Current song stuck in my head:


But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
-- Time in a Bottle

I've heard that the smartest people are the ones who can simultaneously hold the most (in number and in extremity of contrast) contradictory truths in their head at once. I hope this is true. Right now I'm in the "extraordinarily confused" stage and continuing to stumble forward until the dawn breaks once more (it's happened before, and I expect the cycle to repeat many times over). Disequilibrium is a wonderful plateau to be on, and comforting in a weird way when you know it's going to pass someday.

Also: perhaps the reason why startup founders put in such long hours is that they have to keep their company real by sheer force of constant belief - for instance, if I went to sleep tonight, thousands of people would still continue to act as if, say, IBM and General Motors and the like were real. So they are real, because they're real to us.

But if I had an idea and started it and then I went to bed, then nobody would know, and that vision would wink out of being while I slept. Maybe it wouldn't wake up again. You don't know. If you want that vision to stay alive and to persist in the beliefs and actions of others, you have to stay up, you have to believe in it yourself, and act accordingly - act like it's a fact that will (of course!) be staying.

Turning "real to me" into "real to us" into "of course it's real!" is - well, that's the trick, isn't it?