…and a brief note to my readers: thank you for coming with me on this meandering journey. It’s been a crazy year, but productive because I’ve had time to think and re-evaluate priorities. There’s a lot more coming to this Substack than weekly briefings, but until then, I hope you enjoy these recaps with my takes.
Pivots don't necessarily work the way you think they do.
mRNA is truly a breakthrough. I gripe about the human condition more than I celebrate it, but deep down I'm a cheerleader for our species' innovative potential to thrive and grow (as much as some try to self-sabotage).
"To this day, the Chinese who lived through this period, the Cultural Revolution, have internalized one lesson clearer than any other: They know that all the most seemingly immutable institutions of society—the rules, the authority structures, the social hierarchies, the police, the armed forces, and everything else that seems so predictable and impervious to change—are but ephemera that can disintegrate in the flash of an eye. And they know that all of the human inhibitions so intrinsic to social life—the disinclination to violence, the ability to feel shame, the willingness to trust, and the subordination of emotion to reason—can so easily give way to the basest of human desires, particularly in the context of a mob and a manipulative leader. Witnesses to the Cultural Revolution are all too aware that what separates us humans from the state of nature is but a thin, fragile veneer."
Why isn't this more widely reported and feted?