Six Timeless Lessons from Frieren — Engineering Edition

Introduction

Okay, bear with me here. This will be a different kind of nerdy than my usual nerdy. I recently had the privilege of watching and rewatching Sousou no Frieren / Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. I fell in love with it the very first time I watched it. But only on rewatching, I understood why.

The show does not say anything we don’t already know. It only puts general ideas into a time-focused perspective. The show’s beauty is that those general ideas apply everywhere: especially in engineering.

This is my attempt to distil those ideas. But first, let me introduce you to Frieren.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Frieren is a show that begins after it has already ended: a classic-sounding tale of a Hero’s party who travelled together for 10 years, defeated the Demon King, and returned home. Among them is Frieren, an ageless elf who slowly has to come to terms with the fact that her companions, mere mortals, are beginning to age and die. In the 10 years, which were a blink of an eye for her, why did she not make more effort to be with them? She breaks down crying, and the show begins.