Contours of Tomorrow

May 7,2025

Recently, I rewatched the 1991 movie City Slickers. It’s a comedy, sure, but there’s a moment in it that’s stuck with me since the 90s — the kind of line that sneaks up on you as more than just a punchline.

Jack Palance plays Curly, a leathery, no-nonsense cowboy who delivers the line like he’s seen straight through the world and come out the other side. He says to Billy Crystal’s character, Mitch, “The secret of life is just one thing.”

Mitch asks, “What’s the one thing?”

And Curly just grins and says, “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.”

It sounds like a dodge — but it’s not. That one thing isn’t a universal secret; it’s a personal one. It’s not about *what* the thing is — it’s about having something at your core that anchors the rest of your choices. A value, a purpose, maybe even a question you keep asking. Something that shapes how you move through the world, even when you’re not sure exactly where you’re going.

This idea resonates with me more and more, especially in light of the framework I’ve been working on — what I’ve come to call The Contours of Tomorrow. It’s a way of thinking about life as something we shape, intentionally or not, through the choices we make, the values we hold, and the people we affect. The “contours” aren’t fixed. They’re shaped in real time — by our hands, our thoughts, our presence.

In that light, Curly’s “one thing” feels less like a secret and more like a center of gravity. In CoT terms, it touches several of the key ideas:

• Flow: When you’ve found your one thing, decisions come easier. You move more freely, because you know what matters and what doesn’t. That kind of flow isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about coherence.
• Order: Life is full of distractions and competing obligations. But order comes when you know what you’re building your life around. That center holds you steady.
• Emergence: You don’t pick your “one thing” from a menu. It emerges through living — through joy, struggle, curiosity, love. It’s a product of you paying attention to who you are becoming.
• Persistence: When you live by your one thing, it leaves a trail. Others notice. Your influence quietly takes root — in memories, in habits, in the lives you touch. Part of you carries on, even after you’re gone.

And maybe most of all, it reflects the idea that we each need a bit of space — to figure it out for ourselves. No one else can hand us that “one thing.” But if we give ourselves room to explore, to fail, to wonder — it can rise up out of the mess of everything else.

So here’s a quiet thought: maybe it’s not that there’s only one thing that matters — it’s that you matter more once you know what you stand for. Once you’ve shaped the thing that shapes you.

That’s what tomorrow is made of — not grand declarations, but little convictions, carried forward day by day.