter pools. But to highlight in some ways why this time is different for the crypto industry. It’s different from the 2018 collapse and includes every other collapse before then.

My thinking is that those who think it’s the same may have failed to engage in some thought-through to understand what might make this time different. And I am putting inflation besides the point now. Since it’s more of a global thing that is crypto-specific. When I say this time is different, I am talking about how much so notwithstanding macro realities like inflation, supply chain issues and so on. 

In the following, I highlighted 5 things that make this time different. In the previous periods, these 5 things can be overlooked and have been overlooked. However, I do not believe it will be overlooked again nor do I think it will be a good thing for them to be overlooked again.

I concluded the article by stating that crypto needs some soul search and it needs to find what I call its “accomplished” state. That’s a state where it has either lived up to its hype, lived up to some hype, or dies a natural death. 

What’s the use case?

Endlessly, we ask this question about both cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology that powers it. “What are its use cases?”

Let me point out one clear and undeniable use case here; payments. I am from Nigeria and a good number of times, I’ve had to rely on Stablecoins for one thing and another. Beyond the shores of crypto adopters and enthusiasts, this use case is settled and undeniable. The number of special committees that have been set up by all the “who is who” in the world to examine the impact of stablecoins, potentially regulate it and even build their own is a testament to that. So we are clear, Stablecoin is a use case for crypto in the payment system. What else are we clear about?

Seriously, maybe I am not in the best position to answer this question. Considering I am more of an observer of the industry with little participation.

So I will allow one of the top participants in the industry to do justice to this. That’s SBF.

SBF made clear from the start of his Twitter thread that he would like to focus on substance and not the usual “you can buy tokens and maybe they’ll go up” type of use case which is what most people bought between 2019 to mid-2021. And in reality, those aren’t use cases at best, they are a gamble, at worst, a Ponzi scheme

With those out of the way, he was able to put his potential use cases under 3 categories:

a) payments

b) market structure

c) social media

d) others.

Payment we all agree on. He made an interesting case for market structure use cases, but that’s more likely to be threatened by transaction per second (TPS) limitations in the near term. The same goes for social media but even if the TPS issue is fixed, I don’t see this use going anywhere. Defi, gaming is what makes up others.

If you are thinking what I am thinking now, you would have sensed an issue. In the last period, Defi was the holy grail that will revolutionise the whole of the financial industry. How come it is now being relegated to footnotes even by some as active as SBF. Well, time will tell, but one thing that’s certain now is that it is not a veritable use case as well.

And more than 10 years later, here’s the summary of the impact of crypto given by SBF:

“But taking a step back: how many of these areas has crypto revolutionized so far? I think the answer is “not really any of them”. It’s starting to impact some, but not in a widespread way yet.”

This forms the foundation of my belief that this time is different. Despite lavishing the industry with an overwhelming amount of dollars, the technology is still in the “impact some” stage. You really can’t compare it with the internet, as some have previously done, I don’t even want to go into all the reasons why you can’t do that but, come on, you can’t. 

By the way, trading crypto pairs is not a use case. It’s just an inevitable activity in any financial market. Where people seek to take advantage of market fluctuations and information asymmetry.

Exchanges are the only ones in the sweet spot, not sustainable 

DeFi is great, asset management in crypto is great and even lending in crypto is fine. However, if this period has shown anything to me, it is how the exchanges (Binance, FTX, etc) are in the upper echelon of the hierarchy to benefit from the crypto trends.

I once famously 😉 said, “Your broker’s business model is designed such that they profit both from your intelligence and your foolishness.” Of course, they will make less money from foolishness than they would from your intelligence, but they still make money while everyone else might be losing. They seem to be the last man standing in this industry.

https://twitter.com/davidalade__/status/1232080853284552704?s=21

Well, that’s not sustainable. For an ecosystem to grow, the party adding the malt value should be getting the maximum income. Now, there’s a question around “isn’t exchanges the most value-adding industry of crypto?” Well, my submission is that if that is the case, we can as well pack up the whole crypto thing. Because I can’t imagine a universe where the New York Stock Exchange is richer than Apple. Or one where the London Stock Exchange makes more money than Barclays. 

But this takes us back to finding use cases though. 

The billion dollars rain has come to an end

I might be naive on this, but I pray I am not. I do not expect that investors would continue to rain billions of dollars into the crypto industry just as they did in the last period. For obvious reasons, 1) there’s been too much loss of capital for an industry that promised so much. 2) Investors will start to ask more critical questions that builders will most likely not have satisfactory answers to. This will mean lesser investment but wouldn’t mean the serious builders won’t continue to build. And that’s how it should be. An abundance of capital is not good for productivity, inflation will agree with me on that. 3) 

Transaction per second is still a big challenge

Although this is a technology challenge, I believe it can be expanded. However, the question that remains is that with a blockchain, there’s always a trade-off between security and latency. So which one is acceptable is a long debate. 

Why is TPS so important in crypto? A lot of the use cases that crypto will purportedly fix are high-volume activities. Take social media mentioned by SBF for instance, at a 50,000 TPS, the current highest TPS in the industry, how will a social media that combines Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all else together perform? We will almost have to wait in queue for 7 days to post on a Blockchain-Twitter. God forbid that such a system is powered on the Ethereum network and you will have to pay an astronomically high gas price to get your post to jump the cue.

So that’s why TPS is very important in crypto. 

A brilliant argument for how decentralised social media can be built, but not on blockchain exclusively.

Humans, unregulated, are at their worst. Crypto needs regulation

Have you seen the overwhelming number of people who lost a fortune to the collapse? Some school fees, some live savings, some retirement money and the list goes on. Imagine that the distribution of loss was in the magnitude of general adoption, by now, inevitably, the government would have to bail out those they are okay with to bail out.

For crypto to gain the mass adoption that it critically needs, regulation is needed. In my opinion, the most trusted stablecoin today has to be USDC. Why is that? Because Circle has from the beginning and until now attached itself to a regulatory domain. Where’s Terra? Why does USDT almost always never escape scepticism?

As I noted in this article, any coming together of two or more individuals creates a vacuum for power. And if the power is not consciously handed over to a trusted entity (individual or group of individuals), the most power-hungry entity will grab it for themselves and use it for their benefit. Smiles at Do Kwon.

Simply put, regulation is needed. 

From here to where?

The 5 reasons above that range from use cases development to technical limitations and from the need for regulations to the end of the rain of dollars, require the crypto industry to engage in some more soul searching (it is doing so already, should intensify).

As with any technology that promises a lot, I am still hopeful about the eventual “accomplished” state of crypto. Even if it’s payment alone, that’s okay. Anything it is, it is okay. We have just heard enough of the hype, enough of bad people taking advantage of the hype and enough of cancel culture over this same technology. Now, we need real and scaled impact. If it will bank the unbanked, let it bank them, if it will become the world reserve currency, let it become, if it will be the operating system of the internet, let it be it. Because if it does not find an “accomplished” state, this time will persist. Not like that’s a bad thing, it would however just have been a huge disappointment for technology with so much hype (in my generation).

I hope that this time doesn’t persist for too long and that crypto finds its “accomplished” state.

We must seek to know about the unobserved universe

A genuine question that frequently bugs my mind is where would we be if everyone believed in the supernatural as a society? I think the answer is not far-fetched. We were once there where you can’t question phenomena that are attributed to the supernatural. And while those times lasted we lived in a subsistence world.

Until some people (then called Philosophers) decided against all odds to look beyond (often in the sky) and seek answers to worldly phenomena. Their curiosity has made the world a better place but far too often it tends to draw them farther away from the supernatural.

It seems as I once noted that a precondition to dominate the earth is the lack of belief in the supernatural and a strong belief that all phenomena are connected and given enough time and motivation, they can be explained with science.

On this, I’m still thinking.

I started pursuing knowledge of the universe out of genuine curiosity. Broadly I am attracted to cosmology. I am like other cosmologists bugged by the question about the origin of the universe. The interconnectedness of phenomena. The beginning of time and the journey that got us here.

All was sparked by a simple belief that God is a scientist. He does all things with order and that order is searchable under science. But why must we search for the origin of the universe, why would anyone look beyond the earth to search for other lives or even contemplate imagining they can search to know how we got here?

There are micro answers to that and macro answers.

Micro: If we didn’t search, we would today not be able to perform brain surgery nor are we going to be able to install satellites in space. And definitely, we will not walk on the moon.

Macro: Our understanding of gravity and its law gave us some of the most important things in life including the ability to fly. E=mc² revolutionises energy. Relativity and quantum mechanics theories have given us both nuclear energy and the microelectronics revolution. Microelectronics is the reason you own an iPhone.

Scientific knowledge has advanced a lot though and we now know a lot. From the origin of the universe to the beginning of time. In fact, we now know as well that the concept of time had a beginning. Much is yet to be known and although what’s left to be known may not materially impact the quality of your life and mine, we still have to search.

Right from the beginning of history man has always been curious. Looking up and asking questions, and more questions and more questions.

Man can’t stop because why should we? When we find answers to some, they shine a light on unknown unknowns which sparks even more questions. A good example is the new James Webb Telescope that we have spent the last 20 years developing and are now giving us new questions to ask.

Our mind is the most powerful element of creation.

I will also like to quote Stephen Hawking here on the question of why we must continue to search.

“Why go to this extent to know MORE about the unobserved universe?”

It is worth noting, though, that similar arguments could have been used against both relativity and quantum mechanics, and these theories have given us both nuclear energy and the microelectronics revolution!

The discovery of a complete unified theory, therefore, may not aid the survival of our species. It may not even affect our lifestyle. But ever since the dawn of civilisation, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from.

Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

Stephen Hawking

David Foster Wallace On The Most Important Thing To Grow Your Career, Life and Relationship

Last week, I introduced David Foster Wallace and his ideas to us. Particularly, I promised to share how those ideas can help us have a better career, life and relationship. 

The overarching idea that came out of the speech was that for a lot of us, we act based on our default thinking state. We do not take the extra step first to be aware of our thinking state, secondly to choose how we think and lastly to choose what we think about. We just think whatever comes to our mind.

Here’s a good example given by Wallace:

Let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the track is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts. Eventually, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to “Have a nice day” in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, lottery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour trac, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But if you are reading this and it hasn’t been your experience, soon it will be your actual life routine, day per week per month per year. Or in another variant. 

It will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. 

Because the trac jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I’m in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day trac being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. (This is an example of how NOT to think, though). And I can think about how our children’s children will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on. 

If you read through the example you will see the frustration of typical adult life. If you are living in Lagos, you might have it even worse. Amidst this frustration is room to think and what we think at that time matters. Transcending our default thinking state is how we make our life better, our career eventful and our relationships perfect.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do anyway. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this trac, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.

Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it’s hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to.

You can see things differently

But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends on what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. 

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.

And this my friends is how we can have a better career, life and relationship.

That when you realise that you are not enjoying your work, you do not result in default thinking that your manager is against you and all your colleagues are ganged up against you. Rather, that maybe they aren’t just enjoying it as well or that they are even having it worse than you.

When your girlfriend doesn’t call you, your first imagination isn’t to assume the worst but to think about the 101 legitimate reasons that might have caused that. And that allows you to give an attentive ear when she tries to explain to you about the situation.

Or when you are stuck in that long unfriendly traffic and you have all the time on earth to think. You do not revert to assuming it’s all about you. The Danfo driver is blocking you. He may just be trying to meet a sales target that might mean her daughter and son are not sent out of school or that her wife gets to buy that fine Ankara for the weekend occasion.

As David Foster Wallace noted, all these alternate thinking need not be necessarily true just as your default thinking isn’t necessarily true. The most important thing is that you are aware of your state of thinking and consciously choose the empowering one. Not one that makes your otherwise frustrating day even more frustrating.

For far too often, we have all resorted to a default thinking state where we assume all things are about us and we are the centre of the universe. And how well has that served you? Have you lived the best life with that thinking state? How about having the best career? Did you have the best relationship by always thinking that way? I bet that no matter your answer to those questions, you could be better if you updated your thinking state from default to one of more awareness. And choose how you think and what you think. 

In a similar vein to this conversation, I engaged in a conversation on Twitter last weekend on the same subject. See here:

https://twitter.com/davidalade__/status/1545775998100295681?s=21

And follow up here:

https://twitter.com/davidalade__/status/1545860382723555331?s=21

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 David Alade

Theme by Anders NorénUp ↑