SDS 508: Building Your Ant Hill

(00:19):
Recently, thanks to international borders opening up a little bit, I was finally able to see my family for the first time in two years. The pandemic had forced me to stay away for an unprecedented amount of time.

(00:31):
Being back with my family, away from my home-office in New York for the first time in what had felt like an eternity, I mentioned in conversation with my 91-year old grandmother that I wondered why we work so hard sometimes. You know, what’s life all about anyway? Here’s what she said:

(00:49): “The ants work hard too, they work so hard that they build beautiful castle and then someone comes around and knocks their castle down. So there you go. Then they start building all over again, like we do. We work so hard, we build our houses and then we resell them and then someone else rebuilds them or we go rebuild the houses. So there you go.”

(01:21):
Elaborating on this a little, my grandmother’s reflecting on how — like ants seemingly mindlessly constructing their ant hills — we too seemingly mindlessly, typically with minimal conscious intent or presence in the moment, set about carrying out our perceived duties — be it building a home, building a career, growing a family.

(01:39):
There’s a cyclical nature to all of this that she’s reflecting on as well. Just as meaningless as it is to us if we inadvertently step on an ant hill, perhaps killing countless ants and setting back progress for the entire colony, so too are our own grand designs — for our personal and professional lives — batted about by an infinite number of causal forces that are all beyond our control.

(02:06):
Disease or weather or war or whatever they don’t care about us personally. Circumstances can change dramatically for us in an instant — indeed, it’s inevitable that at some point, everything we work toward — our home, our finances, our family, our data sets, our data models, our products — they will be destroyed and maybe the components will be repurposed by something or someone new — and make a new home, new technologies, new businesses, even new people.

(02:42):
So, what’s the point of it all? Well, who bloody knows. Hopefully, however, you’ve found interests and people in your life — be it personally or professionally — that make your day-to-day experience of building your own ant hill a rewarding and enjoyable experience. It’s special — it’s magical — that you’re here every moment that you are. I hope you appreciate that at many moments each and every day.

(03:08):
All right, that’s it for today’s episode. Keep on rockin’ it out there folks and catch you on another round of SuperDataScience very soon.