Reverse Hut Tax

Hut Taxes were used by the British Colonies to force people out of subsistence lifestyles after the Anglo-Somebody wars. In South Africa, this led to the Bambatha Rebellion in 1906, which galvanised the post-war identity of the Zulu people. If you need to pay taxes, you need money to pay it. This means problem solving needs to have a number put on it. One way to think of a Universal Basic Income is as a “Reverse Hut Tax”. It allows people to reinvest in the basics. To have sufficient money to have parcels of time where they don’t have to think about money. To rebuild a base, that allows them to survive periods when a hand-to-mouth, pass-the-parcel, economy is not functional. To build basic competencies (that get outsourced when you are just one link in a fragile value creation chain). We can be seduced by specialisation. Just doing the one thing we are good at. That is fine, until it isn’t. Winters aren’t a surprise. Creative Destruction requires periods of unlearning and rebuilding. Without endurance and resilience, creativity can have no roots to draw sustenance from.

Bambatha

Space to Learn

Some things take time. A lot of time. We marvel at how children learn, and yet forget just how much space and time we give them to learn. An adult who had a 10-year-olds mother tongue capacity would not be considered fluent. That is a decade of learning! But the 10-year-old becomes an adult and slowly the flavour is added to the foundations. One of the obstacles to adult learning is we know about the idea of flavour. Once you are a specialist at something, we expect that Halo of competence to spread. Like we are 'essentially' a Specialist. Better than others. That makes us less willing to be rubbish at things. To build new foundations. The pressure from others to demonstrate progress. To be conspicuous about our development. Some things take time. Some growth is internal. I would love to see us give the kind of love and space we allow children, to each other. To ourselves.

Shallow Foundations - House

Deep Foundations - Skyskraper

umBubble Wam

Ndiyathemba ukuba, ngokwandisa umBubble wam, nokwenza iimpazamo ezininzi, ndinokususa ezinye izithintelo ezithintele ukuba ndibone. Ukhuphiswano luyanyanzeleka njengabantu abadala. Siva ngathi kufuneka siqinisekise ukuba sifanele sihlale esihlalweni. I-Hereditary Status sasimisa abantu ukuzama kwiindawo abazikhethileyo. I-Meritocracy yayifanele iwanike umntu ithuba. Esikhundleni saloo ndawo, ithatha indawo yokuba 'wazi indawo yakho' 'ngokufumana indawo yakho'. Impumelelo. Zombini zimbi. Sinika abantwana ithuba. Siyabathanda nantoni na eyenzayo. Ngokukhawuleza, xa siba ngabantu abadala, uthando kunye nentlonipho ziyaxhomekeka. Ubudlelwane buvakalelwa ngathi bahlala besengozini yokuwahlukana. Ndifuna ukukhululeka ngakumbi ngokungakhathaleli loo mngcipheko. Ukuvulela iimpazamo kunye nokungakwazi. Ngenxa yokuba sifunda apho.

In Your Head

I don't believe people are wired for specialisation. Good schools build people. But then we tend to specialise. I have always been more of a head person than a body person, but in my school days that didn't stop me. Each year, I would try out for stuff 'just in case' a new super power had blossomed. 'Yes last year, I was in the 7th team, but I am bigger this year'. Once we hit work, the danger is we pick one thing. We become that guy in the gym who only exercises his biceps. We stop being competent at life, because we are excellent at one tiny aspect. The irony of self-defining as a 'head person' is you can disconnect from the world you are thinking about.

What's in your head?

Perpetually 'On'

One of the best parts of my period of 'independence' was not having to check emails. My inbox was no longer my onbox that determined much of what I needed to do each day. I was able to wake up, and be micro-ambitious. One of my 'mini projects' was getting fit, and so I would pick a place to do my writing and walk to it. I would put on an audio book and head out. I felt super productive, even though I had far fewer big goals. Each day, I was a little fitter, and had learnt and shared a little something.

One of my key ambitions was to be 'the guy with time'. Available for conversation. I have a chip on my shoulder about how busy everybody is, and how much we super specialise.

I fully buy into the value of focusing on areas of 'Comparative Advantage' in a world of scarcity, but there have to be clear constraints. We can't be perpetually on. Perpetually available. 

In exchange for not being available for certain periods, you can be fully present when you are available. A friend described it as 'I would rather be 100% present 80% of the time, than 50% present 100% of the time.'

Finding a Moment

The breakthroughs in new fields tend to come from young people. In established fields, there is normally a vast sea of knowledge to conquer before you get to the edge. If you want to contribute by pushing the boundary further, you have to specialise. You have to focus. The contributions tend to come from people who dedicate their lives to something very particular. Their circle of competence shrinks as they go deeper and deeper. They reach the frontiers later in life. The question is then whether they are able to send the message back in a way that lay people will understand. In a way that makes their adventure, our adventure.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, you have a human brain with human constraints and 24 hours in the day. We all let go of things in order to specialise. We make choices. We can't do everything. My concern with this is that we aren't very good at keeping in mind all the things that are important to us. We aren't very good at prioritising, and being pulled back to the things that matter. In a world that requires specialism and a shrinking circle in order to contribute, my worry is that we let go of basic competence at life. 

In order to specialise, we need to delegate tasks. We need to be selectively ignorant. Okay with not knowing how to do certain things, because other people can do them better. We get better and better at the things we are good at, and that is seductive. Being a beginner is confusing. There is anxiety involved. There are lots of people who can judge you. The better you get, the fewer people there are who know more. It can feel safe to be in a spot where no one can give you rubbish. Where you are the rubbish giver. You can walk confidently.

But there are lots of areas of basic life you can't delegate. Relationships. Physical Health. Mental Health. There are lots of things where it isn't about being the best. It is simply about being competent. Being able to do simple household chores. Being able to make a meal. The nuts and bolts of life. Without which nothing else matters.

I have just returned from two weeks in Marrakech. It was my first decent stay in a Muslim Country for any significant period. Five times a day the call to prayer would sound. Sunrise, Mid-day, Mid-Afternoon, Sunset and in the Evening. For many their day would continue. But as the sound spread over the city, it was a moment to recall the things that are important. I find that idea powerful. If 5 times a day, we stopped whatever we were doing for just a minute. Closed our eyes and remembered what mattered.  

I grew up a religious little guy. One of the things we were encouraged to do was 'Quiet Time'. To wake up a little earlier. Find a quiet place to sit or walk to, read a little bit of the Bible, and then spend some time in prayer. Yogis talk of the quiet period just before sunrise (4-5 am) as an especially good time to sit in silence. Stripping away religious additions, I think carving out time, even moments, in the day for stillness is a useful habit to form.

When I do that, the things that matter most aren't complicated. They aren't near the edge. They are close and they are shared.

Marrakech, Morocco 

Seduced by Success

Errol Stewart was a legend old boy from the school I went to. He played rugby for our provincial rugby side, and represented South Africa in cricket as well. In 1995 he won the Currie cup with the Natal Sharks rugby side and the Currie cup with the Natal Dolphins cricket side. At school, he also made the provincial teams for hockey and athletics. As sport has become more professional it is unlikely that these sorts of feats will be repeated. David Epstein takes a look at some of the reasons that we have 'gotten better, faster and stronger'. While specialisation does improve our focus, and arguably makes sports more entertaining, I quite like the idea of a goal independent of competition. A goal which doesn't require complete specialisation.

I spoke of yesterday of the communication challenges that come from filtering. The more we specialise, the more difficult it is to talk to each other. We share less context. We do need some brave souls to venture out to that lonely edge to find truths to bring back. For most people though, the ideal should not be to be unique. Unique for unique's sake is overrated. The focus then becomes on what others are doing in and semi-paranoid search for words to describe what your competitive advantage is. I believe in a search for competitive advantage. In its place. I love finding companies that I think do something great and have some sort of barrier to entry to protect their ability to carry on doing well. They make great investments. I don't think that is where happiness lies. What you are good at should be an engine for you to explore the things that are worth doing, not because you are the best, but because they are worth doing. Make your excellence your muse, not your prison. Sometimes the most efficient use of your time isn't the best use of your time.

I think we need to be careful of being seduced by the comfort of things we do well. We need to be careful of being seduced by things that can easily be measured. It makes life more comfortable once we get onto a path that we get a sense we are good at. We get on a roll and get better and better. We start to hum like a well oiled machine. We are not machines. Time can pass and you can realise you have been doing something really well but a whole bunch of other things that were important to you have been missed. They never screamed loud enough to get attention. They just waited for you.

Confusion, Stories and Trust

Completely confused - must be smart
Whether a lack of self-confidence or just an awareness that the world is complex and we know only a little of what we could know - we are very forgiving of poor communicators. In fact, we often assume if someone rambles and uses big words that they must be very smart. Fearn points a finger at French Postmodernist Philosophers in chapter 9 of Philosophy but this is quite common in a world where we have uber-specialised. Here is one sentence from Felix Guattari:

We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multidimensional machinic catalysis.

!!!!????? We elevate smart people. We trust them with our money, or plans, or time. We get to a situation sometimes where there are so many cooks in the kitchen, and they are each so specialised and don't 'speak the same language' that co-ordination becomes a problem. So the wheels spin. No one ends up understanding the full picture. So 'fuzzy thinking' or problems can hide.

Great story - must be smart
On the other hand, we think in stories. We like stuff that has a good narrative, where we can follow each step, and have a preference for stuff we can understand. Those who can tell good stories wield tremendous power in being able to convince people that what they are saying is true. I think we want to be believers, so if someone says something with confidence and conviction, we don't want to disbelieve them.

So what do we do? How do we trust people in areas we don't understand? In Liberal Capitalist countries with solid regulation and rule of law, theory has it that you can trust Efficient Markets. For small decisions like buying a chocolate, I think this works. In the past most of the world was simple enough that you could know a little bit about everything. You could know enough about how cars work to know if the mechanic was over-charging. You could have done the work, you just chose to focus on something else. As we specialise more and more, and as technology and modern science pushes things beyond our intellectual and practical capacity - how do we maintain a 'trust but verify' approach? A market can only be efficient if information is quickly spread and correctly understood.

I don't have an answer, but I suspect part of it lies in learning to ask good questions, not accepting jargon and unclear answers, and being aware of the risks or wary of riskless stories. Largely, it may come down to trust and institutional protection.

Exciting (but nervous) times.

With some effort... you could learn how cars worked without being a specialist

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile

Lives in Parallel

At school you do everything. Maths - bring it on. Biology - ok. Athletics - hmm, show me how it works. School Play. New instrument. Waitor. Then one day you get told to grow up. You get told to choose. This makes sense but it sucks. We have to stop playing because we need to work. To work we need to specialise. So we choose.

One friend becomes a Doctor and stops acting. One friend becomes a life insurance salesman and stops painting. The creative guy who loves people becomes a Doctor and ends up after years of study tired of Medical politics.

And by letting go of things we love we live in parallel. We go off on different directions. We make new friends. We experience new things. But our new friends do what we do, and often think like we think. The gap from our old friends may not be that far, but we cut ourselves off from trying because with time and specialisation we forget our common ground.

How long would it really take to find common ground? We don't know. Our default isn't to be open to learn. Our default is to just accept the way it is. Time is limited so we choose.

Kids don't choose. They play. They explore. They fail. They succeed.

Kids rock. Just saying.