You, the Archer

Whatever your field, craft, or work, for a moment consider yourself an archer. Think of everything behind you as the past, and everything in front of you as the future. The arrow that you fire is your end product, the sum of your efforts. You want your arrow to fly as far as possible. You want it to pierce through time, to be a basis for the works of future generations.

Now, if you’re just working to make a quick buck, you probably want to stop reading here.

With a bow and arrow, all other things being equal, the power of your arrow and the distance it flies are functions of the draw weight and the draw length. Basically, how hard and far you can pull the bow string back. Empires have risen and fallen on this relationship. Genghis Khan’s Mongol war machine, which conquered much of the known world during its time, could decimate powerful medieval armies from hundreds of meters away thanks to this relationship.

Even when all things aren’t equal, draw length and draw weight are still essential factors in how far your arrow flies. You can use all manner of technologies and tricks to help you increase draw weight and length. But at the end of the day, that string has to reach far back to launch your arrow with any meaningful power to any meaningful distance.

You are the archer. The farther you draw that bow string back into history, the farther your arrow (your work) flies into the future. The better you understand the history of your field, the more likely that your efforts and work in that field survive the test of time.