Dreams & rocket launches

It is important in this often difficult and troubled world for there to be things that also inspire and make you feel great to be part of humanity – @elonmusk

Robotaxis. Robots serving drinks. Starship launches every hour. This guy’s got a busy week!

And along the way, helping us dream. Dream big. Big civilization-shifting dreams.

It’s nice that such entrepreneur dreamers still exist. A relief almost. I think we’ve not seen them much since Steve Jobs passed. They didn’t just build businesses, care about shareholder value, but gave us things to (day-)dream about.

Awe-inspiring things.
Grandiose things.

Things that make us feel excited, optimistic, hopeful, and look forward to a future.
Things that make us proud of what our species had and can achieve if we put our minds to it.
Things that make us see bigger, beyond our small daily lives.

Elon’s a controversial figure. He works at a scale and level that few entrepreneurs can emulate. Not everything is worth emulating either. But this is one of those things I would love to apply and learn, and bring to my work.

To help me, dream bigger. Not on the scale of launching rockets to Mars for sure, but in my own world, on my scale and level. And maybe along the way, the story is helpful to a few others too, I don’t know. To my child, at least.

I love how Tim Urban of Wait But Why fame talks about it for combating cynicism:

But the reason rocket launches make people emotional isn’t about that. It’s the feeling of swelling pride that comes from being in awe of your own species. It’s the feeling of hope that comes from being reminded of our insane potential when thousands of people work together toward a goal. It’s the happy version of the post-9/11 feeling of wanting to hug every stranger you see.

These emotions are especially refreshing at a time when we’re surrounded by their polar opposite: the pessimism and petty cynicism that pervade our age of suffocating tribalism.

As the father to a smiley little gnome, I desperately want to shield her from the negativity that will swirl around her as she grows up. I won’t be able to do that. But what I can do is continually redirect her attention to the rocket, showing her all the ways our species is incredible. I can use “rocket launch emotion” as a parenting compass and try, as many times as I can, to give her experiences that fill her with that particular magical, high-minded feeling.

Here’s to the crazy ones.