Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned (Acid Trance)

Based on the book: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned by Kenneth O. Stanley. Lyrics: [Intro] [Intro] Do whatever you feel is most interesting Do whatever you feel is most interesting No milestones, no benchmarks, no chains No milestones, no benchmarks, no chains [Build] We woke inside a culture of objectives Kindergarten gates and measured lives Grades and profit, crime and carbon Every dream with a target sign “What is the objective?” “What is the hypothesis?” Every answer framed in numbers Every road lit up by this [Build] Hotter, colder, follow the gradient Clockwork comfort in the tidy line But all these metrics, all assessment Turn the living pulse mechanized We became slaves to our objectives Toiling toward impossible perfection They stole our freedom to explore They blocked the spark of serendipity [Drop] Let go, let go The false compass glows You chase the goal, you miss the stones Let go, let go No map to know The greatest heights are found unknown [Verse] Ahab in the static whisper: “All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad” We built our lives on objective functions Household names in the AI lab Search space dark as a giant room Trillions of images shimmer in black Mona Lisa, Starry Night And oceans of television static [Verse] You have to visit before you can depart Stepping stones, portals to possibility Vacuum tubes were never dreaming Of computation, circuitry, infinity Ragtime never planned for jazz Jazz never planned for rock and roll “Elvis just started singing this song” “We don’t know” And the whole world lost control [Drop] Let go, let go The stepping stones don't show The final shape, the final home Let go, let go No straight-line code The best discoveries aren’t the ones we chose [Instrumental] [Instrumental] [Breakdown] Picbreeder in the midnight glow Random blobs on a screen Alien Face with drifting eyes No one knew what it could mean But then the wheels descended And a Car came out of dream The one thing no one sought at all Was the one thing to be seen [Breakdown] The stepping stone does not resemble the final product Say it like a mantra through the fog Chinese finger trap, pull tighter, lose freedom Push inward, break the lock The measure lies, the score deceives Cul-de-sacs dressed as destiny Compare where you are to where you want And you may miss what sets you free [Build] Single cells won’t pass an IQ test Flatworms don’t look like Shakespeare Yet bilateral symmetry crossed the mist And left the pathway here Nature wasn’t trying to evolve us That’s the only reason it did A treasure hunter with no final image Letting weird new niches live [Build] Novelty, interestingness Simple to complex in the dark Crash every wall till you learn the walls Then find the doorway by the sparks “Chance favors only the prepared mind” So follow the scent, not the score There is a third way through the chaos A way to explore and mean more [Drop] Road to everywhere Nowhere in particular Treasure hunter, stepping-stone collector Road to everywhere Nowhere in particular Diverge, discover, get stranger, get better [Verse] Schools chasing tests forget the children Science chasing consensus dims the flame Funding only what looks important Can’t predict the breakthrough’s name Artists asked to justify the rust Students told to pick the “right” design But “The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves” And letting it ride through time [Verse] Steve dropped in on calligraphy Johnny Depp chased songs, not scenes Murakami ran a jazz bar Nintendo wandered through machines YouTube wasn’t born for sharing Microwaves weren’t born to cook Time and again the path that mattered Was the path no planner took [Final Build] You can’t control the far horizon That control was a mirage When the objective starts to shimmer Turn away from the false facade Do what you love and believe in Trust the hunch around the corner If the path you walk looks nothing Like the dream that came before ya [Final Drop] To achieve our highest goals We must be willing to abandon them To achieve our highest goals We must be willing to abandon them Let go, let go Do whatever you feel is most interesting Let go, let go Sometimes the best way to change the world Is to stop trying to change it [Outro] [Outro] The myth of the objective fades The treasure hunter remains The myth of the objective fades The treasure hunter remains