dis·rup·tion
/disˈrəpSH(ə)n/ noun the act or process of interrupting or disturbing the normal course of something
The variants of disrupt, to include disruptive and disruption, have long been a point of fascination for me. A quick Google of the word disrupt describes it as a verb meaning to interrupt by causing a disturbance or problem, or to drastically alter the structure of.
I’ve never been a leading-edge adopter of something, but I’m also far from late to the game.
I bought my first book from Amazon in 2002, and my first non-media purchase was in 2010. I joined LinkedIn in 2007 and Facebook in 2008. I learned graphic design using QuarkXpress and PageMaker in the 90s, but am fairly content using Canva at the moment, while learning all sorts of fun new things using Flux, Perplexity, Copilot and the next era of fascinating AI-enhanced tools.
It fits.
As a kid, I didn’t sit in the front row or at the back of the room. The center middle, plus or minus a row, was my sweet spot as it gave me the best vantage point to read the room. I was never a fan of the edge, and that goes for my brownies too.
That probably explains my fascination with watching people at this stage in life. It’s kind of like a good game of chess, trying to figure out all of the possible variations of what might happen next.
That might also be why I’ve always been intrigued by history, specifically the rhythms and patterns that only hindsight shares. I suspect that might also be why I am a huge fan of Howe and Strauss' work, which led to me reading The Fourth Turning is Here last year. The book gives you a lot to chew on and includes some startling connections between our ‘now’ and several significant variations of ‘then’ in history.
So when I was listening to a few different astrology vlogs while logging some cardio at the gym, it was fascinating to hear different astrologers discuss how the upcoming planetary alignments mimic different times in history - the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and World War II just to name a few. Those are big, heavy times in American history, and it seems as though we are entering the ‘next’ one.
I’ve long believed that being part of history while it’s being made is hard.
It’s where change happens.
It’s where growth happens.
It’s where disruption happens.
The only real question becomes, do you lean into it throwing caution to the wind, strategically observe and leap at a decisive moment, or become a relic of what once was?
January 2, 2025
