These are notes I made while reading Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows. It is a book on Systems Design, or perhaps better, understanding systems. These systems can be software, drinking water systems, political systems, or the world climate “system”

On resilience

Resilience is not the same thing as being static or constant over time. Resilient systems can be very dynamic. Short-term oscillations, or periodic outbreaks, or long cycles of succession, climax, and collapse may in fact be the normal condition, which resilience acts to restore!

System traps

Sometimes systems fail to work, Meadows refers to these as ‘traps’ and identifies a list of common traps, and how to escape from these. It is good to reference the book in case you encounter such traps.

One of the trap mentioned is success to the successful, which may kill compe…

It seems to happen, people who are at their thirties completely lost in their career.

For life’s problem of feeling lost there is no GPS, nor a map. Don’t expect enjoyment in random short lived ‘interesting’ idea consumption, try week+ long exploration of unknown territory instead.

When young, society allows you to try new stuff, but at the age of 30 you might start to think that society expects you to know it all. That you’re the senior. Stop believing this.

There is no route other than the one you’re taking. Continue, explore and experience, but ignore expectations. Finding optimal happiness is an NP-hard problem, try to find your happiness in traversing.

LiNK is a college society founded in 2001(?) by 6 people, including me. In its second year of existence I had the honour of being member of the society's board.