Lately, I’ve been wishing for lots of things. A little too much.
So much, in fact, that the pressure I’ve put on these wishes has not just created a big gap between expectations and reality, but pierced that gap in its entirety to fall right back on me. Today, I’d like to stop pushing.
The way I’m gonna try to do that is by retiring these wishes. I’ll alleviate them from their non-existent duties and fictitious responsibility to make me happy.
Instead, I’d like to make a wish for you.
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In the early 1960s, the team of a Manhattan comic book company was on a roll. They had just created a slew of characters that quickly became popular among fans. But when they wanted to create yet another hero, they got stuck:
“The thing with a superhero that you have to get is a unique superpower. Well, we already had somebody who was the strongest guy in the world, somebody who could fly, and so forth. I was thinking: ‘What else is left?’”
As they thought about what to do, one of the writers looked up and saw a fly, crawling up the office wall. He thought to himself:
“Wow! Suppose a person had the power to stick to a wall, like an insect…”
The name of that writer was Stan Lee. And then, he created the best superhero Marvel ever made.
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In 1989, the great-grandson of a famous 19th century author sold his ancestor’s house. While clearing out the place, he had to get rid of an old, bronze safe, the keys to which had been lost, and which was believed to be empty anyways.
They cracked it with a blowtorch and, to their surprise, found a stack of papers inside. Tucked beneath a few sheets of linen lay an unpublished manuscript and it was time for the world to see it.
Paris in the Twentieth Century was written by Jules Verne in 1863. Even before his eerily accurate prediction of the Apollo moon landing, he thought of a Paris in 1960 that could have hardly come any closer to the reality that followed:
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We all do it. You do it. I do it. Your friends do it. We judge.
At the grocery store, we silently judge people waiting in line. We secretly rate our family members by how much they support us, our friends by how fast they call us back and our coworkers by how cocky they are. But we also make more subtle judgement calls. Ones we’re barely aware of making.
When we eat, our gut signals to us what’s safe to put in our mouths and what’s not. When we meet someone new, we can instantly tell if they’re attractive or not, without having knowingly sorted them into either category. When we’re in danger, we make split second decisions about where to jump, which corner to turn. Much of this is natural. It allows us to exist.
Judgement, both conscious and unconscious, is a fundamental part of the human experience. We all do it around the clock because it’s a necessary function of moving, acting, and living in a dynamic world. And while we can’t do much about the beliefs we form without actively contributing, we all have our own systems of how we evaluate others.
Sadly, most of those systems are fundamentally flawed.
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Around 300 BC, a wealthy merchant set out on a voyage from his home in ancient Cyprus, Phoenicia, to Piraeus, a harbor town close to Athens.
Having almost made it to his destination, his ship crashed and went under, including the precious cargo. Luckily, he survived. Eventually, he reached Athens, and, once there, decided it’d be best to not do anything for a while.
Enjoying his newly found spare time, he spent most of it walking around the city, exploring. One day, he came across a book store, went inside, and picked up the first book that spoke to him. Its title was ‘Memorabilia.’ In the book, a man named Xenophon described episodes of his mentor’s life and how he tried to help others. That mentor was the famous philosopher Socrates.
The merchant was so inspired that he asked the owner of the store where he could find more men like Socrates. As fate would have it, another well-known philosopher happened to walk by, so the owner simply pointed at him. The merchant approached the philosopher and they started a conversation. After a while, he decided to stay and study under the philosopher’s tutelage.
He never left Athens again.
Read More“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
5:00 AM. The alarm rings. I pull the blinders forward with two fingers and peer outside. It’s there. I get up, stumble into the bathroom and throw some cold water into my face.
Then, I open the back door right in front of my room and step outside. The wind is freezing, but it’s worth it. Ahh, the sunrise. Across the parking lot, the sky is glowing. The clouds are deep red.
After gazing at it for a couple of minutes, I go inside again, right back to bed. I pull out my iPad and start to read.
Read MoreDo you know who this is?
No? Me neither, because sadly, despite a plethora of news outlets reporting about him, none of them even bothered recording his name. But I know what his job is. The manhole he’s floating in is filled with the sewage water of Dhaka, a city in Bangladesh. He’s a municipal worker.
This man’s job is to clean up 18 million people’s sh*t.
He wears no protective clothing, no goggles, and if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, well… The only ‘safety measure’ taken is the stick his coworkers hold out to pull him up once he’s done. Diving topless into the liquid filth of his fellow citizens, he must clear blockages with his bare hands. Without protection from the cockroaches and toxic fumes that surround him, all it takes is one, sudden rush of fresh sewage, and he’s dead.
What was that thought you had last week again? The one about your job sucking? Doesn’t feel so bad now, does it?
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In the summer of 1985, the king of Philadelphia’s DJ scene threw down at a house party. That night, his hype man was missing. You know, the dude shouting around, getting folks excited, and prompting chants. Luckily, a local MC lived just down the street and offered to fill in.
The name of that MC was Will Smith. He and DJ Jazzy Jeff instantly hit it off. So much, in fact, that Jeff sent his former sidekick packing and the two joined forces. Less than a year later, they dropped their debut single “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble” just in time to take the 1986 prom season by storm and allow Will to graduate high school as a rap star. Jeff recalls:
“Once Will and I made a record, we killed Philly’s hip-hop and ballroom scene. Nobody wanted two turntables. Now they wanted one turntable, a drum machine and some guy rapping. It wasn’t about Philly anymore. It was about conquering the world.”
And conquer the world they did.
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Do you remember the first day you owned a smartphone? I do. In the fall of 2010, I was about to start college and Apple had just launched the iPhone 4. It was a quantum leap in the evolution of phones, nothing less.
We had it sent to a friend in France, because it was a bit cheaper, if that word even applies to a 700 € piece of technology. When my Dad brought it home, I couldn’t wait to take it out of the box and set it up. Afterwards, me and my family examined it in amazement. No buttons, crystal clear colors, great photos. High resolution, fast surfing, tons of apps, and, again, the screen!
I remember what it felt like, too. To now be part of this new, shiny, ever-connected world. It felt like I was joining a revolution. Rebellious. Enough with the old, it’s time to disrupt! Little did I know how right I was.
It didn’t happen the way I expected it, but life would never be the same.
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If you mark an elephant and put it in front of a mirror, it will recognize itself.
At first, it’ll think there’s another elephant, but eventually, it’ll realize it’s just a reflection and examine its own body. That means elephants, at least some, are self-aware. The experiment is called the mirror test. In the 50 years since its inception, only six other animal species besides elephants have passed it.
And yet, all humans eventually develop this capacity. Babies first become self-aware between 12 and 24 months old. It can be delayed up to four years in less individual-focused cultures, like ancient tribes, but eventually, it always happens. Self-awareness makes humans unique. It’s a binary separator of evolution.
Now, when it comes to intelligence, that’s a different story.
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