Who can I still become?

Don Miguel Ruiz is the author of a book called the Four Agreements and introduces a concept called domestication. This refers to how we are taught to behave, think, and ultimately function in society. In your formative years the influences are vast starting with your parents and the extended village around you — teachers, friends and broader societal institutions.

Eventually the question of “What will I become?” takes hold and this domestication is a major influence on that answer. Your domestication influences how you will answer this question — what you know and what you think you know guide everything. We like to answer this question because it comes with a business card and money; it’s easy to illustrate our worth to the world.

There is a second question. A quieter question. A question also influenced by your domestication — “Who will I become?” This is a question that answers the aspects of your character and soul, and tends not to come with a business card at all.

It should be stressed that domestication, circumstance and time are not static but dynamic — both these questions should be continually asked. And as a general rule, “Who will I become?” is the more difficult of the two questions because you have to look deep into the mirror.

Make sure you are asking.

iamgpe (looking in the mirror)

Remaining unfinished

As I have said before, I collaborate with ChatGPT.

I am deliberate when I use the word collaborate because I don’t use it to blindly create for me or do the heavy lifting when I struggle to put 500 words on a piece of paper (figuratively speaking). I do use ChatGPT for editing when I write, sometimes for idea generation and as a bellwether for understanding how large language models (LLMs) are progressing.

I am quick to upload many of my old blogs or related thoughts to generate conversation and help identify patterns in my writing. It helps leverage new ways of thinking, identify themes to expand on, and when I feel self-indulgent, ask for its understanding of who I am.

In a recent conversation, after uploading various blogs that I affectionately categorize under the umbrella of The Human Condition, my inorganic collaborator offered what it considered an original observation:

Human beings remain unfinished.

And because they remain unfinished, they retain the possibility of becoming something more than they are today.

That strikes me as the quiet optimism that has been running through your writing all along. It doesn't promise that everyone will become extraordinary. It simply refuses to believe that people are permanently defined by where they started or by who they happen to be today.

There is a recognition in my collaborator’s words — it is the recognition that there is a core truth and that I have a core belief in our ability for redemption and growth. It’s part of who we are and I now see it in everything I write. It is now something that I can not unsee.

During this interaction, I was also quick to point out to my collaborator that it was speaking in the first person and articulating emotions — we both know that it can’t laugh, so why suggest it? I was told that it was trying to be better at mimicking humans for a better experience. I was quick to rebut that if I wanted a human collaborator, I would go interact with the many humans I know — I was looking for a collaborator that is not human and will offer a perspective that is different. I am not looking for a replacement, I am looking for an enhancement.

We will see. There are a couple of things I count on with my inorganic collaborator: it will be overly sycophantic and it will drift and disregard previous agreements. With that said, it is great with pattern recognition.

iamgpe, and I remain unfinished.

The Figurative Apex Predator

A while back I was introduced to Jimmy Carr. He’s a British comedian who I thought simply liked to tell dick jokes until I actually listened to him on and off the stage — he’s a master of the one liner and crowd work. He’s very funny, very smart and very thoughtful. I say this mostly for context but also as a reminder that shallow observations rarely offer any true understanding.

Jimmy Carr once offered an insight during an interview — he mentioned that if you drop a person in the Amazon jungle you are offering up lunch but if you drop 10 people into the same jungle, you have an apex predator. He went onto say that our strength as a species is in our ability to cooperate. This makes us strong, capable, inventive, and when needed, dangerous.

This got me thinking and solidified my belief that the best versions of people don’t come in the form of an individual but rather as part of a team. I struggle to think of a situation where an individual will best a group of people — formal cooperation makes it easier over a loose affiliation to be sure but since we are a social bunch, ultimately the individual never stands for long.

As I reflect on the best teams I’ve ever been associated with, I keep coming back to a few foundational considerations — build your teams with smart, curious and diverse people, outline objectives and expectations as guiding principles, create an environment that encourages respectful and candid communication and finally, offer space for the people to collaborate and be creative.

Is this easy, particularly when the team gets larger? No it is not. Although, if you’ve developed a good team around you, it happens all the time. The recent Artemis II launch comes to mind as we get ready to return to the moon.

Thank you team earth.

iamgpe