Understanding- -like civilization, happiness, music, science and a host of other great endeavors--is not a state of being, but a manner of traveling. This great road has no final destination. The journey itself is the reward.
Interpretation
Understanding is a continuous journey rather than a fixed destination, where the experiences we gain along the way are the true rewards.
In this quote, Alan Kay emphasizes that understanding and many other pursuits in life are not about achieving a final goal, but rather about the ongoing process of exploration and discovery. This perspective encourages us to value the learning and experiences we gather throughout our lives instead of fixating on a specific endpoint, as the journey itself provides the most meaningful rewards.
In practice
In a motivational speech about lifelong learning.
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
The greatest single programming language ever designed
By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice.
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
I only hope that He will let me preach to those who have never heard that name Jesus. What else is worthwhile in this life? I have heard of nothing better. 'Lord, send me!'
There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.
Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.
Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.
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