Finding A Way, Not An Excuse

Leaning Toward Wisdom

The Reality Distortion Field. Guy "Bud" Tribble was Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc. As Apple was developing the first Macintosh computer in 1981, Bud used the term to describe Apple's founder Steve Jobs. The term seems to have originated in a 1966 episode of Star Trek when it was used to describe how the aliens encountered by the crew of the starship Enterprise created their own new world through mental force. It seems the great thinkers who are doers, like Steve Jobs, embrace (and enjoy) living in the reality distortion field of their own making. That is, they see things the rest of us don't. Vivid imagination coupled with obsession drive produces the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Is it distortion though? It is when compared to the current state. Coupling the term "reality" to it makes it seem as though it's delusion. Something that's inaccurate, or unreal. Not true to the reality. Like a photograph that's distorted. Or the lenses in a pair of mis-prescribed glasses. The achievements of self-driven maniacs to build great things, or to solve complex problems don't seem to the result of delusion though. Rather, they seem to be imagined by people capable of seeing what the rest of us can't. Yet. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle The madness is subjective. What appears as madness to one feels ordinary to another. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman I think that term better conveys the truth, unreasonable. It's less of a reality distortion field and more of an unreasonable - or beyond current reasoning - view of what is possible. It's a reality bending field where the unreasonable man adapts or bends the current reality into a new, improved future reality. Then continues to do it over and over again. Apple is introducing the iPhone 15. I'm currently producing today's show on a 2023 Apple MacBook Pro. Nevermind that just this week Apple introduced some brand new MacBook Pro models. In 1984 I purchased the first Apple Macintosh computer. That was then. This is now. Not even Steve Jobs, in 2011 at the time of his death, could have imagined the current technology. Had he lived, he most certainly would have figured it out though - and who knows what bigger, better products may have emerged under the Apple brand name? Steve Jobs died 12 years ago (October 5, 2011). Who knows what he may have imagined? Or what things he may have seen as persisted in trying to bend the present technology to fit his vision? It's what unreasonable men do. Mostly, unreasonable people find a way, not an excuse. We embrace different degrees and characteristics of unreasonableness as we navigate the various chapters of our life. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” ― T.S. Eliot How unreasonable are you? And in what ways - or about what things - are you unreasonable? Are they positive or destructive? Some of the titans of innovation have been so focused on what they see and what they want that others around them pay a high price. Sometimes, it's a price willingly paid. For example there are stories of high level employees of Apple and other high-performing companies where they burned out due to the intensity, pressure and elevated expectations. Opting for employment elsewhere, some experience boredom though because the pace is slower, the expectations lower and the strain much less difficult. In the absence of those things that burned them out they realized there was a void in their daily joy so they returned back to the company from which they resigned. Is that unreasonableness positive or destructive? Maybe both. There are other stories of these mono-maniacs on a mission (Tom Peters coined that phrase in "In Search of Excellence") who...