The source of my optimism is slightly over 6 cm meters long and in the room next door. If I tell you that we saw its beating heart on the ultrasound yesterday then the game has been given away. But I’ll come back to that later.
Human beings are contrary things. If you ask me why I am optimistic then I immediately think of all the terrible things that are going to happen to us. However that’s not a problem because, ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, terrible things will happen to us. Optimism does not rest on life being OK because ultimately it won’t be. Instead it rests in the notion (or the practice) that something beautiful can be created from something terrible. That screw-ups can be transformed into art.
Optimism uses our imperfections to its own advantage. I don’t want perfection. Bring me a trash can so that I may properly hang your painting. I want the tiny crevices that a climber wedges their fingers into. Crevices so tiny that the fingers are dwarfed by a spaghetti strand.
We are born imperfect. If you want to see the future then it is a howling mess of flesh, needs and actions. You cannot own it or control it. You can only hold it and wait for it to feed.
Matt runs a company called Innotecture that works with organizations to improve the ways in which they collaborate. He also publishes the widely-read weblog, Engineers Without Fears and is one of the leaders of a fascinating project called Using Expertise. You can follow him on Twitter @innotecture.
