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Cathedral Thinkers

What's cathedral thinking, How to think clearly, 5 chance events that changed history and many more...

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Jun 18, 2021

3 Things I thought worth sharing with y’all

Long-term thinkers

This is one of the questions I’ve been pondering about lately, “Who are the modern world cathedral thinkers?”

But before we answer this question let’s understand what’s Cathedral thinking

Cathedral thinking is fairly simple and a beautiful concept.

In last 2000 years, cathedrals have been built all over the globe but they are not built in a couple of years, sometimes a cathedral takes multiple generations to finish.

Let’s say you start working on the design and construction of a cathedral today and the possibility of it completely getting done is probably when your grandson is your age.

(Also, I’m not talking about technology and heavy machinery, go old school fam.)

Now, I’ve created a StoryCard on this subject a while ago and I go back to story every now and then👇

This week I read this StoryCard again and it triggered my curiosity.
What other stories, experiments, works, ideas, businesses are being created or worked upon with a thinking that the results will be ascertained only after a long time (probably after death)?

That’s when I stumbled upon the wikipedia page called Long Term Experiments

Here are a few examples

1. Oxford Electric Bell

An experimental electric bell was setup in 1840 and has been ringing ever since. It has rung around 10 billion times. Nobody is certain what the batteries are made of, opening them would ruin the experiment of how long the bell may ring. Interesting right.
They say that the bell was constructed in 1825 (that’s almost 200 years ago)
Even the creators thought that it’ll go on for 4-5 years

The creators may not have thought that this will long last but the result is yet to reveal itself: what is it made of? only time will tell.

But I have a better question, what if they thought like a cathedral thinker? What if they wanted it to work for centuries? Maybe we’ll never know

You might know the next story

2. Eiffel Tower

These were the designs proposed for Eiffel Tower

It was built for 1889 world fair. But did you know that it was temporary.

It was supposed to be dismantled in 20 years. The owner wanted to figure out new ways to make it useful. It was saved because of Radio. It was the tallest building for about 40 years. 1898 first radio contact between the tower and a place 4 kms way. It was a success and it still transmits radio waves even today.

The reason why I’m sharing is that the owners & creators may not have been cathedral thinkers but it became a phenomenon. Eiffel Tower is the world’s most visited paid tourist attraction 🙌

Maybe you don’t have think like a cathedral thinker, maybe you just have to create something and change according how the world changes or needs it to be.

Maybe you can create something where others can create on top of it. (Apple created MacBook - MacBook lets people edit videos, do business, start companies, make music, etc)

All this ends up begging one question in my mind, “What if they thought like a cathedral thinker?”

Few cathedral thinkers I know right now are astrophysicist and anyone working in the space industry (They are working on something that can probably be achieved in about 50 years - 100 years)

But who else? Who else is thinking in 100 year terms? Who is thinking big enough, who is working towards something that will be bring out results in about 100 years?

I’m still trying to answer this question and I beg you to ask this to yourself too.

What can you do or start now that will bring the results in about 100-200 years?

Think big, be a Cathedral Thinker 🚀