Probably the best speech in movie history (aside from John Goodman’s rant about fuck you money in The Gambler) is The Joker’s peroration to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. It goes like this: Do I really look like a guy with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan.
To quote Eisenhower: Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable.
How firmly we should expect out plans to work out depends a lot on our degree of control, When traveling, lots of things can happen beyond our control, but I am sure that your new house conforms very closely to the plans that you and the contractor agreed on. Probably there were a few small adaptations along the way, but nothing major.
This reminded me of another essay I read over a decade ago, at this link.
“Things are the way they are for a reason. Leave it the fuck alone.”
Like the piece, but in my experience that reason is quite often because that’s the way it’s always been done or for a reason that is utterly inane. The corporate world is notorious for this. If you want to embrace disruption, and spontaneity you have to encourage changing things. The iPhone versus blackberry is an example of this. I’m glad they didn’t leave it alone.
"The spontaneous is better than the rehearsed." This is especially true in music, whether it's the jazz greats or bands like Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, etc. A group of musicians with nothing more than a rough sketch taking the stage in front of a big crowd and seeing where it leads. Sometimes you get a train wreck and sometimes you get pure magic... This can also be true with travel, plan to be spontaneous... A ticket to point A with a well packed suitcase, and a ticket home from point B two weeks later, with nothing planned in between. No reservations. One of the best trips to Europe I ever had was "planned" like this...
Love this. I straddle this world every day as an engineering PM. I have to make estimates and plans and schedules, and I get they’re useful, but never make them so detailed and rigid…total waste of time and brainpower. The nut is in the daily flow
Isn’t there a balance? I’m the guy who never plans too long-term, but I do plan enough out so that I have options but nothing that I need to stick to if something better comes along or the old plans have become obsolete
To quote Eisenhower: Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable.
How firmly we should expect out plans to work out depends a lot on our degree of control, When traveling, lots of things can happen beyond our control, but I am sure that your new house conforms very closely to the plans that you and the contractor agreed on. Probably there were a few small adaptations along the way, but nothing major.
This reminded me of another essay I read over a decade ago, at this link.
https://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
“Things are the way they are for a reason. Leave it the fuck alone.”
Like the piece, but in my experience that reason is quite often because that’s the way it’s always been done or for a reason that is utterly inane. The corporate world is notorious for this. If you want to embrace disruption, and spontaneity you have to encourage changing things. The iPhone versus blackberry is an example of this. I’m glad they didn’t leave it alone.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
"The spontaneous is better than the rehearsed." This is especially true in music, whether it's the jazz greats or bands like Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, etc. A group of musicians with nothing more than a rough sketch taking the stage in front of a big crowd and seeing where it leads. Sometimes you get a train wreck and sometimes you get pure magic... This can also be true with travel, plan to be spontaneous... A ticket to point A with a well packed suitcase, and a ticket home from point B two weeks later, with nothing planned in between. No reservations. One of the best trips to Europe I ever had was "planned" like this...
Love this. I straddle this world every day as an engineering PM. I have to make estimates and plans and schedules, and I get they’re useful, but never make them so detailed and rigid…total waste of time and brainpower. The nut is in the daily flow
Isn’t there a balance? I’m the guy who never plans too long-term, but I do plan enough out so that I have options but nothing that I need to stick to if something better comes along or the old plans have become obsolete
One of my favorite essays. Excellent!
This is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBe93FMiJc I have seen the face of G-d!
Plan to be resilient.
Interesting fact: Jay-Z's Blueprint album was also released on 9/11, and it still sold over 427,000 copies in its opening week.
Is it safe to assume James Earl Jones homage to baseball at the end of "Field of Dreams" is third?
This is one of the best Jared essays. So true.
It was the Ohio State oval sidewalks you are referring to: (https://www.futilitycloset.com/2020/08/09/voting-with-ones-feet/)
Great piece, thank you for sharing!
That's a banger, JD. And the Goodman rant supports your thesis, too—makes chaos a whole lot easier to tolerate.