For some reason, it seems more fitting if you write (on/off) than (off/on). However, for me, it’s not fair that “on” comes first. Let’s try to figure out why.
It’s interesting that many things can be described with just these two states. Press a button to turn on a lamp, and magic happens. The lamp won’t say something like “I don’t want to turn on right now, can you wait a moment?” If it doesn’t turn on, there’s some objective issue somewhere.
And us humans? Can we press a button and simply start doing something?
Unfortunately, and this is my dilemma, going from off to on.
Maybe we can’t change everything with a click, but we can slowly bring ourselves to the button.
When Socrates went to the Oracle of Delphi, he was notified that he was the wisest man in Athenas.
Even though he didn’t consider himself as such because he believed he didn’t know many things, that’s precisely the point. He’s aware of his own ignorance, hence striving to attain virtue and share it with others.
This is flipping the switch.
OFF
ON
Pressing the button means:
- Learning as much as possible
- Building through the effort of your work
- Helping people
- Bringing your knowledge to the world
- Learning in public
- Taking responsibility for your actions
- Creating a book, a podcast, a YouTube channel.
Not pressing the button is much easier; it’s comfortable and requires no effort. But our soul feels the emptiness of being idle.