Wesplitintogroups:Insane,MerelyCrazy,andtheTurtles. IfiguredIwasrelativelysafewiththeTurtles ... I was wrong.
The machinesarecapableofglidingoverthesnow at speeds exceeding 120 milesperhour. I wasn't going nearly that fast ... but the beasts were harder to tame than I expected.
Despite crashing numerous times, totaling a sled, and being sore for weeks ... I had so much fun on year one that I brought my son with me on year two.
Last year, I recognized 2 things:
Humansaredeletioncreatures.Thatmeanstheycanholdseven things(plusorminustwo)intheirmemory. While they were focused on fun, I was focused on how to stay on the sled
You're supposed to stay on the sled, and leaning into the turn helps you do that ... who'd've thunk it?
This year I learned a couple more:
People don't forget. Everyone remembered my less than skillful sledding.
Youth is wasted on the young. My son picked it up fast and was speeding as if he'd been on a sled his whole life (despite falls that would cause people with skulls that no longer have soft spots to proceed with caution).
When you find the right group of people, the fun gets more fun, and struggles seem less challenging.
While sledding is fun, it's the people that make the trip.
Likewise, it's the people you take with you through life that makes it so worth it.
In 1977, the Voyager 1 launched into space. Just over a dozen years later, the Voyager 1 spacecraft had traveled farther than any spacecraft/probe/human-made anything had gone before. It was approximately 6 billion kilometers away from earth. At that point, the Voyager 1 was "told" by Carl Sagan to turn around and take one last photo of the Earth ... a pale blue dot.
The resulting photo is impressive precisely because it shows so little in so much.
"Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." – Carl Sagan
Earth is in the far right sunbeam – a little below halfway down the image. This image (and the ability to send it back to earth) was the culmination of years of effort, the advancement of technology, and the dreams of mankind.
The resulting speech from Carl Sagan is still profound, moving, and worth a listen.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
Today, we have people living in space, posting videos from the ISS, and high-resolution images of space and galaxies near and far.
We take for granted the immense phase shift in technology. You have more computing power in your pocket than we first used to go to the moon.
As humans, we're wired to think locally and linearly. We evolved to live our lives in small groups, to fear outsiders, and to stay in a general region until we die. We're not wired to think about the billions and billions of individuals on our planet, or the rate of technological growth - or the minuteness of that all in regard to the expanse of space.
However, today's reality necessitates we think about the world, our impact, and what's now possible for us.
We created better and faster ways to travel, we've created instantaneous communication networks across vast distances, and we've created megacities. Our tribes have gotten much bigger - and with that, our ability to enact massive change has grown as well.
Space was the first bastion of today's innovation, but today we can look toward A.I., medicine, epigenetics, and more.
It's hard to comprehend the scale of the universe and the scale of our potential ... but that's what makes it worth exploring!
I went to Havana with a diverse group of business people, financial professionals and representatives from the US Fed.
Here is a photo taken with some of the classic cars that proudly dominate the roads despite cheaper Russian and Chinese alternatives.
The city was beautiful … dirty and broken, for sure … but still beautiful. Here is a view from my hotel room.
I commented that it was almost like seeing a severely wounded elephant. You can tell that it's hurt (and barely a shadow of its old self). Nevertheless, you can see the amazing bone structure. It is easy to imagine what it once was.
In Cuba, the geography and the architecture are amazing. However, money hasn't been spent on the upkeep. Even though people live there, it seems surreal (almost like a post-apocalyptic wasteland).
In the story of Exodus, the Jews spent 40 years wandering the desert after escaping from Egypt. That means two generations of people, who didn't remember life as slaves, were ultimately the ones who entered the “Promised Land”.
On some level, that's how Cuba is now. Most inhabitants weren’t born (or can’t remember) the 1960s. They have known nothing but this.
Cuba is an interesting place … and I’d bet that it has an interesting future.
The “lack” had a side effect. It produced a mutation. A portion of society grew more resourceful and resilient.
Like natural selection … nature finds a way.
The rules change, the players change, even the game itself changes ... That is how new ideas and new leaders emerge.
Sometimes, almost no one notices. Sometimes they do.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met last week in Singapore. At the meeting, Donald shared a four-minute movie trailer called "A Story of Opportunity for North Korea"
I was a little surprised by the video clip that Trump brought with him. I don't normally think about diplomacy and videos. But, it is a new world.
It depicts a brighter future for North Korea in the event of a nuclear deal. It also presents a stark choice to Kim ... trade in your nuclear weapons for a peace deal with the U.S., or don't and you'll be decimated.
Was it me, or does the video seem strangely reminiscent of a pitch you might receive for a real estate deal or a timeshare?
Perhaps that is why Elon Musk (who is an amazing entrepreneur) sometimes sounds more like a dystopian futurologist (like Ray Bradbury or George Orwell).
Here is a look at some of Musk's predictions. Click the image to see the full infographic.
Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 27th, 2019
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.
Lighter Links
Posted at 06:19 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Healthy Lifestyle, Ideas, Just for Fun, Market Commentary, Personal Development, Science, Trading, Trading Tools, Travel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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