“In modern societies there is no more poisonous idea than the belief that we just need to find a Great Leader and all problems are solved. Complexity has no easy answers. There is nothing fundamental. No absolute laws. The right answer today might be slightly off by next month. We need to be nimble, adaptive, curious, outward-looking and evidence-driven.”
“Everything was made. ... Each invention shows that the world is malleable. ... Things can be better, so there is work to do. The world is not yet done. Lucky us.”
[When you] start with what you really want to do, distractions [will] start to feel like a waste of time. You check Facebook just to make sure you're not missing anything important directed at you, but scrolling down and reading random stuff in your feed feels like a complete waste of time compared to what you're really doing today.”
“We are making a thing. ... The process of making something is pretty much always the same. There are moments you find yourself suddenly able to express something you’ve been trying to convey for a very long time. There are moments when you are pretty sure that you are a fake. In moments of clarity, I remind myself that these are the well known features of the landscape of realizing a large project. The wrestling match between belief and disbelief is the actual matter of making things. If I am not coming up against these complexities, chances are I am not facing a big enough challenge.”
“The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.”
“I am nothing, and so I am finally free to be myself. ... When I have no image or identity or ego to protect, I can begin to see and accept things as they really are. That is the beginning of positive change.”
“My job, on any given day, is doing something which makes me happy – for a complex definition of “happy”, which includes things not strictly related to me, such as “Is the world better for this having been done?” and “Are the people who matter to me well taken care of if I do this?” ”