1984 vs. Brave New World, Sales in Spanish, Texas Football
Three Point Thursday
Hola amigo,
This week’s edition features a haunting quote about the works of two great authors, a reflection on the importance of following the fun, and a story from Austin.
One of the most chilling passages I’ve ever read.
“Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley‘s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”
— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Fun is a great North Star.
During my senior year of college, people who knew I had just got back from Spain, or saw some of my Spanish-speaking videos online, would often have a similar type of comment regarding me knowing Spanish. They would say something like, “that will look good on a resume,” or brainstorm ways I could “use it,” implying the possibility of career-based rewards for my newfound language skill. These were well-intentioned statements, but I always laughed at them inside because that wasn’t my motivation for learning Spanish. I’ve done it because I have fun doing so. For spiritual reasons, you could say. All that said, it has been thrilling to indeed be using it in my career now, which I didn’t expect would happen. But here I am: working in tech sales and now covering the Miami market, having conversations in Spanish most days. Additionally, I’ve been working with people across different departments on our new Spanish Language Strategy team, designed to assist clients in Spanish across every stage of their relationship with the company. The funny thing is that this type of work probably never would’ve happened if I didn’t have that pure love for Spanish and language learning in the first place. I didn’t focus on its utility yet here I am using it.
Football in Texas is just different.
This past weekend, I had three longtime friends visit Austin. They all played football in college, so naturally we went to a University of Texas game. I almost made us all late, as I was supposed to meet them at the stadium but Ubers were taking forever, and I eventually called an audible and scrambled to find a Lime scooter to fly across town on. I got to the stadium three minutes before the game started. It was a good thing I wasn’t late by even a moment more, because right as we got to our seats, the Longhorns scored a 75-yard touchdown on the first snap of the game. The place was shaking and we were going crazy and laughing hysterically at the same time. I was so happy to see my friends, who are all lifelong lovers of football, witness a game like that in the great football state. There is just something in the air in Austin on Saturdays. The SEC has a great commercial in which, about sports, they say “it just means more.” This nails it. In Texas, football just means more.
Keep shooting,
Jeff
Happy 3 point Thursday 💪