Tipping Points

I was listening for a while to Prof. Scott Page’s online lecture on the topic of tipping points which remind me that the world is not linear.

There are situations where things are gradual and there are situations where things jump or fall down. And in many situations, I mixed them up.

Sometimes I want things fast, things to change fast. But there are parts that are more linear which means we have to wait until it grows. Things which take time to build.

At other time, I lose hope by looking at the rate of change that is pretty small without remembering that there might be tipping point ahead where the rate of change can increase. Tipping point describes a point where there is a sudden increase whether on the thing itself or the rate of change. So I act as if things will always be like this, saying that if I can’t see the projection (based on my linearity), then there is no point of doing it.

The tipping point also reminds me that there is a lot of work, perhaps with no significant results to be done before the tipping points happen. My mistake would be to focus on others’ tipping points. Because at that point of time, I will ask why others can change so fast and I can’t do it? This is inaccurate because I didn’t see the amount of seemingly boring and unfruitful works that they have done before. Also, on the concept of enlightenment. Sometimes, we think that it may only happen to certain people. But thinking again about the tipping point concept, it may just be a tipping point in terms of understanding where there is a sudden jump in terms of the understanding on certain topic. Why it might happen only to certain people? One of the reasons I can think is that people or at least me, stop too early. When we stop too early because things are hopeless or not progressing, we may miss that there is actually an enlightenment too.

Just now was about tipping point in a good direction. How about tipping point in the negative direction? This too I often forget.

I often think that it is ok to have a bad habit just because things seem to be okay or just slightly worse than ideal. With the concept of tipping point, there may be sometimes that it cracks and then the whole thing collapse. It can be our health, it can be our work, it can be our relationship. Just like a building that cracks, the crack is slowly and seem to be not dangerous. But at certain point, the cracks will cause a snowball effect that can cause the whole building to collapse.

Another thought is that upon enlightenment or sudden increase, we may easily forget how it come and then thinking that that high rate of change is going to be constant or linear. At certain point, the rate of change can go back to previous or it can go down in other direction. That’s why we can’t boast of ourselves as if things will be always that good. Perhaps that is the reason people need to save. Because there may be tipping point ahead where our income is not as high or there may be other things which cause the expenses to be much higher.

So which one is linear and which one is not? We don’t know. And that is fine. We just need to remember that we often live based on assumptions and so we need to check what is our assumption. More importantly, we need to ask God to give us wisdom and obedience in following His call that we will be faithful in both linear situations and those where there are tipping points regardless of whether those are positive or negative tipping points.