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- And we need to reclaim the paradoxical freedom of irrationality and self-limitation. In a protocol society, to default to responding rationally to incentives is to default to the swarm, to enslaving desire and burnout-inducing freedom. Deleuze argues that our age demands that we cultivate a new form of idiot savant, who can turn “the absurd into the highest power of thought.” In the era of GPS, there is no longer a road less traveled by, no shortcut known only to locals, no path that is your secret. To see something new, one must find what is not on the map, the absurd traversal across a roof or through an unlocked window. Or one must find new paths in time instead of space, refusing to optimize by claiming some place, artifact, or community as one’s own, the same way that a romantic relationship becomes something more when both partners refuse to look for a better one.
Make virtues of irrational attachment, cultivated ignorance, and stubborn loyalty. The day belongs to those who master the new tools for building, but who preserve in their hearts a secret garden of earnest loves untrammeled by the swarm.