The Fulcrum Of Time

The LEVER, one of humanity’s first machines

Force multiplier converting effort into work

Every lever needs a key part to work: The FULCRUM

Without it, no leverage

Today’s lever is an idea, process, a system

Its fulcrum is TIME

It moves worlds, old ones, to make room for the new

The lever is one of humanity’s first machines.

The lever, and the idea of leverage, is a force multiplier, a machine that converted human effort into work.

Imagine a plank of wood pivoted on top of a rock, like a see-saw, the beer bottle opener on a keychain, or a house-flipper’s pre-renovation “demo” tool, the crowbar. Push hard on one one end, and the heavy rock was lifted, a bottle-cap popped off and an old house would be taken apart.

It’s giant blocks of marble lifted and moved for monuments to ancient gods. A quarry of marble became a portal to the afterlife and creators of the universe. The Ancients moved atoms so that they could reach for the light of the Gods.

It was a simple machine with divine might — “With a large enough lever, I can move the world” ala Archimedes.

The words “lever” and “leverage” are related to the Indo-European “legwh”, for light, agile or easy, Latin’s “levare”, the Old French of ‘levier”. Its all about lifting and lightness, (Hat-tip Shane Parrish.)

The principle of leverage about exerting effort, force, multiplying it to move things we couldn’t otherwise lift on our own. We need leverage to take the small thing and make it big

Today, we think of leverage differently.

Instead of making items both “lighter” and easier for lifting and moving, we want to make IDEAS both heftier and easier for sharing and using. We want to achieve critical mass, turn the small into something big, and to have the advantage.

Every lever needs a key part to work. The FULCRUM.

Without it, there’s no leverage, just wood planks lying around. No temples. Invisible ideas. The world is immovable and unchanged. For moving stuff, it was a rock was the fulcrum for a plank, the lever, was lopsidedly resting on.

Today the lever is an idea, argument, process, preparation, promotion, a system.

For changing the world, and moving ideas the fulcrum is TIME.

Time is the fulcrum for changing the world.

Think of Dr. Strange and his time stone, and how he dialed it forward and backward, to see how ideas played out, and helped find the 1 in a million-plus idea that could save the universe.

It’s felt in every high pressure situation — when there’s plenty of time, the temperature drops, the air pressure, the tension comes out of the room. No deal, no war, no bargain, no sex, no agreement.

Think of “rich enough not to waste time”. It wasn’t about money, it was about time. Think of “we’ve got all the time in the world”.

Think of every deal you have been offered online. How many of them are about time limits? like exams, like the pressure point of hesitation before “going for it”,

How do amass a fortune? Save and invest. Become a sage? Study and inquire. Build an empire? Start and iterate. BUT you need to put these planks on top of the fulcrum of time.

Time converts effort into results.

Changes are done in bits and pieces, step by step There are no great leaps made, but there are many laps taken, many reps done

Arithmetic marches into geometric juggernauts you compound you magnify you multiply

Think of “before his time”. We have robots, AI, mRNA, Crispr, the Internet, and reusable rockets were based on ideas that were around for years if not decades and more. But they needed TIME.

An idea can change a mind, make a memory long after it was uttered It can take hold and spread around farther than where it started With enough time the world is changed

The fulcrum of time can move the old world aside, to make room for new ones

Originally published at https://edwardrooster.substack.com on January 14, 2023.