A number of years ago I asked someone at an AI startup whether their application could replicate wisdom. He looked at me the way you look at a museum curator who has wandered into the wrong building.

Orson Welles was once asked what made Citizen Kane work. He said, in essence, that he did it because he didn't know it was impossible. Sheer ignorance, as he put it. His cinematographer, one of the most accomplished of his era, had told him everything he needed to know about the camera could be taught in half a day. Welles said he was right.

In a message last year, I referenced an essay I wrote in 1996: Management of the Environment: Leadership ‘Spirit’ as Governance. It represented a path of connection with leadership and the natural world from which I had diverted in many ways. I reconnected with that path through hikes and walks in Acadia National Park in Maine.