I love this perspective Dan. Thinking of Queen Elizabeth in particular and the number of historical figures she's known, and times she's lived through regularly blows my mind.
After university a while back I took a month to tour Europe and bought "Europe: A History" by Norman Davies in an effort to have a chronological reference for some of the things I'd come across. I sometimes come back to that tome but never quite get through it. I'd still love to have a better sense of the grand scale of human history, just maybe not in that detail, then take more time with the more immediate history more relevant to our present times. Thinking in LT spans is a nice way to break that down.
Great piece Dan. One idea I read was to plot your life on a 52x100 table. One entry per week. One idea being to value each week a bit more. Having close to 5200 weeks to spend in a lifetime is not so many.
Another unit of time might be the generation. The average difference between a parang and child’s ages.
Measuring history in units of 1gn = 25 years would mean Caesar went to Britain around 83gn ago.
Thanks, Matthew. I had a look and this looks intensely interesting to me but for some reason the book's existence had not registered on my brain. I even follow Oliver Burkeman on Twitter! In any event, I'm going to look into it.
I am always happy to see Al Capone noted. A few weeks ago I had lunch with Terry Cooke of the Hamilton Community Foundation who at one point chaired the Police Board. He does know where the bodies are buried but Canadian reticence keeps this the worst kept secret.
And on my other "pet peeve"(not Poilievre but maybe) immigration and aliens in our midst.
The observation that our focus is very much on the present certainly rings true. And this also ties neatly into your frequent observations about how poorly we estimate risk or assess possible futures. Despite being aware of these issues I know it is still a struggle professionally and personally to make decisions about the best course of action. Say we have an opportunity to go with friends for a long weekend in three weeks and that this is our one opportunity to do so in the next year. Too often I will look at my workload, my list of things to do, the colleagues or friends who I believe are depending on me and will decide based on how I feel today that I cannot go. If I step back and think about how I might feel about not going in 10 months and what impact my not going will have had in 10 months the decision dynamics change considerably. Yet, I am still more likely to skip it than go because of work. At the same, I will often tell myself that I will be able to do more fun things if I just get through this period. Things always look like they might be easier over the horizon or over that next hill. But the reality, if I look back honestly 10 months or even 10 years, is that I have never actually acted in that way. I simply looked at the next hill and promised myself things will be easier after I get to the top of that hill.
I love this perspective Dan. Thinking of Queen Elizabeth in particular and the number of historical figures she's known, and times she's lived through regularly blows my mind.
After university a while back I took a month to tour Europe and bought "Europe: A History" by Norman Davies in an effort to have a chronological reference for some of the things I'd come across. I sometimes come back to that tome but never quite get through it. I'd still love to have a better sense of the grand scale of human history, just maybe not in that detail, then take more time with the more immediate history more relevant to our present times. Thinking in LT spans is a nice way to break that down.
Great piece Dan. One idea I read was to plot your life on a 52x100 table. One entry per week. One idea being to value each week a bit more. Having close to 5200 weeks to spend in a lifetime is not so many.
Another unit of time might be the generation. The average difference between a parang and child’s ages.
Measuring history in units of 1gn = 25 years would mean Caesar went to Britain around 83gn ago.
A very good recent book on this subject is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Thanks, Matthew. I had a look and this looks intensely interesting to me but for some reason the book's existence had not registered on my brain. I even follow Oliver Burkeman on Twitter! In any event, I'm going to look into it.
Typo parang = parent
I am always happy to see Al Capone noted. A few weeks ago I had lunch with Terry Cooke of the Hamilton Community Foundation who at one point chaired the Police Board. He does know where the bodies are buried but Canadian reticence keeps this the worst kept secret.
And on my other "pet peeve"(not Poilievre but maybe) immigration and aliens in our midst.
https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/building-borders?mc_cid=b67caaa030&mc_eid=ed1407d573
The observation that our focus is very much on the present certainly rings true. And this also ties neatly into your frequent observations about how poorly we estimate risk or assess possible futures. Despite being aware of these issues I know it is still a struggle professionally and personally to make decisions about the best course of action. Say we have an opportunity to go with friends for a long weekend in three weeks and that this is our one opportunity to do so in the next year. Too often I will look at my workload, my list of things to do, the colleagues or friends who I believe are depending on me and will decide based on how I feel today that I cannot go. If I step back and think about how I might feel about not going in 10 months and what impact my not going will have had in 10 months the decision dynamics change considerably. Yet, I am still more likely to skip it than go because of work. At the same, I will often tell myself that I will be able to do more fun things if I just get through this period. Things always look like they might be easier over the horizon or over that next hill. But the reality, if I look back honestly 10 months or even 10 years, is that I have never actually acted in that way. I simply looked at the next hill and promised myself things will be easier after I get to the top of that hill.
A quibble before this gets archived. 1/6 is 16.666666...%. Therefore 16% is slightly LESS than one in six.