A Story Worth Telling

As I consider career paths, I am confronted by several question:

  • What am I good at?
  • What can I do others can’t?
  • How can I be of most value?
  • How do I want to spend my time?
  • What would my ideal workday look like?
  • What am I motivated by, and why?
  • Who do I want to serve?
  • What industry do I want to help?
  • What mission needs my talents?
  • What do I want to do?

Something I’ve been beyond fascinated with since the pandemic slowed my life down is TV shows and movies. Most likely I began watching more closely because there wasn’t much else to do. But there’s also something beyond real through these on-screen stories–there’s truth. These stories, whether fictional or not, hold deep truths about our humanity and our individual/shared experience in this life. That’s important. It’s substantial.

I’m struck by another question as I consider a career telling stories:

  • How much do these stories really matter? Are they truly impactful in changing how people live their lives or are they merely entertainment for the masses?

I think about the story of Christ. And William Wallace in Braveheart. And Iron Man throughout the MCU. These myths are far beyond entertainment. They make people want to be better. They make people more heroic, more inspired, better than they were before. Their impact is real, and the masterful power of the literature or cinematic experience is real. It counts, for something. Not always, but sometimes.

It’s really been making me think.

SPEED LIMIT ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT

I’d like to see a statistic for the number of people who believe this sign.

Given that speed limits were initially constructed to save money during wartime (55 mph is the sweet spot on the bell curve of gasoline used per speed graph), the idea that an aircraft (with a much higher carbon footprint than cars traveling 20 miles over) is monitoring speeds on an interstate is not only counterintuitive–it’s absurd.

I guess the chance that people might slow down and save a life is worth the cost of a couple signs.

Ragnarök

[THOR RAGNARÖK SPOLERS]

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is the event where Asgard, the home of gods such as Thor, Loki, and Odin, is destroyed. However, the story of Asgard and Scandinavian gods doesn’t end there. After Ragnarök, Asgard is renewed.

Variations of these Norse myths are told throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) through the heroic God of Thunder, Thor, an original member of the Avengers. In Thor Ragnarok, well, you can guess what transpires. After Odin’s death, Thor’s sister Hela escapes her imprisonment in the underworld and tries to take over Asgard. Several other events lead to the inevitable destruction of Asgard–Ragnarök itself. Luckily, many Asgardians are saved through the likes of timeless and unlikely heroes (and their large spaceship borrowed from a distant planet).

During Ragnarök, the great Heimdall–the gatekeeper god who can see and hear throughout the cosmos while controlling the Bifröst (rainbow bridge that connects worlds)–assures Thor of what his father, Odin, conveyed in his final moments:

“Asgard is not a place, it’s a people.”

Heimdall to Thor

And so Asgardians were saved even though Asgard was destroyed. They were together on the safe harbor of their ship until their inevitable and unfortunate encounter with Thanos. After the events of Infinity War & Endgame, Asgardians set up a new home in the town of Tønsberg, Norway. A long way of Asgard–in a different realm, but enough of them to remember who they are.

What’s the moral of the story? No matter where you go, you will bring your people with you. Your family, your ancestors, the people who sacrificed so that you could be alive. They are you and you, them. People are not determined by where they live in the cosmos but by who they are. While your location impacts how you live, that you are alive will always unite you with your people, your culture, your home.

Asgard is a people, not a place. Asgard was destroyed, but Asgardians not. Now in the MCU, there is hope for Asgardians under their new leader, Valkyrie. They are rebuilding their home because they never lost it–it just changed location.

Moving away from home–be it destroyed or intact–doesn’t change your cosmic identity. While it may change how you live your life, you will always be the sum of all the people and choices that made you, both throughout the past and during your lifetime. You are quite a marvel, and you will always be more than your address.

Eco Conservation

There’s a growing concern about the future of our planet, or at least the planet we’ve known so far. Industrialism is rapidly accelerating and our dependence on the system that destroys natural places is more evident now than ever before. In the age of the Anthropocene, human beings are responsible for the destruction of habitats around the globe. We are manifesting the sixth mass extinction. Many of the species we’ve come to love since our safari-themed nursery rooms may not be around for the next generation.

While this is concerning to those who have sustained a special connection to the land, it’s less concerning to the industrialists, the men and women at the top of our social hierarchy. They are concerned with the future and getting us there. Perhaps this is for our own good. Perhaps there’s a lot we don’t know, and for good reason. Regardless, wherever humanity is going, however great the industrial revolution will blossom, we must not forget our roots.

We are human beings of planet earth. We have been sustained by the earth since before We (the royal we–life itself) existed. And the earth has been created and sustained by the cosmos. We have a role to play in maintaining the natural world, the unseen but ever present interstellar forces through and by which we’ve arrived at today. This is the land that holds our ancestors, the land where our dead have been buried and transformed since We left the ocean. This is the water that gives life, flowing from springs of life eternal. Without the earth, we would not get to play “space.”

There’s a new industry emerging, one that will compliment the industrial revolution as it progresses indefinitely forward. This industry will keep humanity’s feet touching the ground, ever aware of the world we’ve come from before we venture into worlds unknown. For now, we’ll call this new industry Ecosystem Conservation. There have been conservation projects since the dawn of man, though the scale has tipped towards resource accumulation in favor of environmental restoration. This is about to change.

In the past 100 years, conservation jobs have been saved for the government, the public sector. The private sector has broken through with an abundance of nature-inspired media. From Sit David Attenborough to National Geographic, we have educated the world about the world, the source of our existence. But the confinement of nature-restoration to the public sector is about to be turned on its head.

“It is my belief that the next 1,000 unicorns—companies that have a market valuation over a billion dollars—won’t be a search engine, won’t be a media company, they’ll be businesses developing green hydrogen, green agriculture, green steel, and green cement.”

Larry Fink, CEO and chairman of BlackRock. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with ~$9.46 trillion USD in assets under management. (Quote I’m Pondering from Tim Ferris’s 5-Bullet Friday newsletter, issue 1/14/22)

Our planet is warming, natural disasters are worsening, and humans are left arguing about why and how bad. In 5 years, there will be no more debate. In 10 years, the first companies will have made strides in profitably restoring natural landscapes and aquatic ecosystems. Then, once we see tangible results, we’ll start investing in earth-saving solutions to these age-old problems. In 25 years, we will start thinking about how to modulate the climate to our–and nature’s–benefit on a global scale. We will become agents in the sustainability of our entire planet on the cosmic scale, but only if we learn how to work together.

The field of Eco Conservation is about to explode. I want to be there when it does, hard hat at the ready.