To start of the third issue of this newsletter/series we have Kirkegaard as it is spelled with no use of our Danish characters. Kirkegaard is such an obvious choice for so many reasons. Like me, he is/was Danish and like me he was quite fascinated with philosophy. He can be quite hard to read and some people writing about him gets further into the mess by discussing what his already somewhat cryptic language could mean in the context of his contemporary time etc. That is fine for philosophic circle-jerking but for practical purposes it has no real value. But luckily there are others who feel the same way and instead of further complicating his writing and message, works to deconstruct and extract practical advice from it.
The first article is exactly such a case. It deals with “busyness” and Kirkegaards thoughts on the subject. Busyness has by all means developed into the default state of humans trying to convey importance to the world. Being busy is a badge of honor. You and your time are sought after. Not being busy is like being of no value. Being busy becomes the end-all goal to show in a pursuit that leads nowhere. Busy could or should not be the end goal anymore than being not busy. Being busy is fine if you are busy because you get actual important things done, if you aren’t then being not busy is just as fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either as per se. But as a quote from the article points out:
“The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself,” he wrote. In other words, obsessing over future goals, and keeping frenetically busy with an eye to some far-off date, is a way of distracting oneself from present reality.
It is not a long read, but sure as hell an important topic. As an entrepreneur I find myself falling into this trap quite often. You can always excuse yourself with being busy, but how often are you really, and how often are you just busy because you have spent too much time pretending to be busy and to little time actually getting important stuff done?
The article: http://qz.com/663552/150-years-ago-a-world-famous-philosopher-called-busyness-the-sign-of-an-unhappy-person/
The second article is perhaps not as much and article as an actual press release, but it still deserves it place – and no I don’t have any shares or economic interests that might skyrocket from the few people who read this 😃
I have always been extremely fascinated by people who dream really, really big and is ready to put their money where their mouth is. In our time one of those who most clearly epitomizes this is Elon Musk. There are others that perhaps has dreamt bigger or achieved more, but just call me naive – in my opinion Elon seems to be one of a very few who does it for the right reasons. There is an honesty about the guy, or a sole candidate who should take all Oscars the next 10 years for straight A performances, if he turns out not to be. There are several amazing documentaries about him and his various endeavors, which everyone of them tells an amazing story. The fact that he in the popular meaning of the word had made it after Paypal and then invested almost all his cash back into Tesla is just beyond belief! Starting Tesla, he left out some cash to keep himself secure, which by all means is understandable. But some years later when Tesla almost went bust – he invested almost all his remaining winnings from Paypal into it. If that is not a leader of a company I don’t know what is.
Oh well back on track to the link I am about to post. It has quite a lot to do with the prospects of dreaming big. As said earlier I really enjoy people who dream big, I love to read about it and I love to be surprised at things I had never thought of myself. This is exactly what I get from reading this press release from Tesla appropriately named “Master plan, part deux.” There are so many aspects of it that will help humanity moving forward. If people make enormous amounts of money of helping humanity then absolutely fine with me! I love this as much as I love space exploration, which will probably be a topic for a future post. I have a theory that big goals help unite countries and perhaps even a whole world. Not having any leads to focussing on unimportant things.
But to the point. Here is the actual press release: https://www.tesla.com/da_DK/blog/master-plan-part-deux?redirect=no
As I have already written almost too many words in my opinion I will end it with only 2 links. But as it is friday(and to cheat into leaving 3 links) I will actually end it with a piece of music. Whether here in Denmark is fabulous at the moment, I had a hard and not that good week, so I need something to kick me in the but and get my mood in check – this fits exactly that mold.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
