Ambition & Gratitude
Why Founder Striving is the Ultimate Expression of Gratitude
On Ambition & Gratitude.
To strive for great things is an implicit expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Is this an expression of ingratitude?
Why not enjoy what you have where you are, rather than imagine and work toward a future where your invention changes the world?
Ambition has the same implied duality as ambiguous (of two minds) and ambidextrous (deft with both hands)-- you are in one location/position, aiming for a different one.
Zero-sum vs. Positive-sum Ambition
Ambition when expressed in zero-sum status games is indeed a form of ingratitude and aggression-- for you to move up, others need to move down. When people are politically ambitious at work or in government or in any hierarchy, they create nothing, destroy others, and advance through the expression of bad triad traits.
Ambition in wealth creation games, by comparison, is positive-sum-- you are creating value by solving a problem.
Science, entrepreneurship, mentoring, investing in founders and startups are all positive-sum. No one needs to move down for you to move way up. You grow the pie. You push the boundaries of a fractal frontier that reveals the current state as a puny local maxima by comparison.
Ambition in this context is an expression of service to the world. You strive for yourself, because it's an expression of your soul/self, but the striving creates benefits for everyone.
Striving Expresses Gratitude
Is striving to build (or help others build) a better world compatible with gratitude for everything the world you occupy has provided you? Is dedicating your life to a better future compatible with appreciating your current circumstances.
Yes.
Indeed striving is the ultimate expression of gratitude for the resources you've been granted, your native abilities and the opportunities of your environment, all/most of which were gifted to you by fate.
Ambition to build a better world in a positive-sum way by solving a big problem suffered by millions of people is an obligation for anyone who understands the essence of gratitude.
Startups are Gratitude Machines
The best mechanism for the expression of such ambition yet invented is to be the founder of a startup that scales, i.e, in our current Internet-connected world, a tech startup.
The pilgrims were founders of a startup society. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were striving to create a startup nation. Founders of startups strive to build a better world for which we will all one day be grateful.
None of us would enjoy the prosperity of our current existence without the ambition of those who strived generations before we were born.
We honor their efforts that resulted in our current abundance and opportunities by emulating them.
Degrowth/Decel is Ingratitude
I would argue that the ultimate expression of ingratitude is complacency and passivity, satisfaction with the status quo, or worse arguing that we must cease striving and stop being ambitious in order to preserve our current state of abundance, i.e. degrowth, deceleration.
It fails to recognize, appreciate, and continue the mechanism that makes our lives so good: ambition. The degrowth, deceleration philosophy is the ultimate expression of childish, short-sighted ingratitude.
Ambition in the context of wealth creation is not only an expression of gratitude for what we have and why we have it, but essential to preserving the plenty we enjoy.
Ambition/Prosperity & De/Centralization
Ambition is our species' essential force for decentralization. It's the key component of Founder Energy-- the determination, creativity, charisma, and optimism to change the world for the better.
Prosperity leads to centralization, which, like mass, distorts its surrounding time/space (via censorship, regulation, cronyism, corruption, and incompetence) and creates a civilizational gravity that pulls in resources, ideas, and opportunities.
Ambition is the force required to escape this civilizational gravity and decentralize power, wealth, influence, and opportunity.
So ambition is not only the ultimate expression of gratitude for everything we have and where we are, it is also necessary to preserve the freedoms that enabled all the good things we enjoy.
Be Grateful for Ambition
Any celebration of gratitude should be at its heart a celebration of ambition, for the striving of those who came before, a celebration of those who are trying to do great things today, and a ritual of encouragement for those who will one day help our species reach new peaks of prosperity in the future.
Thanksgiving is not a celebration of the past survival of Pilgrims thanks to Natives. It's not even the expression of gratitude for our current plenty. It is the adulation of ambition, an expression of gratitude for those who dare to do great things.
Because without ambitious people striving to build technology that frees all of us from the increasingly powerful gravity well of our civilization's current level of prosperity, we will all have less to be grateful for as time goes on.
Ambition & Acceleration
We accelerate via ambitious innovation in Founder, Startup, Family, and Community formation. Acceleration results in decentralization. Decentralization is essential to freedom.
Give thanks for the ambition that is inherent in our species, our dissatisfaction with the status quo, and our innate understanding that we can change the world if we try.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Be ambitious today and every day, and help others do the same.