The Headline of the Century

I’m constantly looking for ways to reframe. Ways to ask better questions. Ways to look at the world differently than your average person.

One pathway is to shift your time horizon.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it so powerfully play out as Steven Johnson’s new book.

The doubling of human life expectancy is the single most important development of our era. If a newspaper came out only once a century, that extra lifespan would be the banner headline: world wars, moon landings, the Internet would all be below the fold.

This is one of the major fallacies of our moden era — we completely miss the headline of the century, often overlook the headline of the decade and frequently miss the headline of year… all in service of the headline of THIS HOUR.

A good question — how can you spend more time thinking about the headline of the year? The decade? The century? (And, in turn, less about the headline of the moment…)