A friend sent me a speech she thought I’d like, from Paul Hawken, at the University of Portland Commencement Address. The best section:
“There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.”
It wasn’t the environmental angle that I liked most, it’s the defiance of impossibility.
“Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.”
Yes.
Most of the people I’ve seen achieve the most, in the least amount of time either don’t realize, don’t care, or simply don’t stop to think that what they’re trying is supposed to be impossible. Google.org gets it, that to do revolutionary things we need to dismiss most of the constraints projected by our surroundings. Consider this line from one of their job postings:
“We’re looking for people with a healthy disregard for the impossible.”
Yes, Google.org gets it. Respecting convention is comfortable. It isn’t particularly scary. There’s often a path we can follow, showing us the way. It doesn’t ask us to enact our own initiative, judgment and drive in massive quantities. It doesn’t ask us to suspend our impression of the impossible. It doesn’t ask us to shape our society’s future.
But some people still ask us to do this.
B
(shot: Sis Tess, in Wales, 2008)
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This was absolutely my favorite quote from that speech as well. Surprised the speech took this long to get around to you!
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Hey Brian,
It didn’t. The post just sat in my drafts folder, waiting for the right time to see the light. Apparently that right time was Thursday, June 25, 2009…
B
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One of Greenpeace’s keys to organizing campaigns (if I’ve got it right) is to ask “Is this objective achievable?” if they determine that it isn’t, a campaign could be dropped despite its virtue and importance. That seems like disregarding the impossible. Not disregarding the notion of “impossible.” This, however is on the shorter-term goal scale. Their overarching mission of saving the environment may not be subjected to the same test. Anyway, they’ve done well for themselves.
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Brendan Reply:
June 26th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Yeah Raff, interesting example. I’d say the difference lies in Greenpeace’s vision vs strategy. If you sat them all down in Vancouver in the first month and asked them what their broad aims and plans were, and their reply was something like ‘we’re going to shift world opinion by ramming dinghys against oil tankers’, people would have thought them nuts. But they went ahead and did it. The other stuff is strategy, and sure, your strategy needs to be at least somewhat grounded…
I’m talking about, as you say, the notion of impossible. Not actually impossible. Two very different things.
Cool example though.
B
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All good points; in the greater context, one should consider the view of the cosmologists out there, who (I think) generally agree that our simple existence is, practically, almost impossible. The confluence of so many ridiculously unlikely events and circumstances necessary to spawn humanity should predispose us to disregarding the notion of impossible, don’t you think? Remember: you think therefore you are.
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Yeah but the cosmos don’t have a goal. Plus they’ve got all that mass and energy just churning around, lots of time too. I’ve got a little mass, but insufficient energy to realize various goals, and certainly a scarcity of time.
A cosmologist probably wouldn’t touch the term impossible, opting instead for extremely improbable (although I recognize that you said “almost impossible”).
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Good discussion–managed to be nit-picky and still really interesting.
And B, I found I was thinking about that post all day. Partly trying to figure out why the picture of me was in there (”get your ass in gear, Tess” or just a good ocean full of promise behind, and youth in front), but mostly because it’s something I need to be told all the time, and need to incorporate into my life and plans more than I am now.
Thanks, and love,
-t
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Read a good quote in a G&M article today (30/6) by Todd Hirsch, “senior economist at ATB Financial”, whoever they are. From a Brazilian architect named Ruy Ohtake: “Every project should be a little bit impossible. That is how we progress”. Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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