Annie Dillard’s Total Eclipse http://www.wnyc.org/story/annie-dillards-total-eclipse/ via @WNYC @NewYorker
Listening to Annie Dillard reading her amazing piece of writing from an earlier essay in the New Yorker, made me realize how life and business (and the Internet) in many ways can be like a Solar Eclipse. You don’t see the darkness coming, the change, the disruption, the application that can change the way you live and connect to the world. You can predict it, like the Eclipse, but you can’t control your reaction to it or the forces that come from change.
“The second before the sun went out, we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us. We no sooner saw it than it was upon us…We saw the wall of shadow coming and screamed when it hit.”
Even when we realize change is upon us, we scream, we rail against the new way. Nothing really prepares you for the moment it comes. In the way that Claude Debussy said, “Music is the space between the notes,” life is made up of the silence between the screams. It’s our reactions to the hard times and the changes that determine our direction in business and life.
It’s something to think about personally and professionally not only what’s coming (change for sure) but how can we steel ourselves against the shadows be they external or internal or the impact of that change? How can we be our own Eclipse? How can we innovate and rise to meet the challenges the world (and the Internet) will throw our way and do better and be better than before and be a light against the darkness.