Thought Confetti #2: The Big Scheme
Because in the big scheme of things... I see so much opportunity for us to flourish.
Thought confetti is a column of 15-minute, non-stop writing sessions. I have no chance to revise or rethink the things that come out of me in these sessions. I publish these so you and I can see my unfiltered thinking process out loud. Be generous in spirit, please.
I'm sitting in a chair at a table in a building which happens to be a convent, because this particular convent has been extremely welcoming to me. It's close to a town called "Pleasantville", which is an apt name for the sort of experience it's like to be at this convent. The air and springtime life is simply... pleasant. The town looks over a lake, which is also pleasant. The convent sits on a large wooded property with a beautiful stream, and a locomotive goes by out the window.
It's difficult to explain in words the pleasant peace I feel here, not too pervasive, but still tranquil.
I'm with my friends Tyler, Pavitthra, and my dear wife Priya. I suspect this group of people will get up to a lot together in the big scheme of things. The BIG scheme.
The BIG SCHEME.
What is my big scheme?
In my big scheme, thousands of people live together in harmony.
Maybe that sounds grandiose, but it's clearly possible. I've lived in relative harmony on that scale before, even in my lifetime. Where I grew up it was normal. Where my parents grew up it was normal.
I know it's possible to design a harmonious culture, and so therefore harmony is part of my big scheme.
But that's just a piece, because it doesn't say the role that I play within that harmonious and collaborative entity.
In my big scheme there is a university, or a foundation. Who knows exactly what it's called. An accelerator, a fellowship, a residency, an apprenticeship, a house, a school, a college, a society...
The point of this institution is to network serious people so they can proceed with their work -- with their life's purpose, which no one can know but them.
The university claims to be this institution, and in many cases it succeeds, but the university is too expensive and too limited for the purposes of a post-modern, post-twitter society.
It is far too easy for me to connect with the world's greatest minds online for universities to be so limited in scope and so expensive to join.
I suspect you can bundle the university with a whole array of services, accelerators, and programs.
I want YC meets MIT meets Baghdad House of Wisdom meets The Royal Society meets Parlor Politics meets the Inklings meets Homebrew Hacker Club meets Montessori.
There's a lot to unpack there, but I've been reading and reading about these great scenes throughout history, and there's no reason any particular friend group couldn't create one.
After all, someone's friend group had to create [any existing institution here, say, MIT].
I love the freedom this affords, it's addicting even, the freedom to build anything, to become anything, to do whatever it is I think is right and good and beautiful.
I wish for everyone to experience this freedom, and I hope to pass it on tenfold to my children.
In my big scheme, my children play a major role in my life and in the lives of those around me.
In my big scheme, universities aren't isolated from industry, research + development, early childhood education, or civic improvement.
In my big scheme, these tasks feel integrated, like they are our collective offering to each other and to future generations. I sense that we are both more and less specialized in scope. We neither miss the forest for the trees, nor do we miss the trees for the forest.
In my big scheme, my friends spend far less time finding themselves, and spend far more time building the future they want to see, because finding yourself is made so easy by functional institutions of becoming.
In my big scheme, people don't feel lost AND in debt at the same time, they only feel one or the other. If you're lost, you have an abundance of opportunity with which to find yourself, and if you're in debt it's because you know exactly what future you're borrowing against.
In my big scheme, people are able to focus on their work. Their TRUE work, their hearts work. Everyone is. Because if everyone could do the work that seems most deeply true and important AND we all knew each other well enough to collaborate, then we'd be living through one of the richest golden ages in history.
In my big scheme, people stop telling each other what to do. There is a fundamental trust that everyone is trying their best to figure out how to survive in this difficult and often tumultuous world. We still have conflicts over our values, and we still work hard to persuade others of those values, but we don't presume to command their bodies. We don't ever try to "make a worker" out of somebody, or to "make an activist" or to "make a solider". "Conversion" is not practiced, except by oneself. Sure, people can become workers, they can become activists, and they can become soldiers. They can seek out any way of life. But in my big scheme, we stop presuming to know what is best for those around us, and we instead do our absolute best to guide them in accordance with their own spirit.
In my big scheme, thousands (and then tens of thousands, and then millions) of people who currently feel stuck and lost -- as if they haven't found their purpose yet -- know where to start solving that problem, and know where to go if they get stuck.
In my big scheme, people understand that it's possible to band together, collaborate on projects, and build up the sort of social capital that can create whole societies from scratch.
— Andrew