On life changes, randomness and continuity
...like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
Otto Neurath
Life is fluid and always changing.
We have been able to fly and cross oceans relying purely on a deterministic description of reality, a beautiful approximation of something more fundamental. At the core of nature, as we perceive it, everything is dominated by probability and randomness. There is beauty in how much averages into something as simple as what we observe daily.
I have always been charmed by the continuity and determinism we perceive while living in a world dominated by change and randomness. I feel a strong continuity with who I was a couple of years ago, even if every atom in my body has been replaced by another one in that period. As in the previous quote, I feel I am on the same ship even if there is no single beam left from what the ship was two years ago.
The same in relationships. I have been blessed by creating and living with long-lasting intimate relationships. Still, both people in a relationship change and transform over time, and the relationship shifts and evolves. However, the concept of a long-lasting relationship is a constant in a sea of changes.
It is charming to think that processes and bonds in themselves last more than the individual component of the system. It is true for our bodies; it is true for cities and societies. There is a continuity based on the relational part of systems, that can persist even with grounds based on randomness and change.
The people I love and share my life with are and will be changing and evolving. The relationship, or my perception of it, is much less variable. It feels like, a relationship or a habit is a meta-stable system that is more resilient to the inbuilt randomness of nature. You can think of it in terms of the weight of a ball on a cloth; the heavier the ball, the less it will be moved by the motion of the cloth underneath.
Creating and nurturing long-lasting relationships enables momentum and escaping the average to zero. There are plenty of resources for how to build a company better and faster, and more will come in the future; however, what compounds is relationships. In a company and in life.
This is directly to you, pre-seed and seed founders:
Build relationships that last way longer than your current companies. The relationships I built at Pilloxa kept me motivated when the going got tough, and what I still treasure after the company was sold.
The thing is: your legacy is in the people you spend time with. No one will remember in a few years how hard you were crushing those to-do lists; everyone will remember if they still feel they would sail to the unknown with you. Spend time and focus nurturing them. There is nothing that scales as well.
Even after the exit, when reflecting on what is next for me, being in an environment that fosters and promotes intense and meaningful relationships is at the top of my list.
Meanwhile, I'll get back to shaping and reconstructing my ship. One beam at a time. An endless and beautiful journey in a sea of ships like mine.