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Not Risky And Not Remarkable, So It’s Not Ready
Are we ready to contribute to chaos? Are we ready to contribute to order? Let’s find out.
A lightning strikes a tree and sets it on fire. A hominid sees her band of hunter-gatherers run for protection, but she doesn’t move. Something in her brain tells her it is okay to stay put. They have always considered her to be a bit peculiar, but she’s fine with that. The roaring flames and the gathering storm won’t let her hear her band mates, but she imagines them gasp as she finally takes a step not away from the fire but towards it.
Our hypothetical, fearless hunter-gatherer had been told that when lightning strikes, we run. It is how we’ve always done things, it’s how we’ve survived so far, and it’s how she will do things too if she wants to stay a member of the group. Our brave hominid broke the rules, and changed the world forever.
If nobody had been brave, we would have never controlled fire. Similarly, though, had everyone always been so brave, we would have probably perished long before our hominid had a chance to show her courage. Looking at almost any moment in history, we see this constant ebb and flow between tradition and progress, a violent equilibrium in continuous movement, the very struggle that makes us who we are.