Walk on Two Legs

At dinner today a friend brought up this question: why does the US political system have an auto-repair mechanism?

It's pretty simple. Every government can publicly say the previous one was wrong. That sounds normal, but think about it. It means the system can go left, can go right, can go left-right-left-right, and it just keeps moving. Working with two legs.

Most people can't do this. Because we're always scared. Scared that when we publish our ideas, someone will say you're fucking stupid. Scared that something we told a friend last week gets screenshotted and thrown back at us: look how much you've changed. So we either say nothing, or we hold a position we already know is wrong.

But you can treat every period of yourself as a different person.

Next week, you can say: what I wrote last week was wrong. I wasn't clever enough then. After that I saw something, I experienced something, so my judgment changed. That's a good update.

Everything you write today, you don't need to protect it with your whole life. It's just today's version. Look at the date on this article. May 12. This is a snapshot of May 12. It might change tomorrow, next week, next month. Or it might be right forever. Both are fine.

Your mind only has before and after. There is no high and low.

Because it's dynamic. Yesterday is right and today may be wrong. And even worse, you don't know you're wrong today. But that's very possible.

Every day is different. Who you meet, what you read, what you talk about at dinner — it all has a huge impact on your judgment. That's pretty normal.

So don't chase a straight upward mind curve. That curve doesn't exist. If you pursue it, you're just going to end up saying nothing.

Walk on two legs. Left right, left right. That's how we work.