The Decline and Fall of *
All things die. People. Companies. Countries. Civiliations. Planets. Stars. Yes, even you will die.
Over the past two days, I have been thinking a lot about the “lifecycle” of complex systems.
Much of this thinking has been spurred on my the reading of four books in quick succession:
Another surprising vector for this line of thinking was some dialog from Battlestar Galactica this week:
Children are born to replace their parents. For children to reach their full potential, their parents have to die.
Although I have many thoughts on the subject, the most striking thing for me is our unability to confront the inevitability of decline and fall.
It is most striking because even though I know it intellitectual, I am still very guilty of it every single day.
It can be severe emotional tax to continually remind one’s self that everything you touch, think about, hold dear will be gone; wiped clean by “… all-powerful Time which destroys all things.”
This is the stage where many of you are going to want to stop reading this post. You are compelled to stop; not to face this reality. Truth be told, I feel the same thing writing this.
But this feeling fails to take into account one important fact: things must be born to die. For everything that declines and falls there is a birth and ascendence. Our problem (at least my problem) is that we only identity with our birth, ascendence, decline and fall. As such, the latter of these two stages is very painful to contemplate.
If you take a step back and squint at the issue just right (skillful means), you can see decline and fall as a positive thing. A thing that we herald as the sign of a new birth, a new creation, something beyond, something new.
With this in mind, my thought is that we need some systematic way to deal with decline and fall. We need to confront it head on and not let it surprise us. We need to be adults about it.
Memento mori.
“Creative destruction.”
For myself, I live with death every day, though I expect 15-20 years yet.
John Cowan
15 Jun 08 at 19:32
That leads us back the penultimate question doesn’t it? What’s the meaning of it all? Or, why am I here? We all come into this world alone and we will all exit this world alone — the question in my mind is “is there something else”? There either is or there isn’t. Random chance (nothing) or intelligent design (something?) I’m inclined to favor the later as probability theory and the laws of thermodynamics discourages me from the former. I found Murchie’s “The Seven Mysteries of Life” compelling and the idea of life as a “Soul School” compelling to me.
Mike Bouck
15 Jun 08 at 19:51
What you wrote struck me on dealing with changes in life. In general, we are not good at dealing with changes. Let me know the next chapter on the systematic approach!
Billy Yuen
16 Jun 08 at 19:52
I enjoyed the book, “Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach us to Live”, after having a few too many close personal experiences with mortality the past few years. The book “Stumbling on Happiness” has some bits about our ability to engage in self-denial about our mortality as well.
I think acceptance of mortality is the first step to understanding a lot of other things which we have a vested interestin in not understanding.
Of course, not all death brings new life. We can make choices to increase the chances that our life and inevitable death will bring forth new and richer life, but it’s not automatic. Most people only realize this when they are close to death — in purely selfish terms, it’s not convenient to recognize the implications of this too soon.
Joshua Allen
16 Jun 08 at 22:15
*, as in WS-*?
So we need forward compatibility, not just backward compatibility?
There was a interesting slide from PDC05 regarding Indigo in production, I used to have it hanging on my wall. There was a table comparing the lifecycle of systems to children. Developers get the fun of conceiving the kid, but that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.
Oran
16 Jun 08 at 22:17
[...] Douglas Purdy tanto nomini nullum par elogium… AboutQuotesFFSyncFood « The Decline and Fall of * [...]
Ikiru « Douglas Purdy
18 Jun 08 at 17:32
There is the ancient Jewish story of King Solomon, who once asked his wisest adviser to “bring him something that would devastate him when he was joyous, and that would make him joyous when he was devastated.”
The adviser searched far and wide and, near despair that he would fail his king, met a peasant who spoke three simple Hebrew words. The adviser immediately returned and crafted a ring for Solomon that contained those words…
The ring read “gam zeh yaavor” or “This, too, shall pass.”
I’ve always thought of this phrase as a superset of “memento mori” — it is the most important and humbling truth one can hold.
Dave Peck
22 Jun 08 at 01:38
I just finished watching the series last night after watching it for the past 6 weeks. All I can say is that it was one of the best shows I have seen.
That quote was something that keeps ringing in my ears…when I heard it I had a stream of tears that fell…It was the first time I saw life in that way. Its honest, true, and what I believe sums up a lot in life.
samira
1 Nov 09 at 15:18