Harbingers...
When ideas gather..
harbinger(n.)
late 15c., herbengar "one sent ahead to arrange lodgings" (for a monarch, an army, etc.), alteration of Middle English herberger "provider of shelter, innkeeper" harbour (n.). Sense of "forerunner, that which precedes and gives notice of the coming of another" is mid-16c.
The saying ”one swallow does not a summer make” is attributed to Aristotle, but when they start turning up in numbers, they become harbingers of better times.
Along with many others, I have written about the sense of disquiet that we seem to be experiencing that lives in the spaces between things, rarely mentioned but a constant presence.
So, it was interesting this morning, in less than thirty minutes, for a stream of articles that feel like harbingers to find their way to my inbox, helping to put a name to the disquiet.
If we can name it, we can identify it, and if we can identify it, we can do something about it.
Here they are, in no particular order:
The Economist on a history of “golden ages” over the last three millennia. Spoiler alert - everything America is doing is the opposite…
There is a great post on After Babel on the impact of mobile technology on boredom, daydreaming, and creativity.
- on the surefire rise of mediocrity - driven by corporate risk aversion.
The Persuasion Substack on the enshittification of our increasingly platform-based culture.
Seth Godin on seeking Yoyu - the Japanese term for finding the space to care an unreasonable amount. It is cultural and often requires a system to nurture that sort of effort. We need room to spare. We need to stop being in such a hurry and focus on the work and the art in a generative, not frazzled way.
A great post by
on simplicity versus complexity.
All of these found their way into lunch today with Steve Done where the conversation turned to Colin Chapman’s ethos at Lotus Cars of “simplify, then add lightness” and wondered how we can apply that to our lives and work. What can we lose from the always-on, performative, efficiency-obsessed work cultures we inhabit that would give us the agility that Lotus cars are renowned for?
Somewhere, sitting quietly in all the noise, are more ideas and observations that point each of us to the futures we want if we are open to them.
Simplicity. Lightness. Room to spare. I’m going to bring those ideas into our next weekly Outside the Walls network conversation on Zoom, this Wednesday, 7th May at 5:00 pm UK.
If you’d like to be part of it (there is no charge, and we keep numbers limited to enable great conversation) drop me a line.