Action

The ancient philosopher Plutarch had a pithy perspective on learning.?He said the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. I thought about that statement after re-branding this newsletter 'Distillations' this week.

I started the newsletter about a year ago with a feeling of dread. I dreaded the anticipated burden of having to generate fresh material each week. I dreaded the thought of adding to the online cacophony of forgettable cries for attention. I dreaded the likely spectacle of a public concession of defeat.

I hoped some conversations with friends and colleagues would allay these concerns, but those conversations had the opposite effect. A colleague said she could never undertake such a writing ritual because she simply didn't have enough to say. A friend, who had been running his own blog for more than a year already, complained about being chained to this commitment. He talked about the mildly resentful manner in which he discharged his authorial obligations each week.

But lightning flashes in the distance couldn't justify aborting the mission at that stage. My ship was already in the harbor and ready to set sail.?

At first, the content came easily. It was merely a matter of dusting off and reorganizing items from the banker boxes that had been left in mental storage for years. It was a straightforward task of clarifying concepts I had been meaning to internalize for my own edification, and hopefully that of others.?

At some point this changed. The banker boxes were now empty. It was no longer a challenge of retrieval but invention. I had to cross into uncharted waters.? ?

This was a daunting and disorienting moment until I realized what the last leg of the journey had revealed. It had uncovered patterns, principles, and connections I wouldn't have noticed without putting in the effort. Now that these were visible, there was a light and map to confront the pitch-black darkness.

I came to see this newsletter as an exercise in thinking out loud on strategy, psychology, and creativity. To me, these are endlessly interesting domains. I decided to rebrand the newsletter as 'Distillations' because essence distillation is where I get my kicks as a writer. It's the primary mechanism by which I learn.

Innovator Roger Von Oech claimed that art is a series of recoveries from the first line. He said the hardest thing is to put down the first line. But you must write it.

Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman famously analogized that entrepreneurship is like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane as you speed to the ground. But you must jump.

Physicist Marie Curie said nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. She said to understand more is to fear less. And you must never stop seeking to understand.

Action creates information. Action exposes new sides of the truth. Action kindles the fire of learning.?