The law of accelerating returns

Just a little.
That's what I tell myself when I'm having trouble getting started with something. Oh, I'll just do a little of it. This is especially helpful when it comes to things involving words, like written stories (or Steemit articles). You sit down, you do 'just a little', and pretty soon you find that it's harder to stop than to keep going.

It doesn't always work.

I mean, if you absolutely hate what you're intending to do then the idea of doing even a little of it can send you hurtling into endless cycles of escapism. It seems like being a human being is sometimes alternatively beating yourself up and running from said beating.

But hey, don't underestimate each step that you take forward. Ray Kurzweil (a name you'll hear just a little less often than Elon Musk's) has this idea that he calls The Law of Accelerating Returns. I personally think that it's one of the most prolific, profound, and transformative ideas of this century or the last.

The Law of Accelerating Returns basically states that information processes proceed or improve exponentially. This is relevant because up until Ray made this clear the common wisdom was that these processes proceeded linearly (with exceptions like Gordon's Law, which has to do with transistors). But Ray found that this always to all technological paradigms. The famous example that Ray likes to give is in the late 1980's when they managed to decode 1% of the human genome for close to a billion dollars. Scientists and lookers on were certain it would take a hundred years. Ray took one look and said: "What are you talking about, we're almost done."

Sure enough the human genome was done being sequenced by the 2003, not a full 20 years later.
I've taken it one step further.

I mean, what is your mind except your software and your decisions and actions except for the product of this mind? So when you put in effort, no matter how small, it always counts. You might think: "Aw, but I'm only 1% towards my goal," much like the scientists did with The Human Genome Project. However, like them, you fail to see how your growth is always stacking upon itself.

There is one minor rule or caveat that I should probably include. You see, the Law of Accelerating Returns only seems to include things where effort is being continuously applied, no matter how small that effort is. So if you make no effort you definitely won't be getting any better in the ways you prefer, let alone getting exponentially better.

In fact, left alone it is likely that you'll begin to get exponentially worse in all areas that you devote too little attention to. Let's call this corollary of The Law of Accelerating Returns by its own name: The Law of Compounding Degradation. There's one unique difference between the two. The Law of Accelerating Returns applies broadly to technology and biology in a general sense. The Law of Compounding Degradation seems like it would only apply to closed systems. This is a subtle point, but an important one.

Regardless, if you're fighting for the thing you want then there's a good chance that you're closer to it than you imagine. But you've got to keep taking steps, even very small ones.

That gold ring, that finish line could be right in front of you, just over the hill, out of view. Just be sure to never stop climbing.