What Did 10,000 Years Teach Me About Life?
A Clock That Never Skips A Beat
A replica of the Orrery, the 10,000 year clock, at The Interval
The other day I visited the Long Now Foundation’s cafe and bar* called The Interval. This organization’s mission is to get us to think long term about hard to solve problems like energy, climate change, bringing back the wholly mammoth and new ways of ruling, I mean governing, humans.
Their symbol is the Orrery, an incredible mechanical clock designed to not skip a beat for 10,000 years while making a unique chime every day (they have a whole soundtrack compiled from this). 10,000 YEARS! I have friends who think they’ll live to 1,000 years, pending of course advances in human longevity research, but definitely not that long.
Interestingly enough, the Orrery is buried in Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin (spaceship company) lands. That amount of time would make even Bezos feel small. Perhaps that’s the point. To make us shift our focus from immediate selfish pursuits to see the bigger longer term picture of things we can do as a collective human species. I agreed with the ethos, but a few realizations changed my mind.
While driving back from the Interval, I got predictably stuck in traffic. Spotting an empty side street, I took the opportunity to dodge the gridlock. It turned out to be lined with multi-million dollar houses atop Pacific Heights, one of SF’s wealthiest neighborhoods. That’s probably why it was so empty in the first place.
At the very end of the block was a grand mansion that I never imagined would exist in the city. At first I was in awe, and then it occurred to me that if I were to tie my self worth to strictly monetary or material pursuits, this display of extreme wealth would’ve made me deeply unhappy as yet another reminder of how small and insignificant I am.
The timing of these two events was uncanny as I had just finished Barak Obama’s “A Promised Land”, a book that chronicles his internal struggles during his campaigns and presidency. In one memorable story, he meets with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. By this time, Putin was squarely in control and Gorbachev, once one of the most powerful people in the world, was now a forgotten shadow. This made Obama question his own relevancy in history and whether he would similarly fade within a few short decades.
If the man who’s reached the highest status in society is asking what the point of all this is, we should probably pause to think about it sometime too.
What’s the Point?
These three thoughts led naturally to the question:
In the face of vast amounts of time, unimaginable wealth, and the highest status, what is actually meaningful and accessible for all of us? Not just accessible, but free?
My conclusion was: human connections.
The fact is that any of us, doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, rich, poor, what you look like, where you are in life - we can simply turn to the person next to us and make a connection, a meaningful conversation to understand their lives, and come out of it feeling better than before we went in. You don’t need to wait 10,000 years for it, pay $10 million for it, you don’t even need a degree from a fancy university. All you need is your present time.
After a certain point on our journeys to wealth and status, we tend to forget that. Because we’re hustling to maintain our standard of living or the next meeting, where to travel to next, eat next, buy next next next. That we forget about the present. We forget about the people around us, when that’s the guaranteed way for us to feel happier, more human, connected, and the first step in making the world truly better.
A Beautiful, Crumbling Pier
About 10 minutes from the Interval is the gorgeous Municipal Pier, from which you can walk 1,400 feet (425 meters) out into the bay to enjoy one of the best views San Francisco can offer. All around you is a 360 panorama of both Golden Gate and Bay bridges, Ghirardelli Square, the Marina, and Alcatraz. It’s all free because it’s public.
As I strolled down the concrete path, I realized that it doesn’t matter if you had the worst day, if you walked here after work, this open space with all its stunning urban and natural beauty will uplift your spirit. However, at the end of the walkway, I saw a poster that read: “Save the Pier!”.
Apparently decades of pounding ocean waves have severely weakened the structure, and therefore it’ll one day close if not enough funds are raised to preserve it. I did notice that some areas were fenced off because the walls were indeed crumbling and posed a safety risk for pedestrians.
The contrast from the glitz of the Interval was stark. I live in the most innovative place in the world, which attracts the brightest and most ambitious minds with the mission of building the future. But because everyone is thinking about the future, no one is thinking about the present.
Any of the millionaire and billionaire architects of the future living around the area can with little effort put together an amount sufficient to save this pier, a public good that brings so much joy to everyone who walks through it. Yet this isn’t happening because we’re not thinking about the present. Money and effort tends to follow where our thoughts go.
All this is to say, treasure the present. Yes money is important for sustaining ourselves. It pays for the bills, the clothes, the roof over our heads, the trips we take. And yes status is important for self esteem. Credentials open meaningful career paths. There is much purpose to be found there. But don’t let it get in the way of genuine human connections that can only be made in the here and now. Some of the greatest things in life are more affordable and attainable than we think.
