Josh Allred's Blog

For thousands of years, knowledge was conceived as a top-down approach that eventually filtered to the masses. God told the prophets, priests and clergy then it went down to the congregation. The king told his subjects and they obeyed. Creating systems of authority structures in the process.

Then Guttenberg created the printing press at a time when 97% of Europe was illiterate. All of a sudden, you didn’t have to listen to someone else interpret the scriptures or decrees anymore. You could read them yourselves. Of course, it isn’t just ancient texts. Now someone could print the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo and learn we are not the center of the universe. Or read the works of Semmelweis and why it is important to wash your hands (which would later lay the groundwork of germ theory).

Information is no longer linear. It doesn’t emerge from a single source anymore. Information is now abundant because we have the means to share it. Which has changed many things in our culture today:

1. Because information is so abundant and easily accessible, it no longer is as valuable. Think about all the useless facts out there. What is valuable is the time someone takes to collate information in a way that changes people’s minds.
2. People’s attitudes towards information have changed because everyone can now find everything. In fact, we have a reverse effect, people often are experiencing cognitive overload and are working to reduce the amount of input. A major shift in the last 500 years. For a long time, information could only travel as fast as a horse can go. You used to starve as you waited weeks to hear what is happening in the world and today it is instant.
3. Gatekeepers are no longer near as valuable. If you want to be discovered you can post your ebook online. You don’t need a publisher to get it into people’s hands. Yet, while we still live in a complex world full of many people, we still rely on authority structures to govern us. After all, without police, we would eventually just run every red light and no one would get to work on time. So while there are fewer people telling us what to do, we still can’t live without some kind of agreement of governance.
4. The network effect is real. One person using a fax machine is useless until everyone gets on board. Thanks to things like Wikipedia, we can all give to the network and in turn the network gives us back.

Ultimately, we can only attain a small fraction of the knowledge available. What we don’t know far out ways what we do. What is out there waiting to emerge?

We might have created Tylenol but it doesn’t mean we understand it. And the same can be said about climate change, economics, markets, mathematics…we still don’t even understand consciousness.

These are complex systems at work with players who make choices that influence and change outcomes. Sometimes we can make all the right moves and still have puzzling outcomes.

The point is that simple solutions rarely exist to fix a complex problem. Rational actors, as we all claim to be, think we have a grasp on what needs to be done. But because of the limitations of our reach, we underestimate what happens when we influence these systems. So, you try something and say, “Oh that is interesting.” And then try again to change it in a positive way.

We are bad at predicting what happens next even before the internet. What comes next? No one knows.

Talent is the gift we are born with. As much as I try, I can’t make my wing span grow any larger. Skills, on the other hand, are everything else we can attain through practice and work. Coding is a skill. No one is born a great coder. And so is baking, driving, and really most things we do as humans. Some people think we can bypass the hard work of mastering our craft by waiting for inspiration. A muse that can whisper the perfect cord progression on the song you are writing. Genius that inspires us to create a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, there is no Santa. And the muse isn’t real either. No invisible, mystical entity that is waiting to come by and give us the inspiration we need to do our work. What a relief! We don’t need to take a ticket and get in line to start. So then, where do all the good ideas for your screenplay going to come from then? Simple. They are not going to come. You write and write and write. Sometimes it’s good. A lot of times it is bad. But you keep getting ever so slightly better, taking the criticisms and feedback, applying it to the work, and continuing to explore the edges until something your produce resonates. The more swings you get the more chances you have at a homerun.

We like to believe that if we wait long enough the muse will come to save us as we wander the desert of creativity but you will be waiting for a long time. Since you are waiting, you might as well get to work anyway.

The market states over and over again that we need competent workers to fill these roles and jobs. To be competent, we need you to go to school.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to have a lawyer represent me in court that never passed the bar. And I wouldn’t want someone to perform open heart surgery that got their education from Google searches.

Yet, time and time again, credentials created a mental roadblock for people to start making a difference. You don’t need permission to start a protest. You don’t need to have a degree to start a blog or post a song you wrote. There is so much opportunity in what we can do rather than what we can’t. We just need to act accordingly.

Most of the difference makers in the world don’t have the experience they should. If we let it, credentials are the perfect excuse to not even start.

A 5-year-old accidentally gets dirt on a 3-year olds face. You don’t see it but you hear the crying. So you go check and then see the 5-year-old spit in the 3-year-olds face. You assume they are being a bully. When you ask the 5-year-old why they would do that she says, “I was trying to get the dirt off his face.”

What we assume often doesn’t match what is actually happening. All around us this happens.

A technique often used to brainwash people. At its worst, some people convince others to not peek behind the curtain. “Nothing to see folks. Move along.” So the question I hope you ask next should be: If you knew what they knew, would you act differently?

Once you know pro wrestling is fake, it begins to look different. The same can be said when you know how a magic trick works–it demystifies it.

If you think you have it all figured out, you have misled yourself to make the world appear more organized and orderly. Because the world is chaotic and people are messy. Exactly when we categorize something new with something familiar, we have just erased the opportunity for the possibility to learn something new. You are shorting yourself by not critically thinking. This is how we can truly better understand the world and ultimately change it.

If you found the answer, you just haven’t asked the next question.

Fortunately, the Boogie Man is not real. You could call his name three times in the bathroom with the lights off but he won’t come. But for many, they still wouldn’t do it because why risk it?

Often, we create phobias and supply a narrative to reinforce them. Compliance can only work in the presents of fear. Hence, why we show up to work on time. We fear the boss, losing our job and healthcare, and not being able to support ourselves and others. But that fear isn’t real as say a golf ball flying towards your head or turning into oncoming traffic. It isn’t imminent–only imaged.

We create all sorts of things that are not real only to supply a narrative to keep it going. When we can flip the lights on, then we can see.

I’ve written around 2,300 consecutive blog posts. I like to at least get 20,000 in my lifetime.

So, when there is a day I don’t feel like writing I take a look to see how far I have come. That reminder of this run is worth continuing to pursue. I set the goal posts and can move them again. But for me, this has been right on the spot where challenge meets my ability.

When we create a mission around what it is we want to accomplish–it drives us. You need something to carry you because most of the time it isn’t exciting or rewarding and you certainly not going to feel inspired every moment. The mission should you choose to accept it, is a choice you make every day.

When we generalize, it helps us classify and codify. Indeed, creating shortcuts helps us recognize the world. “Oh, yeah that reminds me of this one time…” And then we file this new situation into a category. The problem with these shortcuts is it doesn’t help us better understand the world. Which deters us from discovering the new since we are so focused on the old.

When you kick a soccer ball inside the house and it breaks your parent’s favorite vase–you have a decision to make.

You can say it was your fault or the soccer balls.

The thing about responsibility is when we decide to take it we also move to the driver’s seat of our lives, regardless of what happens.

There is always an excuse to point to. So what? When bad things happen, we can assume the victim role or learn from the experience. I do not say this to minimize the pain life can throw at us. And perhaps, for the things that can feel unbearable this advice does not apply. For the trivial, however, why let it change your mood?

Just to be alive is work.