I want to clarify the two posts below, because my email confirms that they were too sketchy and easily misunderstood.

First, Pythagorus. He was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, and even had a little cult going for a while. A portion of his time was spent doing things that stood the test of time and were both interesting and useful. He also spent time working on reincarnation and deciding that no one in his cult should eat beans (it’s not totally clear why).

The reason I picked perfect numbers as an example is that while his point is correct (28 is in fact perfect) and while it ultimately led to figuring out prime numbers, a perfect number wasn’t nearly as important as he thought it was. It has no spiritual implications, no personality, for example. SO, to make a short story too long, I was making the point that you can never be quite sure which thing on your development agenda is the right one (your hard work might turn out to be beans) and that falling in love with your current work might not be so smart.

As far as the fungus woman, I wasn’t dissing her. I was merely pointing out that many people are quite happy living their lives on a different part of Rogers’ adoption curve than you are. She likes being the last person in her group to try something weird. It’s worth remembering the fungus when you can’t figure out why everyone on earth doesn’t love your new idea the minute you release it.

I’m getting on a plane and flying to sea level now. I promise to be more coherent soon.