"To act in a new way, we must first see in a new way. I suspect most of us understand this, and yet, nearly all of us consistently undervalue the tools of vision, while proclaiming the virtues of action.

Many circumstances arise in which action is not helpful, wise, or even good; yet our culture — particularly the culture of innovation and change-making — treats a bias towards action above all else as a sign of boldness, even of integrity. Not jumping into action is taken as a sign of ineffectiveness. Research, study, discussion and collaborative exploration are disparaged as “just more talk,” things that slow us down on the way to a minimum viable product and a fast launch."

"Truly worldchanging action can’t be based on the expectations of our day, which are already riddled with dry rot and covered in dust. It must involve seeing in new, growing ways. It has to involve anticipation of that which already exists but is very hard to spot. It has to employ the tools of foresight, systems storytelling and planetary thinking. It has to understand that in a moment of rapid change, when seeing clearly is the biggest competitive advantage there is, talk is action."

“I think mayonnaise has a complex kind of relation to the sublime,” he said. “And I think emulsion does generally. It’s something about that intermediary—I don’t know—place, between being solid and being a liquid, that has a weird relation to the sublime, in the sense that the sublimity of it is in the indefinable nature of it.”

“It’s liminal also,” I offered.

“It’s liminal, and it connects to the body in a certain way.”

“You have to shake it up,” I said. “You have to put the energy into it to get it into that state.”

“Anyway,” Moten said, “mostly I just don’t fucking like it.”