Peters Fold by Andy Goldsworthy at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Plus the kids.

We spent the weekend in Yorkshire for my dad's 80th birthday! The weather was glorious and we stopped at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on the way up to scout out some of Andy Goldsworthy's work. The eldest kid is doing him at school so we thought it made sense to get him up close to it when we had the opportunity. He uses materials found in the local area so everything involved trees and dry stone walling. The dry stone walling was top notch, frankly. The eldest was a little underwhelmed ("I thought they'd be more artistic"). Maybe going from Van Gogh to Andy Goldsworthy misses some key What is art? conversations.

We're getting to the pointy end of our first phase on the Adult Social Care Accelerator and our first cohort of global startups are about to land in the UK. I should do a proper post when this is all over on everything I've learned on this project.

Inputs

Pace Layering How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning

This is Stewart Brand’s chapter from The Clock of the Long Now where he actually describes pace layers. Actually reading it provides some great insights e.g. how the faster layers can absorb shocks to the system and when faster layers increase in speed, slower layer may slow down further to keep balance.

Conformity Be Damned How to Crack the “Black Sheep Paradox”

Not a very good article. It’s important to be comfortable looking stupid or wrong if you want to generate outsized returns (in investing or any field). Fine. But his suggestions of ways to cultivate this are to learn lots and write. The writing I kind of get: proving to yourself that your logic is sound and you have conviction in your beliefs by writing about them is smart. But learning is not going to help you feel comfortable with unpopular opinions. Questioning is. Debating is. Not assigning identity to your positions is. Finding environments where failure is tolerated is. Identifying pivot triggers or kill signals is. Understanding what evidence would make you change your mind.