For years, I saw improvisation as a loss of control, and therefore as danger, humiliation, disgrace, shame. And yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it... in others. Now I’m becoming convinced that it holds my freedom, joy, pleasure, growth, flourishing, meaning, in short, Life.
The sad irony of life is that everything in it seems turned inside out.
Someone cleverly confused people by swapping good and evil. As a result, they waste enormous amounts of effort. Helping founders, I encounter this problem more often than almost any other.
A person has to spend decades searching for what he has always had. But he couldn’t use the gift because of an ironclad conviction: “Impossible. Too simple. This is stupid. Or a trap.”
What’s the best way to hide something? Put it in plain sight.
Praise ugliness in every possible way, while smearing beauty with dirt.
Call dependence freedom, and rhyme will with prison.
In the isolation of loneliness, force one to seek the desired fullness.
Instead of bold openness, take fear’s aggression for strength.
Prefer excessive complexity to modest simplicity.
Enchantedly imitate others while devaluing one’s own uniqueness
The perfect deception is to convince us: where our salvation is, humiliation, slavery, helplessness — in short, symbolic death — awaits us.
And most importantly, make us believe: “This is our personal choice.”
Sooner or later, we will have to make a “crazy” reversal.
Μετάνοια. A change of mind.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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