Polymathic Monthly 41: Deacon King Kong, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Trespassing.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, rushing through the now, I want to believe that on the other side of this period we are going through will be a lot of positive. Because this period we are in is probably the worst most of us have ever witnessed. And it hurts particularly for marginalized and oppressed groups.

But what I see is a future where the majority of us will work together in recognition of our shared humanity.

• Empathy will be a shared approach to living in the world.
• Family will become more central to our identities. And I mean family in both the traditional sense and the affinity or interest groups some us have adopted online/in our virtual worlds.
• Work will have to adapt to the requirements of the most skilled workers. Some extremely skilled workers, stars in their domains, will be able to command crazy fees working multiple companies at the same time. All within the confines of a cozy office at home and self-determined hours of work.
• Entrepreneurship will increase and we will all compete for and have a shot at opportunities in most parts of the world.

Some friends call me unrealistically optimistic. But that’s not the case. My optimistic realism is based on a belief that when people know better, they make better choices. And we now know better. We will have to make choices to do better because it will take action from the decent people (who vastly outnumber the not-so-decent).

My hopes and expectations are also based on the macroevolutionary theory of ‘Punctuated equilibrium’. From a paper written by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge. The theory suggests that most species originate in punctuations (moments) and persist in stasis. If that’s true, and it was hotly debated, this period is a punctuation nudging us out of our stasis. And, because I believe in the better parts of our nature prevailing during a crisis, we will come out on the other side of this moment with leaps of change from our evolutionary state and developed cultures — schools being confined to certain hours of the day in a certain room packed with kids, 9–5’s with people in large gaps between 4 walls masking as cool offices, obligatory handshakes, race as a dividing concept etc — that we’ve held as unchangeable for so long.

I maintain the positive slant of the articles and books in this issue and, for the most part I promise to keep doing that (even though it continues to be a tough time to be a black man with black sons in America). You can read about a true life ‘Lord of the Flies’ story with a twist in the tale. And whiplash to a story about a small town in Texas that did not watch the space flight with glee and would ‘Lord of the Flies’ Elon Musk if they had a chance to do that. Gauge your own personal political power against that of your fave celebrity or most despised politician. Dive deeper into ‘Punctuated Equilibrium’ or explore the battle between Barbie and Bratz. There are also reviews of books that will transport you away from the day-to-day, bring a smile to your face and spark neurons.

I’ve also added ~100 of my articles to the ‘Life Judo’ page on Polymathic Monthly. It contains predictions on Uber, Ring, Football going the way of boxing, and many more in-depth articles. And it’s all free!

I do hope you are doing well as you read this. I’m certain the links will open your mind and expand your thinking. If you could do me a favor and share with one person in your life who needs encouragement right now? I’d appreciate that greatly.

Enjoy Issue 41 here and do share with some friends!

Seyi