Six Words: Technique, Preparation, Torture, Dinner, Necklace, Limited
The idea of not being able to wear the gold necklace to dinner was torture, but the knot in it limited her ability to use it. It takes technique and patience, lots and lots of patience, to untangle a necklace. The first step in preparing to work on it is deciding where to do it. Then having the right tools and lighting. And have I mentioned patience?
Six Words: Timetable, Cancel, Relaxation, Housing, Angel, Direction
I was looking forward to a week of relaxation in a cottage along the beach in the Hawksbill area of the island nation of Antigua. I had no intention of canceling this trip. I’d been there twice, many years ago, and wondered how much the housing experience I’d had then would be different and how much it would be the same. Things move and change slowly on tropical islands.
My timetable included getting to the airport in Austin, changing planes in Miami, and flying into the renamed airport on the island. While I was flying into Antigua the first time, I sat next to a woman from there. I asked her how to pronounce the name of her country. I’d heard it pronounced Anti-gwuh and Anti-guh. In her Caribbean accented perfect English she said: “You would say Antigwa. Because of my accent, I would say Antiga. But you are correct!” I was amazed at that self-effacing, cordial reply. I’ve said Antiga ever since.
I’d had several other memorable experiences on the island. One of them was when we rented a Moke. A Moke is a small, jeep-like car and their maintenance was often, what we might say, creative. You can’t get too far from anywhere on an island nation that is only 14 miles long and 12 miles wide, although it has 365 beaches. Never-the-less, we were looking for a specific place and were lost. As we stopped on the side of the road to look at a map, a car with three very large men pulled up next to us. We could see that one of them had his forearm wrapped in white bandages and blood had soaked through. They asked if they could help. We told them where we wanted to go and they said they were going in that direction and the place we wanted to go was only a little out of their way and to follow them. With a certain amount of fear, we did follow them. In a few minutes we got to a fork in the road and they stopped. The driver pointed and said that our destination was a short way in the direction he was pointing and they went on their way. Without those three angels in disguise, we might still be driving around on the island.
There are worse places to marooned.
Six Words: Transform, Volume, Agriculture, Discover, Empire, Circulate
Throughout history groups of people have discovered that agriculture can be a key to survival. As they get better at it the volume of food available grows. As they circulate knowledge within groups and across groups it transforms them into empires.
Six Words: Lawyer, Proper, Substitute, Cabin, Disclose, Unlikely
It seems unlikely that someone would go to the effort of listing a cabin with Air BnB with the intention of substituting a similar one and not disclosing the differences. It’s obviously not proper. Because of Air BnB’s policies, you don’t need to hire a lawyer to get out of the rental agreement and get your deposit back, but they don’t compensate you for ruining your trip.
Six Words: Cancel, Average, Diet, Cooperation, Interference, Negative
In most people there is an inclination toward goodness and an opposing inclination toward negative behavior. In Jewish teachings, these are called yetzer ha-tov and yetzer ha-ra, the inclination toward good and the inclination toward evil. If those inclinations are equally strong, then the average of the good inclination and the bad inclination will cancel each other out. Is that perfect balance what makes someone dull?
Consider an example: you go on a diet. You ask the people around you for their cooperation. Then you have dinner with someone and they give you a big slice of warm apple pie. With ice cream on top. And whip cream and a cherry on top of that. You wonder if that is intentional interference. Is that their yetzer ha-ra on display? Or was that dessert pre-planned and they’re just trying to be nice? And how do you react? Does your yetzer ha-tov tell you to say thank you and eat some of the dessert. Or does your yetzer ha-ra tell you to eat the whole dessert and tell yourself that you’ll start your diet tomorrow?
Six Words: Tower, Uncle, Suitcase, Overeat, Plaster, Retirement
The man everyone called Uncle
Was a big man, and mean,
A towering man,
Not what you’d call lean.
He was as big around
As he was tall,
Never, ever
What you’d call small.
When you overeat
At every meal,
That’s something that happens,
It’s part of the deal.
When he’d get plastered
At every retirement party,
It made him think he was
Truly a smarty.
Then came the day,
His wife had enough,
She packed up her suitcase
And left not a trace.
He cried like a baby,
He wasn’t so tough.
Six Words: Reduce, Computing, Undermine, Threaten, Amber, Plaintiff
It is hard to comprehend how computing power has grown over the last 60 years and how costs have come down. The most popular early commercial computer, the IBM 1401, was announced in 1959. In today’s dollars, a typical system cost $45,000 – a month! Or you could buy one for $3.4 million dollars (in today’s dollars). Let’s compare your phone to that $3.4M computer. You own your phone and it costs less than $1,000! That IBM 1401 could hold 16,000 characters. Your phone can hold at least 128 billion characters and is a million times faster! Oh, and that original IBM computer came in any color you wanted, as long as it was gray. You can get a cover for your phone in almost any color you want, from amber to zucchini.
In the early 60’s, probably nobody thought about using computers in the legal system. Today the legal system couldn’t function without them. Computers have greatly reduced the time that plaintiffs, whether prosecutors or individuals, spend to research and to document their arguments, to maintain their calendars, and to communicate.
As long as computers have existed, some people have felt threatened, fearing that computers would undermine their jobs. And it is true. Early in my career, I felt conflicted as I told businesses about the efficiency and speed that computers and programs would bring to their businesses, knowing that it would impact jobs – but they also allowed businesses to do more business with the same number of people! And, as we’ve all seen, many jobs became less tedious and many, many new jobs were created. That progression is continuing. The internet and texting have impacted the post office and newspapers and magazines and all kinds of printed material. The demand for paper is shrinking dramatically. It seems like less demand for paper should increase the number of trees allowed to keep growing, but it isn’t that simple. If land owners can’t make money by selling wood, then instead they need to sell the land.
I’m optimistic that we’ll continue to address each new threat that progress brings and to benefit, as long as we elect wise and caring leaders – or maybe despite who we elect.
Six Words: Intervention, Steward, Manufacture, Pilot, Penetrate, Critic
Elon is working on another futuristic transportation project. This one is still secret. I can’t tell you how I know about it. I can’t tell you when it will be announced, but like all of his projects, it will be announced with great fanfare and an unrealistic schedule. And like all of his projects, he will announce that this will change people’s lives.
Six Words: Wisecrack, Appointment, Venus, Fairy, Majority, Retire
The majority of the people in this room have seen pictures of the Venus de Milo. Some of us have seen her in person. You don’t need an appointment to see her. She isn’t like the Mona Lisa where there are large crowds trying to see a small painting. Looking almost fairy-like, she is on display on a pedestal in the middle of a large, long room in the Louvre.
I’m going to ask you to wonder if she would be as famous if her arms weren’t missing. Did the sculptor know that she would be more valuable if the arms fell off? Did he leave a wisecrack in her upper arms with that intent? Do art students and sculptors today ponder these kinds of questions, or are these questions best left to be addressed by the wizened and retired?
Six Words: Headline, Exempt, Native, Runner, Moral, Divorce
Sometimes when you read the headline above a news article and then read the article, they seem totally divorced from each other. For instance, you may see a headline that says Native American wins the Boston Marathon. Then you read the article and find that the runner that won this year is a native of Kenya. The article goes on to say that the Kenyan is applying for an American green card. It makes you wonder if the headline writer even read the whole story. Are they exempt from that when they have a deadline to meet? Is that why the headline is divorced from the story?
Remember the title of this story, “Kenyans are overrunning America,” and then remember what the story actually said. The moral of the story is that we should read deeper than the headlines. If you took geometry or trigonometry or any advanced math course, you may remember that at the end of doing a proof, you would write QED, which is Latin for “that which was to be demonstrated”. I think the moral of this story has been demonstrated. QED.