The Friday Update - What's Ahead>

Happy Friday,

Like the prayer, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” the brevity and simplicity of the church’s first creed is part of its power. Count me among those who think we should rehearse it often. BTW, stating “Jesus is Lord” used to be a way of declaring that Caesar was not.

A Tale of Two Worldviews

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself.” Meanwhile, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Which do you believe? And which do those who are watching your life think you believe?

WOTW 

Honorable mention goes to black-pilling (spiraling into the belief that the future is doomed) and performative cruelty (being mean in public so others know you're on the "right" side of an issue). Full honors go to the Goldilocks Zone (a term physicists use to point out that the universe operates inside an astonishingly narrow life-permitting range. Change the balance of the constants and you lose stable stars, heavy elements, chemistry, or galaxies. In other words, alter the constants just a bit and you don't get a harsher world—you get a world not fit for life. Those who study the cosmological constant suggest it’s fine-tuned to one part in 10^120—meaning if you nudge it even slightly, the universe doesn’t get worse; it vanishes.)

Overheard

1) We’ve designed a society where young men find it easier to place bets and watch porn than to go to college or form real relationships. The results are…well…what you’d expect.

2) It's worth noting that court decisions rarely end our deepest arguments. Apparently asking 9 lawyers help us agree on what is good, true, and just—when no one else can agree on them—is not a fool-proof plan.

3) Often we keep ourselves busy and distracted because we fear that if we slow down, we may look inside and find nothing there.

AI’s Popularity

When it comes to AI, only one person in ten is more excited than worried—which means it’s less popular than the middle seat in an airplane. That said, it's gaining traction. The story appears to be one of reluctant adoption, not rejection. 

Not So Fast

I’ve long heard that teachers are burning out, CEOs are getting fired, and college presidents (and pastors) are lucky to last three years. Is that true? Not really. With the exception of big-city police chiefs, NFL coaches, and urban school superintendents, median job tenure is mostly stable at just under four years. It’s longer in the public sector than in the private. But the real hotseat is newsletter writers. Even if you control for North Korea, the average scribe doesn’t last four years. Which makes me pretty happy with my run. I’ve been writing this thing for more than ten years and have only been tarred and feathered twice.

Coach K and Change

Per Duke’s legendary Nobel Prize winner, Vice President  of Advancement, Executive in Residence, Board Chair, Academic Dean, Visiting Scholar basketball coach, in order to change an organization, all you need is the square root of the number of people involved. He changed the culture of the U.S. Olympic B-ball team by adding Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Jason Kidd and Dwayne Wade.

Quotes Worth Requoting

1) “The most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise—and occasionally the application—of the view that all people, and not just one’s own kind, are entitled to fair treatment.” — James Q. Wilson

2) "Today you are young and very much in love and you think that your love can sustain your marriage. It can't. Let your marriage sustain your love." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to a young couple on their wedding day

3) “There is no better test of a man's ultimate chivalry and integrity than how he behaves when he is wrong.” — G.K. Chesterton

4) “A long to-do list is not necessarily a better to-do list. Indeed, it’s probably not.” — Peter Gerend

5) “To live in the past and future is easy. To live in the present is like threading a needle.” — Walker Percy

Clean Up

Weeks ago I wrongly claimed that Psalm 2 was the OT passage cited most often in the New. Not true. It’s Psalm 110, a fact that many people knew (but I clearly did not).

Without Comment

1) Mo Koyman, founder of Shine Capital, believes “most companies could cut 30 - 50% of their workforce and see no material difference in performance.”

2) Registered Ds outnumber registered Rs 36 to 1 across Yale, according to Yale’s internal report.

3) 13% of those who took the IL bar last year received accommodations, up from 2% a decade ago.

4) The share of American teenagers enrolling in college after high school has dropped from a high of 70 percent in ‘16 to 62 percent in ‘22.

5) Allbirds, a shoe company, told the world it was becoming an AI company and its stock surged 582%.

6) There are 20 quadrillion ants on the planet – i.e., 2.5 million for every person.

What’s Ahead > What’s Behind

George Sayer spent much of his life studying and writing about C.S. Lewis. He read the Narnia stories with his daughter, who, after finishing them all, wept bitterly and said, “I don't want to go on living in this world. I want to live in Narnia with Aslan.” Sayer replied, “Darling, one day you will.”

Closing Prayer

"Praise to you, saving sacrifice, offered on the wood of the cross for me and for all people. Praise to the noble and precious blood, flowing from the wounds of my crucified Lord Jesus Christ and washing away the sins of the whole world. Remember, Lord, your creature, whom you have redeemed with your blood. I repent of my sins, and I long to put right what I have done. Merciful Father, take away all my offenses and sins; purify me in body and soul, and make me worthy to taste the holy of holies. Amen.” (Ambrose, c.339 - 397)