May 14, 2025
I realized this morning that one of the reasons I find the Contours of Tomorrow framework so fascinating might have something to do with the fact that I’m an engineer.
Sure, there are all sorts of jokes and stereotypes about engineers — some deserved, others exaggerated, most of them at least a little funny because they contain a kernel of truth. We’re known for our sense of logic, our preference for function over fashion, and, yes, our tendency to take things apart — either literally with tools or mentally with diagrams — just to see how they were made. I don’t consider this outlook a flaw. In fact, I think it gives me a unique and rewarding way to see the world. Let me nerd out for a moment — I promise we won’t get bogged down in equations. (They said there would be no math...)
I remember when I first learned calculus — parts in high school, a bit more in college. Somewhere along the way, I had one of those classic "aha" moments. You know the kind: where a fog lifts, a light bulb flickers on, and suddenly the symbols on the page seem to mean something. I realized that calculus wasn’t just abstract brain torture — it was a tool. A real one. The kind you could use to pry open problems that didn’t yield to simpler methods.
Now, I won't drag you through a math lecture, but let me share one key idea from calculus that explains a lot — not just about math, but about life.
The core magic of calculus is in how it handles change. Specifically, how it takes something big and messy and breaks it into tiny, manageable slivers. Imagine pouring water into a fancy bottle. At first, as the base fills — nice and wide — the height barely moves. But once the water reaches the narrow neck? Suddenly, the same amount of water causes the height to rise a lot faster. It’s not a smooth, even progression. The relationship between volume and height twists and bends with the shape of the container.
To understand that — to really model and predict that — you need calculus. Not because the situation is impossibly complex, but because it's not linear. The behavior changes over time in subtle ways, and calculus is the tool that says, “No problem. Let’s just break it into tiny steps and add them up.”
What fascinated me — and still does — is how this concept maps almost eerily well onto life itself.
Think about it: we move through time in infinitesimal slices. Little now-moments. You wake up. You brush your teeth. You send that text. You blink. In each of these tiny slices, it can feel like nothing is changing. No progress. No revelation. No transformation. Just one drop in the bottle. But over time? Those drops stack. They accumulate. The bottle fills. The height rises.
That’s the magic. Not in the moment itself, but in the sum of the moments.
That’s also one of the things I appreciate most about the Contours of Tomorrow framework — the way it recognizes the quiet power of incremental change. One of its central tenets, Flow, is all about the continuity between moments — how our actions, thoughts, and habits combine over time into something smooth and directional. Another tenet, Emergence, celebrates the patterns that arise from many small pieces coming together. Think of a tapestry: any single thread doesn’t show you the design. But as the threads cross and connect, the pattern becomes visible — a form that didn’t exist in any single strand, but lives fully in their combination.
That’s the kind of thinking that makes an engineer’s heart beat a little faster. Because it’s not just poetic — it’s true.
We’re often so focused on trying to spot dramatic change that we miss the cumulative power of quiet persistence. We want revolutions, but most of life is built by steady hands making careful, iterative improvements. Every new skill, every relationship, every project, every philosophy — they all rise one drop at a time.
So when someone asks, “When will I ever use calculus in real life?” I now think: you already are. Constantly.
Every time you make a tiny decision that slightly shifts your trajectory. Every time you practice something a little more. Every time you pause, breathe, and choose a different reaction than you might have yesterday. These are infinitesimal steps — micro-motions of change — but they stack. They integrate. And over time, they produce something real. Something visible. Something meaningful.
Calculus isn’t just something engineers use to solve physics problems. It’s a way of seeing the world — not as a set of still frames, but as a dynamic process of ongoing accumulation. And whether you realize it or not, your life is shaped not by dramatic events alone, but by a thousand tiny shifts, added up over time.
So yeah — I do still use calculus in real life.
Even if there’s no math involved.
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