we are apollo 13

I woke up thinking about space flight.

It’s about 1 AM, and rather than sleeping, I am thinking about the Apollo 13 mission. Originally intended to fly to and land on the Moon, it never made it. It’s ancient history at this point—it happened in the last century. Why wake up thinking about it when it’s already over and done with and everyone made it back safely and got to be characters in a Ron Howard film?

Because, my friends, it’s a metaphor, and we are all on that rocket.

Can you imagine if Houston’s response to being told there’s a problem was to say, “Carry on, or we’ll never make it to the Moon”?

Leadership is not just about vision—it’s about responding to conditions as they occur. It’s about seeking feedback from the people who are living the experience of the decisions that are being made; ultimately, those are the people who can tell you whether or not the theoretical calculations and planning can be safely carried out in the real world. They are the ones who will live or die. It is irresponsible, reckless, and otherwise stupid not to seek out input from those on board and to adjust accordingly. Houston’s job is to assist, not to insist. Houston’s job is to listen.

There is a tendency these days, if listening does actually occur, to stick to the input of the engineers and theoreticians only rather than to listen to the astronauts flying the damned thing. God forbid, sometimes we only listen to the “gut” of some guy who insists he has expertise on all of it, despite never having flown or studied spacecraft. It’s easier. It’s autopilot. It’s nice and neat and everyone at Mission Control gets out in time to make it home for supper.

It’s also a recipe for disaster.

Houston, when we have a problem, we here on board need creativity, your ability to think critically, and an understanding of what tools are available to us—it is easier to be clearheaded when you’re not in immediate danger. What we don’t need is distance, detachment, and insistence on an unattainable goal at the cost of human lives.

I’d like for all of us to make it home in one piece.

a delayed tale of horror

There is a certain type of person who lacks vision.

They believe what they are told, provided the information comes from a “good source” (someone who looks and sounds like them).

They do what they are told, provided the commands come from an “authority figure” (again, someone who doesn’t challenge their assumptions of what authority looks like).

They find their boxes quickly in life and they stay firmly within the walls of those boxes because the inside is so comfortable and the outside is so very, very scary. Sometimes, the inside of the box is uncomfortable, too, but that’s life and surely outside the box is worse.

We are all, to some extent, this kind of person.

But let’s try a little exercise:

Let’s imagine a fictional country that prides itself on being very box-like. In this country, there is a rigid social order: one race holds itself to be superior, one sex holds itself to be superior, one religion that holds itself to be superior, etc. No one new may enter unless they have an engraved invitation, which is usually reserved for people who look and sound like the ruling class or who at least have a lot of money. We’ll call this fictional country Boxistan (because I am very bad at coming up with names).

Let’s imagine that the fictional ruler of Boxistan, who represents a minority of the population, develops a fictional illness —say, Rectocranial Inversion Syndrome, which everyone knows to be fatal due to lack of oxygen. In Boxistan, only the best of the best get to go to college and, perhaps ultimately, win grants to conduct vital medical research. “Best of the best” for our purposes is defined as people who look like the ruling class or are nonthreatening and brilliant.

Now let’s imagine that the person who could have saved our fictional ruler is born poor elsewhere, in a country that struggles with poverty, war, famine —the usual suspects —and tries to seek refuge in Boxistan. Or perhaps our fictional scientist is born in Boxistan, to a family that isn’t quite right, in the sense that they are poor or of the “wrong” race, or perhaps our fictional scientist is of the “wrong” sexual orientation.

Our fictional ruler would asphyxiate and die.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that the answers to some of our problems might come from people who don’t look or sound like us or who come from unexpected places. It’s likely, in fact. If you consider that the population of Boxistan is over 300 million people, but the population of people in Boxistan who aren’t the “right” sort are over half of that number, and the population of the world is over 7 billion people, it is likely.

If I were that fictional ruler and really thought about those odds, I’d be terrified. He is slowly wasting away for no reason at all. It’s too bad he can’t get enough oxygen in there to think clearly and do the math.