Today is going to be filled with potential options to do something useful. It is going to be one of those days where more paths are open than choices can be made to take. This happens from time to time and picking the right ones is essential to maximizing the potential of the day. Sure one path exists where the perfect possible future is realized, but that dance is sometimes beyond the structures and forms we follow will allow. Maybe that is the quintessential problem we face and need to spend time solving. It is a very real challenge to figure out how to get things done and done well within the structures and forms we have available. We also face a very real implied normativity that directs convention in what could be described as the forms. Those two things working together constrain a possible set of paths forward. I could elect at this point to spend the rest of the day doing nothing but studying applied cryptography, but consequences would exist to that decision. The output of that study and effort would be unlikely to outweigh the consequences. 

My thoughts at the moment are at least more focused on the edge of what is possible than tactical questions. In terms of all the ways the start of the day could have gone this path is much better than the alternative. Now we can round out that first thought into a question of action. Aligning to a path that strives toward the perfect possible future. At this junction in the inquiry, I am thinking about the common purpose of advancing both my own intellectual pursuits and strengthening the fabric of civil society. Both of those things are in my own self interest, but they are generally silos of action compared to each other. We exist within the moment of reflection as we take action. Each step forward, to the side, or backward is a reflection of a choice made in that moment. We have a space of reflection that can be used to consider and reflect or to drive action. Making a very conscious decision to use that space of reflection to drive toward a purpose like striving toward a perfect possible future is one way to sharpen action. Inside of that contemplation is inherently a choice to action. Retreating like a turtle into itself rarely is the action that moves things forward. I suppose some very special cases of an action paradox exist where standing still makes the most sense. Even the notion of waiting a turn for an outside action to complete seems more reasonable than the turtle’s defensive withdrawal. 

Action at its very nature and paths forward have been considered and the day is still beginning. Maybe today is the day that the right first step is followed by enough reasonably correct steps that a continuity of action builds toward something meaningful. That is an entirely plausible thought at the moment and that is inherently exciting if not thrilling as a way to start the day. These are the complex ideas we have to consider during this grand chautauqua of existence. Within that moment of reflection the structures of our institutions provide guard rails toward certain outcomes. Several days of work are the basic project we see enumerated as the expected outcome of a week. We see that day of work as being the basic unit of complexly interconnected communities. Maybe the summation of that is a bit harder to compel to exist in written form, but the idea is on the edge of what is possible. Describing the grand interconnected nature of economy and intergenerational equity remains a valid pursuit. That is probably where we need to wrap up this course of the chautauqua. More will come as the series of learning never stops from one day to the next.