The Campbell Academy Blog (68)

The complexity behind

The world is so utterly and devastatingly complicated now that no one can understand. This is the principle of the 'hyper-object'.

Climate change is so complex that no one person or group of people can actually get a handle on it.

The risk of nuclear Armageddon is much the same, and probably the computer system that runs the energy company is much the same.

So, if you try to consider all of these things at once, your head explodes; you have no ability to carry the weight of all the complexity and problems that you might face, and then trying to do so, you're likely to drive yourself mad.

This is the secret of focus.

This is the tightrope walker. It is the ability to walk across a very narrow platform, even though the prospect of a mistake would lead to death in front of an audience, but retain your concentration entirely to get the job done.

Blocking out the background noise, blocking out the complexity that exists in all of our lives, is the path to getting shit done.

It's OK to understand that everybody else has problems like you.

It's not OK to try to take all of their problems on to you and to try to fix them.

It's essential to be kind, but it's not essential to dash yourself against the wall, trying to fix every single problem that exists all at once.

Proper selfishness again.

Oxygen mask on you first before everybody else.