Drunken Sailors.

After reading Richard Hamming's You and Your Research, I ended up coming across The Art of Doing Science and Engineering through Stripe Press. In a flash of serendipity, the foreword is by Bret Victor, who I have been rediscovering as part of my investigations on how to design better instruments. It's super interesting to learn about the work of Dynamicland and their research in finding better ways for 'real people, in the real world, to explore ideas together'. Lots of dots connecting at the same time. Also a nice reminder that if you have a vision, the universe has a funny way of helping you stumble there in fewer steps. From Hamming:

It is well known the drunken sailor who staggers to the left or right with n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about √n steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a career with a vision will get you a distance proportional to n, while no vision will get you only the distance √n. In a sense, the main difference between those who go far and those who do not is some people have a vision and the others do not and therefore can only react to the current events as they happen.