Words&Dirt

“Hunger is the best seasoning.”

––The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, loc. 939

“We don’t have much time. Because our mind predisposes us to think of trends as linear, we often fail to grasp the urgency of the situation. The demand we place on the planet grows, like our economies, not linearly but exponentially, compounding like interest rates. To show how the time shortens when changes are not linear but exponential, imagine putting a drop of water in the palm of your hand, and then doubling the water every minute. In six minutes, there would be enough water to fill a thimble. How long would it take to fill a sports arena? Just 50 minutes. Only 5 minutes earlier, the stadium would still be 97 percent empty and it would feel like there was still plenty of time left to find a solution.”

––Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, by Frederic Laloux, pg. 299-300