Only the paranoid survive
Only the paranoid survive.
I don’t think so.
The best thing to do is to write.
It helps you clear your mind out, seek some clarity, and to find yourself, lost in your own thoughts.
There can be nothing better than keeping your head down, and tapping away at the keyboard.
Funny how it used to be a typewriter a few decades ago.
I wonder if all of us think of technology in the same way.
There are a few of my friends who seek to escape all of it by banishing themselves off the internet, by finding solace in the silence of the countryside, by travelling in to the mountains.
Maybe they are all correct.
Maybe the only thing we should all try to not do, is “undo”.
Maybe the backspace, and the delete buttons, have led us to believe, that you can retry, and restart in real life.
That you can edit everything, and anything as many number of times as you like.
But is that correct? Having the ability to preformat everything, and anything takes away all that is authentic about it.
It takes away your wisdom, it takes away your thought, it takes away your focus, and in the middle of all that your fear will be lost, it takes away your courage.
Courage.
This is something I think is essential.
For anything, and everything that the world should seek.
Often I have had to remind myself that looking up from the keyboard, and into the screen makes my mind pause at a thought.
It makes me paranoid.
I bought a book yesterday.
That famous one by Andrew Grove.
I was looking for it for the past 9 years.
I haven’t found the courage to read it yet.
Some say that the book changed the lives of the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs.
So for me that means it’s all about how to do business in any industry that screams technology.
But that ain’t true.
I am hoping for a new reality.
The book goes by the name of “Only The Paranoid Survive.”
When I first thought about it back in 2007, it obviously hinted that when you are scared of failure, you will work harder to keep things moving, and eventually you will surpass failure.
But hold on a sec.
Nearly a decade later, now I think differently.
I feel that surpassing failure can also mean getting the average grade of 35/100 to have just about made it.
It also means that you haven’t learnt about 65% of what was in it.
It also means that being paranoid has kept you in bounds, that limit your focus, and vision to the mere fact of what is necessary.
It means that there is a chance, no matter how small, that you could have, and still can do the best about what you want.
It means that facebook, and apple, and others who follow their paths, and ideals can be better.
It means that the vast majority of us who dislike the ideas of overpricing a product might have not existed.
It means that your true potential is locked away.
Locked away nowhere but inside of you.
In the moments when you are worrying about how your writing looks, how the idea of formatting in a certain way for a world that likes a certain way, how that comma you left behind, or how screwed up your grammar is on hemingwayapp. com.
It is in those moments, when you look up from your keyboard.
Because you are scared that your disbelief in yourself, and your own way of life, is a lie.