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Unpredictability Quotes

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Unpredictability Quotes

“Life is like the oil within a lamp. It can be measured, but the pace at which it burns depends on how the dial is turned day by day, how bright and fierce the flame. And there is no predicting whether the lamp might be knocked to the ground and shatter, when it could have blazed on a great while longer. Such is the unpredictability of life.”

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Book:Sorcery of Thorns
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“Every country has its myths, and one that successful Indians liked to indulge was a romance of instability and adaptation—the idea that their country’s rapid rise derived in part from the chaotic unpredictability of daily life. […] In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers. Among the poor, there was no doubt that instability fostered ingenuity, but over time the lack of a link between effort and result could become debilitating.”

PoorPovertyCreativityIndiaUncertaintyEnterpriseProblem SolvingAdaptationIngenuityUnpredictability
Book:Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
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“If you are thought to be a good person, it means that you are weak. If you are thought to be a bad person, it doesn't mean that you are a strong person. Rather, it would mean that you are unpleasant for everyone. Be unpredictable, neither good nor bad. Let them think of you as a good person with whom everyone should be careful while communicating, because you can be dangerous if you aren't treated properly.”

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Author:Elmar Hussein
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“To contrast Naisbitt’s megatrends, the Disruptive Futures Institute coined the term “metaruptions”. A metaruption is a multidimensional family of systemic disruptions.... Metaruptions cause widespread and self-perpetuating effects that extend beyond their initial disruptions.”

ChangeTrendsForesightDisruptionUnpredictabilityFutures ThinkingSystemic DisruptionMetaruptionMegatrendsMetatrends
Book:Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World
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“Physically agile, this squishy strategist and tentacled tactician uses its intelligence and agency to intuit situations, anticipate outcomes, invent solutions, and improvise, remaining relevant for nearly 300 million years.”

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Book:Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World
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“Foresight does not seek to predict, but to drive imagination to inform decision-making and the actions required today in light of the potential futures ahead. Foresight prepares you for the swerves.”

ChangeDecision MakingForesightAssumptionsUnpredictabilityPredictionFutures Thinking
Book:The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty
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“Later, I would come to think of those first days as a time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things: the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, the West Nile and swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.”

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Author:Karen Thompson Walker
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“So I come back again to the condition that the Golden Rule, if one adopts it, is a difficult master to serve. The ship’s captain will not throw the compass overboard because the wind blows fair and the day is funny. For he knows, from the experiences of the ocean’s instability, that the danger days of storm are always “just ahead.” So the compass must always be handy and obedience to it must always be loyal. And so with the Golden Rulle—the compass must be ever at hand through life’s journey. It will see us through trying times. And perhaps the most trying of all times comes when success is riding high and we may be tempted to “throw the compass overboard.” It is then we must remember that all good days in human life come from the mastery of the days of trouble that are forever recurrent.”

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Author:J.C. Penney
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“None of these were “Black Swans,” which is the “go to” taxonomy for C-suites and policymakers justifying their surprise in the face of the assumptions they made about the world, signals they chose to ignore, and preparation they decided to skimp on.”

AnticipationForesightAssumptionsUnpredictabilityFutures ThinkingAntifragile
Book:The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty
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“The objective is not to get the future right. Rather, our work spurs better preparation for any of the futures which may arise.”

AnticipationForesightUnpredictabilityPredictionFutures ThinkingAntifragileAntifragilityAnticipatory
Book:The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty
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“Let’s watch out for the unpredictability and the wildcat jumps of contrarian people, whose sole interests are soaring targets at high-speed, at all costs and without any consideration. Perceptive understanding may help us discover the hidden actualities behind the ‘appearances’. .("Mama. Meine Bäume wachsen bis in den Himmel")”

PeopleUnderstandingDiscoverActualityHiddenUnpredictabilityHigh SpeedAppearancesInterestsTargetsContrarianSoaringPerceptiveAt All CostsWatch Out ForWildcat JumpsWithout Consideration
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions.... [W]hen the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant—not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism—that doesn’t mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.”

CreativityGroupsFrictionConversationsUnpredictabilityBrainstormingPerspectivesDiscussionsGroup Dynamics
Author:Jonah Lehrer
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“Doctors know nothing. Well. That's kind of unfair. Let's just say the world is unpredictable. Science is unreliable. It can't tell you who you are or what you'll want or how you'll feel. All these researchers are going crazy in their labs, trying to fit us into these little boxes so they can justify their jobs, or their government funding, or their life's work. They can theorize and they can give you a mean, median and mode but it's all standardized guesswork, made official by arrogance. You have to be pretty into yourself to think you can play a part in defining the identity of a bunch of people you don't know, of human beings with complicated shit going on in their bodies. They still don't know what certain parts of our brains do, they still don't know how to cure a common cold, and they say they know about sexuality, about gender. Well, you're not a man because you like football and you're not a woman because you're attracted to men and you're not a chick because you like to be the one who gives and you're not a dude because you like to receive or because sometimes you cry at dumb movies.”

IdentityUnpredictabilityOutside The BoxQueernessAlways Be YourselfInfinitely IndefiniteThe New Normal
Book:Golden Boy
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“None of us can know today if tomorrow morning we will not be counted as part of a group considered outside the law. In that moment the civilized veneer of life changes, as the state props of well-being disappear and are transformed into omens of destruction. The luxury liner becomes a battleship, or the black jolly roger and the red executioner’s flag are hoisted on it.”

FreedomConservatismRight WingUnpredictabilityAnarcho CapitalismNeo NazismAnti Modernism
Book:The Forest Passage
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“Metaruptions cause widespread, self-perpetuating effects that extend beyond their initial disruptions. As early changes spill over, impacts combine, propagate, and modify other elements within the system. Imagining the interplay of metaruptions is a creative endeavour, not a number-crunching exercise.”

TrendsForesightDisruptionUnpredictabilityFutures ThinkingSystemic ChangeSystemic DisruptionMetaruptionMegatrendsMetatrends
Book:Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World
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“As we face inseparable technological and existential conditions, we enter an era of Techistentialism. AI will increasingly provide insights that enable more-informed predictive decision-making, humans should remain wary of an inadvertent reliance on prescriptive algorithms dictating specific decisions. Complex and uncertain environments inherently involve unknown unknowns; these are situations where we need to be agile despite the lack of immediate answers.”

ExistentialismArtificial IntelligenceExistentialUnpredictabilityAutomationTechistentialismPredictiveTechistentialPrescriptiveDecision Makinging
Book:Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World
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“~ Life, with all its twists and turns, is a testament to the unpredictable nature of existence. We may never fully understand the forces at play or the reasons behind our setbacks. Perhaps it's the whims of fate or the caprice of fortune. Regardless, we must acknowledge that perfection in action does not guarantee success. Time and chance happen to every man, and that our journey is defined not by the victories we achieve, but by the courage we display in the face of adversity. So let us take our chances, knowing that even in defeat, there lies the opportunity for growth and self-discovery.”

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Author:Carson Anekeya
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“Man is unpredictable, despite Mr. Wells' good record. On Monday, man may be hysterical with doom, and on Tuesday you will find him opening the Doomday Bar & Grill and settling down for another thousand years of terrifying queerness.”

HumanityDoomUnpredictabilityH G WellsHysterics
Book:The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters
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“We live in a society and a culture and an economic model that tries to make everything look right. Look at computers. Why are they all putty-colored or off-fucking-white? You make something off-white or beige because you are afraid to use any other color – because you don’t want to offend anybody. But by definition, when you make something no one hates, no one loves it. So I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That’s what we really pay attention to anyway. We don’t talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing.”

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Author:Tibor Kalman
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“The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you'll quickly discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations. More often than not, you'll discover that “adventure” is a decision after the fact-a way of deciphering an event or an experience that you can't quite explain.”

WorldWayNeedsFirstsFactsHomeRealitySimpleDecisionSecretPracticeEventsAdventureHabitExpectationsOvercomingOpennessProtectiveUnpredictability
Author:Rolf Potts
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