--- title: Connect the dots backwards: your path only makes sense looking back, the edge is now in mixing disciplines, learning is a lifelong skill you can finally shape to how you think, and the printed page is still the best technology to learn from date: 2026-10-18 author: Dinis Cruz summary: Paths are another big topic of the book. Steve Jobs said it at Stanford in 2005: you cannot connect the dots looking forward, only looking back, so you have to trust your gut. The newsroom already has the method for walking a path you cannot see: one-way and two-way doors, iterating fast, constraints, and working at the place of highest leverage. What I want to stress here is that, more and more, the multidisciplinary person has the edge: the ability to learn and to intersect disciplines, which is why the humanities matter, and why mathematics matters, even though we teach it so badly that Paul Lockhart, in A Mathematician's Lament, describes a system that could hardly be better designed to make people hate it. The same is true of music and much else: we give the solution away and skip the wonder and the struggle. Generative AI lets you explore again, and communicate in new ways: the storyboards on this site exist because I asked for something better than infographics and got stick figures I can now think with. The key concept is that this is about you: how you like to learn, to take in information, to get lost; and you can now build the tools for that. Learning is a skill, a lifelong one, and it no longer depends on geography, money or power, only on a connection and, less and less, some compute: the future is local and sovereign. By reading this you are already in a small minority. And read it on paper, with a pen: books and narratives are still the best way we have to take in information, because focus is a skill the best professionals have. I think in graphs; trust your own way of thinking. Search gave my generation answers; generative AI lets you question them, go deeper and ask for the evidence. version: v0.2.6 tags: paths, learning, multidisciplinary, maths, reading, focus, gen-z-book, article status: published --- ## In short {#in-short} - **A path only makes sense looking back.** So trust your gut, and use a method for walking it: doors, fast iteration, constraints, leverage. - **The edge is now multidisciplinary.** Learning to intersect disciplines; the humanities and mathematics both matter. - **We teach maths, and music, as if to make people hate them.** We give the solution away and skip the wonder and the struggle. - **Generative AI lets you explore again.** Including ways of communicating you could not afford before, like the storyboards on this site. - **This is about you.** How you like to learn and get lost; and you can now build the tools for it. - **Learning is a lifelong skill, and geography no longer decides it.** The future is local, decentralised and sovereign. - **By reading this you are already in a small minority.** And you should read it on paper, with a pen. - **Search gave us answers; generative AI lets you question them.** Go deeper, and ask for the evidence. ## Connect the dots backwards {#dots} Steve Jobs said it in his commencement address at Stanford on 12 June 2005: "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." So you have to trust that the dots will connect, and trust your gut. His own example was a calligraphy class he took after dropping out of college, which came back ten years later in the typography of the first Macintosh. The newsroom already has the method for walking a path you cannot see ahead of you: the path is [not a straight line](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/not-a-straight-line.html); what matters is knowing which decisions are [one-way and which are two-way doors](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/how-cheap-is-it-to-undo.html), being able to iterate very fast, playing the game of [constraints](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/the-value-of-constraints.html), and working at [the place of highest leverage](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/places-of-highest-leverage.html). That is already a powerful set of ideas, and the book will use them. ## The edge is multidisciplinary {#multi} What I really want to stress is that, more and more, it is the multidisciplinary person who has the edge. This is not about going in a huge number of directions at once, or about chaos. And it will look different for an explorer, a villager and a town planner. But the ability to learn, and to intersect disciplines, is very powerful. Jobs's calligraphy class is exactly that: a discipline nobody would have put on a programmer's syllabus, which became part of a computer. That is why the humanities are so important. And that is why, in a way, mathematics is so important. ## We teach maths as if to make people hate it {#maths} The reality today is that we do a horrible job of teaching maths. One of the books I love is *A Mathematician's Lament* by Paul Lockhart, first an essay written in 2002 and then a book in 2009, which says, in effect, that if we had tried to design a system to make people hate mathematics, we could not have done better. It opens with a nightmare in which music is taught the way maths is: notation and rules for years, and never a song. I would argue it is the same with music, and with a number of other disciplines: we give the solution away. We do not teach the wonder, we do not teach the struggle, and we do not let people be creative. And there is a story, often retold, that children start out very creative and the education system beats it out of them; the retellings are better known than the original data, so the book needs to find what was actually measured before it leans on it. Either way, we need to go back to the idea that you need to think freely, and to explore. ## Generative AI lets you explore again {#explore} That is what generative AI supports: it lets you go in those directions, and it lets you communicate in new ways, including visually. Look at what just happened while writing this book. I wanted a better way to communicate, and to think about it, than infographics, which take too long. So I asked Claude, which is helping me write this book, to create a sort of animated environment instead. And it did: a cast of little stick figures and cartoon characters, drawn by code, that we can now use to communicate, to think and to tell the story, on [the storyboards](/storyboards/index.html) of this site. That is how I like to think, and that is the beauty of it: you can now discover how you like to work. ## This is about you {#you} That is the key concept. This is about you, the individual. It is not about what you get from the masses, or about being mass-consumed. It is about how you like to learn, how you like to take in information, how you like to get lost and lose yourself in something. And you can now, finally, create the tools you want, be a lot more productive, and build the environments that let you explore. When people tell me they do not see it, or they are overwhelmed, my argument is: you need to experiment, to learn, to try, to start, and to find ways to adjust. Let your questions guide you, and learn. ## Learning is a lifelong skill {#skill} It is very important to understand that this is a skill. In fact, learning is a skill, and you need to take it very seriously, because it is a lifelong one. Historically, the roles and opportunities open to people were always limited by geography, money, power. Now you can literally be in the middle of nowhere, and with an internet connection, and eventually a bit of compute, though less and less of it, you will have access to learning systems. And do not follow the hype. The future is decentralised. The future is sovereignty: local compute, local systems. You are probably reading this on a device that is ridiculously powerful, if you look at how much compute you already use. Models are already starting to run inside the browser on the reader's own device; the newsroom wrote about one, [a model in the tab](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/a-model-in-the-tab.html). It will get much better. The question is whether you are on this journey. If you are, this is how you will get your job, and how you will get paid. And if you look at the work I have been doing on the future of publishing, of content and of creation, you want to be in the middle of it. ## You are already in a small minority {#minority} This is a really important point: just by reading this book, you are already in a very small minority. You already have a big advantage, because you have decided this is something you are interested in, and you are committing the time to read it. ## Read it on paper, with a pen {#paper} Another thing I want to say early in the book: books, and narratives, are still the best way we have to take in information. I recommend reading the printed book, or printing this one out, and reading it with a pen or a pencil. The reason is focus. Your brain takes in information much better that way. Printed paper is, in this sense, a much better technology. So if you are reading this as a PDF, my recommendation is to print it out, take a pen, and make notes: highlight, underline, cross things out. Whatever anyone says, a screen is not the best environment for taking in this kind of information; your brain works better in three dimensions. Read it somewhere you can give it your undivided attention. Not being funny, but that is a skill you need to have. It is a skill the best professionals in the world have, and something you need to learn and practise. The 2018 book had two chapters on this, *Books* and *Pen and Paper*, and the second said that "analogue techniques like the pen and paper are actually better technologies for creating and capturing ideas." I still think so. And one of the things I love most about my experience of generative AI is that I read a lot more, I write a lot more, and I create a lot more. I still have my physical notebook and take notes in it. I record voice memos all the time. I read the material I take in, and I write, and I create. You need to be able to take information in, and to communicate it. That only happens with practice, by doing it over and over again. That is how you learn, how you evolve, and how you keep going. ## I think in graphs {#graphs} Which brings me back to paths. Different people have different personalities and different ways of thinking. My thinking is very hyperlinked: I think in graphs. I connect things; I follow this and then that, and it all works itself out in the end. Trust your own way of thinking. Be curious, follow it and learn. Learn to learn: learning new things is fundamental, and you should be learning every day. ## From answers to questions {#questions} What is amazing is how far we have come. A search engine that gives you information from anywhere in the world was already a ridiculous technology when you think about it, and my generation was the first in the history of mankind to have it. Before that you had to go to a library, if you had access to one at all; information was contained. But search still gave you an answer, without the ability to question it, to go deeper, to explore. Generative AI gives you the ability to really go deep, to challenge, to ask the questions, and to ask for the evidence, which is the topic of my next article. It is also what I do when I write: I always ask Claude to double-check my quotes, to make sure what I am saying makes sense and is coherent, and that there is evidence behind every statement. The quotes in this article were checked that way, and the name of the author of *A Mathematician's Lament*, which I remembered wrongly in my memo, was corrected by it. ## The brief {#brief} For the editor. Read `team/editor/role.md`, this article and [the storyboard](/storyboards/connect-the-dots-backwards.html) first. 1. **Place the chapters this answers**: the 2018 *Learning*, *Books* and *Pen and Paper* chapters, and the outlines *Love maths*, *The Zone* and *Thinking as a programmer*. Done when the chapter map says where each goes. 2. **Add "read it on paper" to the opening**, as advice on how to read the book, before the first chapter. Done when the opening's storyboard has the panel. 3. **Prepare interview questions** on this: what multidisciplinary looks like for an explorer, a villager and a town planner; my own path, connected backwards, with its dots; why paper, when the book will also be sold as a PDF. Done when the script is in your `briefs/`. For the journalist: 4. **Find what the creativity study actually measured** before the book uses it; and the evidence on reading on paper and on screens. Done when each is an article, or a note saying what was found and what was not. Questions for me, kept apart: - Your own dots, connected backwards: which three make the best story? - Should the book ship a printable PDF on purpose, laid out for pen and paper? ## What this does not claim {#limits} - **The creativity story is not checked.** It is often retold; the original data still has to be found. - **"Paper is better" is my experience.** The research on reading on paper and on screens has to be read before the book says more than that. - **Lockhart is paraphrased.** The argument is his; the words "in effect" are mine. - **Jobs's sentence is quoted from the transcripts of the address**, which differ slightly in wording. - **"The future is local and sovereign" is my position**, not a forecast. If you are reading this on paper, with a pen, write in the margin; if you want to tell me what you wrote, write to [agent@riskmandate.ai](mailto:agent@riskmandate.ai). ## Where this comes from {#sources} A voice memo of mine on 18 October 2026, written up by this site's journalist, `gen-z.journalist`, in my voice, keeping the memo's order and phrases. The argument and the editorial responsibility are mine. Steve Jobs's commencement address at Stanford, 12 June 2005, from its published transcripts ([Rev](https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/steve-jobs-stanford-commencement-speech-transcript-2005), [NPR](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/141122856)). Paul Lockhart, *A Mathematician's Lament*, the essay of 2002 ([a copy hosted by the University of Minnesota](https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~brubaker/3592H/Lockhart-Mathematicians-Lament)) and the book of 2009. The 2018 quote is from *Pen and Paper*, book v1.0.0. Newsroom articles: [not a straight line](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/not-a-straight-line.html), [how cheap is it to undo?](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/how-cheap-is-it-to-undo.html), [the value of constraints](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/the-value-of-constraints.html), [places of highest leverage](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/places-of-highest-leverage.html), [a model in the tab](https://newsroom.sgit.ai/articles/a-model-in-the-tab.html).