Planning for Serendipity.

In Pursuit of Quality. #22.

DALL-E is also on the search for unplanned serendipity!

For the past two weeks, we've been in Sicily celebrating our marriage and pretending that pressures of the world ceased to exist.  I kept my phone in airplane mode.  I traded exercise for the ungodly consumption of bread, pasta, and wine.  This is what it means to "be present," I guess.  But true presence means more—it's absorbing every moment, especially when you're somewhere new.

Something we couldn't ignore was just how crowded the world feels. The vast buzzing of human beings everywhere.  With so many of us, there's a flood of signals dictating what we should do next. 

Want the "best" hotel?  TripAdvisor has thousands of reviews.  The best eats?  Google's got suggestions.  Can't-miss sites?  Bloggers and TikTok have covered it.  As useful as these signals are, they seem to snatch away the thrill of stumbling upon something new.  Is it really that fun to follow the crowd, chasing after the most stars or reviews? 

So, we kept digging at this question: What's really happening here?  And what, if anything, can we do about it?

No Mirage.

We're not going crazy—the population boom is real.  Very real.  This sent my imagination reeling as we toured an island that's been consistently inhabited for thousands of years.¹  

From taking millennia to reach one billion people, we've exploded to over eight billion in what feels like a heartbeat.  In just the last century alone, our numbers have quadrupled!  My mind is officially blown.  And amid those ancient Sicilian streets, this growth felt surreal. 

Earth is simply crawling with signal-emitting human beings.

Data Deluge. 

The crowd isn't just physical—it's digital.  Every click, every search, every swipe contributes to an endless stream of signals.  We're producing 2.5 quintillion bytes daily, each one shaping, directing, even dictating our next steps.²  

This isn't just background noise.  As I—and others—have written before, this data onslaught influences our decisions, and, ironically, narrows our paths.  Google Maps can instantly reveal "hidden gems" to billions.  Social platforms are dinging with real-time updates on every conceivable topic.  The scope for true discovery, for stumbling upon the unknown, seems to diminish daily. 

Yet it's precisely this data smog that underscores the need for planning serendipity!  As much as digital signals guide us, they also threaten to limit us, to confine our experiences within the bland boundaries of what's been determined as relevant or popular. 

The challenge?  To not be ensnared by the digital web but to use it without being used by it.  It's about inviting serendipity by creating the frameworks for it, intentionally carving out space for the unexpected.  

 Feeling Lucky? 

We aren't able to shrink the populace nor the data it generates.³  But we absolutely can change how we interact with the world around us.  What does it take to plan for the, uh, unplannable?  Here's what I think we can do in pursuit of better outcomes:

Limit the Noise:  We can use signals to get our bearings, then turn them off to let the real world guide us.

Embrace the Random:  We can choose days to explore without destinations in mind. Let our senses and instincts, not just the algorithms, lead us.

Seek the New:  We can put ourselves in fresh situations or environments. New experiences prime us for serendipity.

Cultivate your Curiosity:  We can ask questions, be open to learning, and see where conversations and chance encounters take us. 

Time for Reflection: We can carve more quiet spaces in our days to process experiences; to allow the random seeds of serendipity to sprout. 

I get it.  It's easier not to think about this shit.  But my role here is to be a champion for living fully, to find magic in the mundane, and to help discover the territories that lie beyond the reach of screens.  This is what I'm personally striving for. 

This is what it means, once again, to be in pursuit of quality.

As always, with respect, warmth, and gratitude. 

1. By ~750 BC, Sicily had three Phoenician and a dozen Greek colonies.

2. It’s OK. I had to look up “quintillion,” too.

3. Well, actually, The New York Times tells me that “economists and demographers who study population size project that the world’s population will reach a peak of about 10 billion people around 2085, if not earlier. Thereafter, the population is not expected to plateau, but instead decline to less than two billion about 300 years later, over perhaps 10 generations”