Fragility, Failure, Fear
Boldness at a Price
Fortune favors the bold. The tattoo read on the outside of her otherwise perfect thigh. In its Latin equivalent no less. Taking a quick trip into antiquity via Wikipedia the iconic phrase is noted by Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Virgil, and Terence a virtual slew. There is also Fortuna Erudition Favet or “fortune favors the prepared mind”. The French Microbiologist said, “Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorite due les esprits prepares” or “In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.” I prefer this one.
Bold, courageous, confident, prepared.
The general manager pounded his fist on the table. Angry. Frustrated. The War Room. The ‘come to Jesus’ meeting. Many manufacturing spaces have them. Getting more and more frustrated his eyes met each person around the table. My turn was coming. Red-faced he addressed me and a project that had been sequestered to the back burner. Not on my radar at all. I was unprepared. As I felt fear entwining its icy hold on my resolve I remembered Seneca. Amor fati. Embrace fate. If this is my failure so be it. This is the hill on which I die. “I actually don’t know” I responded, “But I’ll have an answer to that before the end of day.”. Crisis averted, there is a boldness that comes when one stares into his/her own grave.
Nassim Taleb, author of the infamous The Black Swan carries with him his own copy of Seneca, and ponders Amor fati as he revisits his homeland in Amion, the village of his ancestors. At dusk, he visits Mar Sarkis, his family’s side of the cemetery, and ponders the location of his future grave. He mentions, “I felt robust.”.
As I weave through the concepts of Agile, and Disciplined Agile Delivery, I am reminded of the ‘Fail Fast’ idea. This is not a concept for fearful people. Fearlessly sprint toward failure. Bold, courageous, prepared, Amor fati, Seneca, and Nassim Taleb all race through my mind as I tackle an application with which I am barely acquainted. I send my very first daily dispatch to a leadership I know very little about. An hour passes before a solitary email touches my inbox. “Good Job.”.
Fortuna, that great Roman goddess of luck favors the prepared. That boldness allows us to charge ahead knowing failure or fate is over the next hill, or rather, around that next backup of an SQL server. A cantankerous billing cycle cobbled together by messy Crystal Reports. As my own personal patron saint Nassim would say, “Work hard in chasing such opportunities and maximizing your exposure to them. Maximize the serendipity around you.” Within the long and the short of it, may the courage of Montaigne be upon you.
By Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673) (1615–1673) — artist (Italian)https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21991372
“It certainly takes bravery to remain skeptical; it takes inordinate courage to introspect, to confront oneself, to accept one’s limitations — scientists are seeing more and more evidence that we are specifically designed by mother nature to fool ourselves.”. -Nassim Taleb