Splendid Torch
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
Back in high school, anyone who I considered super smart would read plays and poetry in their spare time.
Or, at least, they could name off playwrights and poets with a degree of confidence and without hesitation.
I know the name George Bernard Shaw, but until yesterday, I wasn’t familiar with the writing above until David Gardner read it from a fan email on his podcast:
With another week almost over, friends of mine are already out of town going somewhere to relax.
In the United States, The Wall Street Journal reminded me that jobs are still available, only fewer people are applying:
“The number of job openings exceeded the number of unemployed Americans by the largest margin on record in April, signaling difficulty for employers to find workers in a historically tight market.
There were a seasonally adjusted 7.449 million unfilled jobs at the end of the month, barely budging from March, the Labor Department said Monday. Meanwhile, the number of Americans seeking work in April dropped to 5.824 million from 6.211 million a month earlier.”
In the past week, I’ve continued to shop at the Amazon ($AMZN) Go store.
My record time in-and-out is 25 seconds.
No long aisles. No waiting in line. No cashier.
Only my smartphone and the Amazon Go app:
“Its 1,700 square feet is stocked with snacks, lunch options like sandwiches and salads, and some of what Amazon calls ‘local favorites,’ including Magnolia Bakery and Ess-A-Bagel.
The new location will also have a self-serve Starbucks coffee bar, offering up three different roasts of Starbucks coffee — blonde, medium, and dark — as well as 12 different Starbucks espresso drinks.
‘We partnered up with Starbucks to make sure we’re offering really great coffee,’ Cameron Janes, Amazon’s vice president of physical stores, told Business Insider.
He also said the store will be freshly brewing the coffee every 45 minutes.”
And yet, coincidentally, this week, Amazon opted out of competing with Seamless and Uber Eats and the others by ending Amazon Restaurants:
“In addition, Amazon Restaurants has been ‘invisible in search,’ Duffy said.
GrubHub appears in 56% of searches for restaurant delivery, per Gartner’s figures. Amazon Restaurants, on the other hand, appears in just 11%.
[Amazon] Restaurants doesn’t crack the top 1,500 pages on Amazon.com.
‘There are millions of existing loyal customers to existing courier apps, so by lacking a stand-alone app and not investing in search, it really wasn’t visible to customers already placing restaurant orders,’ he added.”
Time is a currency that has very few conversion equals and David Perell pointed out on his blog that the window to go-for-it closes day-by-day:
“Large gaps between accelerating technologies and stagnating social norms create lucrative opportunities. But these opportunities are only available for a limited time. At that moment, people can capitalize on the difference between the real and perceived state of the world. I call this sliver of opportunity the ‘Go-For-It-Window.’
You know you’ve found the Go-For-It Window when you’re simultaneously woke and confused; when you’re shocked your idea doesn’t already exist; when you know something nobody else does; and when it feels like others see the world in black and white, while you see the world with vibrant, technicolor glasses.
Opportunity and popularity are inversely correlated. Sometimes, the paths that look safe are the riskiest, and vice versa. If you’re looking for an under-exploited opportunity, you’ll have to go against the herd.”
History is the best warning sign against taking the wrong kinds of risk, especially when everyone is collectively taking them unknowingly:
“Time passes and ignorance grows. A new generation always comes around, confident that what they’ve discovered will bring riches.
Those that criticize or don’t play must be ‘too old’ or ‘out of touch’ with the new paradigm. Those that do play, get It. Whatever It is. They’ve bought in, so criticism never goes over well. Besides, the people pushing It must be smart. They’re rich or they manage a ton of money, so they’re right, right?
There’s been a lot of It’s over the years.”
As Shaw also wrote, “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.”
