A neo-renaissance, eco-epicurean savors, curates and shares slices from the surf's edge on the inspiration, imagination, the art of living, the living of art - and anything that screams Life.
M. Scott Peck: The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace Just started, but compelled by the model of moving from pseudo-community (where everyone is fake nice) to a true community where no one is trying to change anyone else; and collaboration truly flourishes.
Michael Scott: The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Just checked out of library. Adore fantasy, fairy tales, and myth. And when the jacket said that Michael Scott was an authority on mythology and folklore, I was hooked. Plus I still have designs on writing my own mythic tale down soon.
Steven Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Really intrigued by the title. Fabulously diverse in examples. If you ever felt like a square in round world, this book will make you sing for joy because that's what life is about--growing, moving, evolving.... The book is much stronger for being in Science section and not restricted to business innovation alone.
"The Wonder Year project is an invitation to imagine what lies beyond the apparent boundary of 2012, not as a rigidy imposed concept or prediction, but as an adventure." - The Wonder Year
I adore invitations and adventure, so this The Wonder Year (via Spaziale blog) caught my eye today; I'm still investigating it for myself.
Two days ago, I conceived of a mini-adventure inspired by a book's premise that I'd like to share.
In The Future of Us, teenage protagonists Josh and Emma live in 1996, and find out that Emma's computer can mysteriously access Facebook fifteen years in the future. Facebook doesn't exist in linear time, yet inadvertently or not, they're reading their own future-self Facebook statuses. They begin to piece together a puzzle of their lives as grown-ups.
In 1996, taking the best educated guess I could at the time, I'd be starkly wrong about the ride into 2011 on almost every single front I'd hazard a guess. Rather than 15 years fast-forward, even 10-year-sprees are daunting: I was pretty much the same person with same worldview in 1996 as in 1986 so extrapolation sort of works for that time span. But 2006? That was night-and-day from 1996.
Eight years and exactly one day ago today, I published my first post here at Crossroads Dispatches. (Previous blog lasted a few months.) Could I predict I'd still be writing right here same bat-channel eight years later?
I'm startled myself how skimming (I didn't read it through as it's more suited to YA) The Future of Usgot me going on this theme about how we believe we can or ought to predict or shape destiny. Notions such as there is a singular optimum destiny and we must finagle to get there. Or fearsome other destinies we must avoid. It opens up a ball of wax to play with.
I just didn't know what I didn't know back then, and actually couldn't conceive of many of the events and insights that have occurred (and I've left out a lot of juicy, weird parts). Mind and spirit may not be static. Maybe we aren't confined by our 17-year-old beliefs, or even yesterdays'.
"Many times I imagined myself here--at the threshold of the palace. But I always thought I would be here as a conqueror, instead we are the Earth king's personal guests here to serve him tea. Destiny is a funny thing." - unnamed character in Avatar: The Last Airbender
Destiny is a funny thing.
"Now, we have to do something. It doesn't have to be huge, but something we weren't going to do before playing this game."
"Emma, I'm not messing with the future. Not as part of a game."
"Then don't call it a game!" she snaps. "Think of it as an award-winning science experiment."
Emma picks up the thin blue vase from her dresser. Earlier this week, it held the dying roses Graham gave her for prom. Emma slowly tips the vase until water begins dribbling onto her white carpet.
"What are you doing?" I ask. But I know the answer. She's making a small change in the present to see how it affects the future. If I grab the vase from her now, it wouldn't matter because that wouldn't have happened before either. - The Future of Us, by Jay Asher and Carolyn Macker
In the book, Emma and Josh started to notice that things they'd decide in the present would ripple into the future each time they hit refresh on Facebook--sometimes affecting the name of their spouse, the town where they reside, who's on their Friends list and who isn't and other factors.
The Invitation and Adventure. Try on this experiment in imaginal science. Less manipulating the future, more an exercise in imagination, at least for me--but play it as you will.
What did you do today that rippled into the future? As Emma notes, "It doesn't have to be huge, but something we weren't going to do before playing this game."
I like the ring of "hindsight is 20/20" so I'm setting my future statuses for the year 2020. Oh, and I'm not necessarily going to stay within the realm of "the feasible."
Add yours in Comments section below if you want to play too. (You can also invent the present-day statuses, if you like.) I'll play for about 10 or 11 days through February 19th--adding my statuses to the Comments. In a few days, I'll add yet another twist to the game inspired from the book, The Future of Us. Here's an example:
Yesterday: For the past year, nearly every day I walk 1 and 1/2 hours in pretty much the southerly direction in the same neighborhood. Today I walked a new northern route (I'd explored pieces of it years ago; today, I went further). And found a biking trail I didn't know about. It gave me a vantage point to see palatial 'star' homes that are often obscured by gates and walls.
In 2020: Jaunt through forests near Mogollon Rim. Built a fire for the evening. I'll travel again at dawn. (The unspoken, implied part is totally comfortable with wilderness survival in winter.) Photo attached with status update: Mongollan Rim and the Verde River.
ART CREDITS: Illustration by Katsuhiro Otomo via darksilenceinsuburbia; Bâtiment (Building) Installation, by Leandro Erlich, grants super-powers to passersby -- scale a building in Paris through March (a vertical mirror reflects a horizontal building facade) via MyModernMet.
The ruins of the once center of the cosmopolitan world Byzantium Empire are underground in Istanbul.
Paradoxically, antique and precious things aren't the only thing underground.
Often new and too edgy things reside underground.
Although, I'm tiring of hiding underground.
Perhaps it is the function of artists, shamans and culture-makers to be culturally dystonic: To be too edgy--not by force or contrivance but simply because you are going with the dynamic of life (go ahead and rock the boat, surf the edges).
Heck, it's a dragon year in the Chinese zodiac. It's a year of adventure. No time to be tentative and timid like Ms. Chihuro in Spirited Away. She was having none of it, sulking in the backseat as they drove to their new home. Her parents said a new school could be an adventure (ya right?). Little could she foresee her dread of the unknown would be tested by far more intimidating tests than any grade school.
Switching cartoons for a minute. I know it's been ages since you watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, if you've ever have.
There's a particular scene where one character does something so uncharacteristic, they faint immediately after, and in the next scene are bedridden with fever. A second character offers them support and wisdom in this dialogue (changed two words so I don't spoil the story for you):
You should know this is not a natural sickness. But that shouldn't stop you from enjoying tea.
What's happening?
Your critical decision. What you did beneath that lake, it was in such conflict with your image of yourself, that you are now at war within your own mind and body.
What's that mean?
You are going through a metamorphosis, my friend. It will not be a pleasant experience. But when you come out of it, you will be the beautiful person you were always meant to be.
Pretty much nails how I've been feeling. That sort of fever, but not quite a fever. An intense battle of my own self-images (self-mirages) clasping and collapsing.
I learned a new word last week in Shamans Through Time. "Among the Sedang Moi, a person may even drink his own urine, in the hope that this act will so depreciate him in the sight of his divine sponsors that they will take back the power they had been given." An individual who feels called to be a shaman may commit suicide as an act of refusal. It's so anathema to my self-concept, even if it is ultimately "positive" (well, maybe "whole") it wrecks how I have fixated myself.
ego-dystonic /ego-dys·ton·ic/ (e´go-dis-ton´ik) denoting aspects of a person's thoughts, impulses, and behavior that are felt to be repugnant, distressing, unacceptable, or inconsistent with the self-conception.
For a person who prides themselves on their cocky persona being compassionate might be repugnant, so ego dystonia looks unique to each. Ultimately no fixed image is going to do the river of you/us/I any justice.
Later, in the 1956 essay, George Devereux states, "shamanism is often also culture dystonic." The arts are dystonic. Who we really are is dystonic.
Recently, I read Tara Mohr contend that actually there are two flavors of fear, first is akin to worry about an imagined future fate. The second kind:
"This is the word used in the Old Testament whenever people encounter something sacred. When Moses meets the burning bush, he feels “yirah.” Yirah is described as a kind of trembling awe we feel when we are in the presence of the sacred. It is also described as “the fear that comes over us when we are inhabiting a larger space than we are used to.” - Tara Mohr
The fear that comes over us when we inhabit spaciousness, when we are the sacred.
The Evolution of Culture and The Evolution of Creativity chapters in British-Israeli physicist David Deutsch book, The Beginning of Infinity, asserts that shame and taboo are the primary tools used to keep individuals and society comfortable (or confined, depending on perception) in our conclusions and self-conceptions. In other words, tools to avoid the fever of dystonia, resist evolution, hem life.
Deutsch shares:
"Therefore no society could remain static solely by suppressing new ideas once the have been created.
That is why the enforcement of the status quo is only ever a secondary method of preventing change -- a mopping-up operation. The primary method is always -- and can only be -- to disable the source of new ideas, namely human creativity. So static societies always have traditions of bringing up children in ways that disable their creativity and critical faculties. That ensures that most of the new ideas that would have been capable of changing the society are never thought of in the first place.
How is this done? The details are variable and not relevant here, but the sort of thing that happens is that people growing up in such a society acquire a set of values for judging themselves and everyone else which amounts to ridding themselves of distinctive attributes and seeking only conformity with the society's constitutive memes. They not only enact those memes: they see themselves as existing only in order to enact them. So, not only do such societies enforce qualities such as obedience, piety and devotion to duty, their members' sense of their own selves is invested in the same standards. People know no others. So they feel pride and shame, and form their aspirations and opinions, by the criterion of how thoroughly they subordinate themselves to the society's memes." - David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity
Culture is a funny thing. In the West, they view dragon as adversary to be slayed, and in the East, dragons are harbingers of fortune and magic.
The dragon? It has no way of knowing, really, which culture you hail from. It just rides life.
Your humble wood dragon, Evelyn
Bonus: Self as a verb instead of self as an image is beautifully explained by Adyashanti in a January 18, 2012 webcast (available for sale) titled, "The Whole Notion of Self." (Scroll through titles on the right sidebar on the Radio Archives page.)
p.s. Yes, this is a very much an explaining post. Setting up context for what in near-future may look like up-ending memes and conceptions that have been handed down as gospel. In the end it's an experiential process of discovery that I really can't tell you about, and why I'm moving more toward exploring posts.
p.p.s. The young girl in the film was modeled after a real girl. If you've never seen Spirited Away it's a real treat for the imagination. It's been voice-overed in English by Pixar/Disney, and it is the top revenue film in Japan of all time.
“Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo,” said author Don Marquis, speaking from experience. Something you’re considering, Leo, may seem to fit that description, too. It’s a project or action or gift that you’d feel good about offering, but you also wonder whether it will generate the same buzz as that rose petal floating down into the Grand Canyon. Here’s what I think: To the degree that you shed your attachment to making an impact, you will make the exact impact that matters most. Give yourself without any expectations.” - Rob Brezsny
I'm not a Leo per se, yet that truly spoke to me. And poetry is more than lyrics and lines, more fathomless in category as W.B. Yeats says, “What can be explained is not poetry.”
My last post here was back in October. Once I was locked out from updating (I hadn't paid my monthly fees), it didn't take long to see that I could appreciate a respite.
Recently, I picked up the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series on DVD at the local library (no spoilers, I'm only 2/3 through). It begins in an alternate world with its own cosmology. This world is divided into four elements, with their attendant lands and kings. They are in the midst of a hundred-year war instigated by the Fire Nation wiping out many of the people and cultures in their world, including the Air Nomads and their temple.
A small tribe of Water people are deciding whether or not to banish a new-comer: a twelve-year-old named Aang whom might just be the Avatar (by balancing the four elements within himself, the Avatar can restore balance outside, ending the war). The debate ensues around whether he is too reckless to be among their serious warriors.
This is the dialogue that spoke to me, and I might just make it my mantra (internally) going forward:
Kitara: Don't you see? Aang's brought us something we haven't had in a long time. Fun. Sokka: Fun? We can't fight Firebenders with fun! Aang, the Avatar (smiling earnestly): You should try it sometime.
I can see some of you rolling your eyes at this point. Does it seem like fun = frivolous, or is it fun = harmonizing the imbalances in the world while having fun in the process? Fun = inventing and inspiring joyous ways of living?
This is where the line in the opening of the post: "It’s a project or action or gift that you’d feel good about offering, but you also wonder whether it will generate the same buzz as that rose petal floating down into the Grand Canyon" resounds. This blog, Crossroads Dispatches, celebrates it's 8th anniversary on February 6th. It's time for a shift that's closer to my gift: Less explaining, more exploring. To that end, I'm focusing on experiments in imagination and improvisation and fun; starting off easy and going into the more far-fetched and revolutionary as we go. That doesn't mean explaining shall never occur, but yeah, I'm aiming for exploratory, adventurous, experiential.
A glimpse of EXPLAINING:
"Today, the sci-fi novels of the sixties feel like artifacts from a distant age. "One way you can describe the collapse of the idea of the future is the collapse of science fiction," Thiel said. "Now it's either about technology that doesn't work or about technology that's used in bad ways. The anthology of the top twenty-five sci-fi stories of 1970 was, like, "Me and my friend the robot went for a walk on the moon,' and in 2008 it was, like, 'The galaxy is run by a fundamentalist Islamic confedereracy, and there are people who are hunting planets and killing them for fun."
[Peter] Thiel's venture-capital firm, Founders Fund, has an online manifesto about the future that begins with a complaint: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." He believes that this failure of imagination explains many of the country's problems--from the collapse in manufacturing to wage stagnation to the swelling of the financial sector. As he puts it, "You have dizzying change where there's no progress."" - "No Death, No Taxes," The New Yorker, November 28, 2011
I don't relegate the dynamic of unfolding change to technology alone. I am more interested in questioning and stretching the horizons of the possible. Sometimes that is a simple shift of perception that affects identity, culture, and society.
Here's a glimpse of EXPLORING:
Speaking of sugared petals, here's an exercise:
imagine you are host to a 101-course meal (I believe Senia gave me this seed idea originally in NYC 2006 after an adventure in the Whitney Museum).
Spring roll, raisin, red pepper, Mung bean, tomato preserve, pancake and mini pancake, maple syrup, kombucha, polenta rounds with basil and tomato, red Russian kale, thistle flower coffee, guava juice, blackberry, jalapeno, red currant, Morbier cheese, fennel seed were among the 100 bites of art offered.
Now imagine like the boys in Peter Pan that you too can be fed by the energy of envisioned food.
Or as Robert Irwin puts it, “It’s strange. With food, for instance, people seem able to understand what’s involved: you savor the taste rather than just feed the body. But people have a hard time understanding that it should be the same way with visual experience.” Actually, I'd omit visual and broaden to "the same way with experience."
So now what might you serve that nourishes the senses, spirit and soul as well?
I'd have sugared rose petals.
And pinecone, an hourglass, peanut butter on a sterling silver spoon, a jar of royal blue moist tempura paint, match tea powder (unsteeped), a haiku printed on cloth, confetti, a pincushion stuck with pins with colorful threads through them, cottonball, typewriter ribbon, swim goggles, leaf, lit tealight candle, shower curtain ring, Pocky (Japanese snack), an ice cube... and on and on.
What would you serve?
p.s. Essence of exploration: The venue above, the West Bank Social Center’s tagline is 'UNPREDICTABLE THINGS ARE HAPPENING.'
"Awestruck, she watched the animal trainers, the acrobats, the jugglers, and clowns. And then the lights dimmed and a spotlight shot upward and a lone woman climbed up a rope to a metal bar suspended far above the floor. Later Olga would learn that this wondrous sport was called "trapeze." But before she knew the word she knew her destiny. "That's for me!" she promised herself.
. . . Most circus performers come from circus families or have trained as gymnasts. Olga had neither circus connections nor gymnastics' training. She didn't even know where the nearest circus school was located. She had no allies. Her parents were conservative and practical. Her sisters, her grandmother, her friends were all walls she had to scale on her way to the trapeze. Even the friend who had recklessly lowered her onto a stranger's balcony in the middle of the night wouldn't help her run away to the circus.
"The Census says that 5.9 million Americans ages 25 to 34 are living with their parents, an increase of 25 percent over from before the recession. Men are now twice as likely as young women to live with their parents.
. . . Only 55.3 percent of young adults 16 to 29 were employed, according to the Census, down from 67.3 percent in 2000 and again a post-World War II low. - "Editorial: Generation Needs More than a New Name," Willoughby, Ohio News-Herald, September 24, 2011
*****
You read this and it seems so... dim. According to some.
According to who?
Is it?
*****
"Young eagles have no instinctual fear when they emerge from the nest. They learn to avoid dangerous predators such as the wolf and fox, so Kazak hunters must climb to the nest and capture the juvenile eagle before it learns to fly -- when it is fearless. The Kazaks call the fledging a 'balapan', which they compare to a celestial raptor Hangaard (Khan Garuda). Living with an eagle may seem impractical - the raptor must be fed a marmot or a rabbit every other day and when it is cold in winter the nomads will sometimes feed it from their own flocks. The visible benefits of owning an eagle may not seem to tally with the cost, but what binds the Kazak to the eagle is something more than utility, it is what anthropologists call 'deep play.' The Kazaks say that the eagle 'chases away darkness from a man's heart.'"-- Hamid Sardar
*****
I had lost all sense of deep play when I lived in New York City.
I tried to make it--according to other people's terms.
Students praised for performance and ability tend to want to continue receiving those kudos, and won't risk threaten their reputation as a smart cookie or as a success. "The mastery-oriented children are really hell-bent on learning something" have been praised on process and effort, and they go for it for the pure privilege of growing. They'll look foolish. So what. Kids that were praised for performance tend to want to confirm their greatness, and kids praised for process seek activities that expand their abilities. (see also Little Bets, by Peter Sims)
Why, glory be, you are so successful!="All this implied that when students were valued for their intelligence, failures would be taken more personally, even as being disgraceful."
Whoa, look at you, you are learning!="Tend to view failures and setbacks as opportunies for growth. They have a desire to constantly challenge and stretch themselves."
*****
"Uranus thus confronts the Saturnian part of us that wishes to hold on, to maintain the status quo, to resist change in favor of security, tradition, and the established order.
The rebel-trickster side of the Prometheus archetype can thus come from within or without, and in the latter case a person can feel constantly subject to problematic changes that require one to reorient one's life. Whether these changes are precipitated by other people, by new psychological or physical conditions, or by external circumstances, their role is to open one's life to something new. If one is identified excessively with the past, if one tries to hold on to structures that are outmoded, then one will experience Uranus as a disruptive force that at times can be quite uncomfortable. But the potential is always there for one to integrate the archetype, and for one to contact one’s own capacity for freedom and excitement, for openness to the unexpected and the new.
When any planet is in major aspect to Uranus, that second planetary archetype tends to be liberated into expression, often in sudden, unusual, or unexpected ways. The second archetype is given an exciting, creative or innovative stimulation, and can be a source of both freedom and unanticipated change." - "An Introduction to Archetypal Astrological Analysis," Richard Tarnas, Ph.D.
*****
"Come to the edge" he said, "We can't, we are afraid" they said...
"Come to the edge" "We can't, we will fall" "Come to the edge" and they came and he pushed them and they flew. - Guillaume Appollinaire
"After years of rampant consumerism and easy credit, such nascent initiatives speak to the new mood in Greece, where imposed austerity has caused people to come together — not only to protest en masse, but also to help one another." - "Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks," NY Times, October 1, 2011
*****
". . . . Unlike most runaways, who are impelled by impulse, Olga postponed her departure for months. She would need at least a little money, and, not being a thief, would have to earn it. And she needed an act.
. . . For a few days she tried juggling with stones and fruit, but having no one to teach her, quit in frustration. She thought of animal acts. . . Her father refused to buy her a dog so Olga went to Ishim and befriended a tiny shaggy mongrel she spotted at a refuse dump. It followed her home, where she washed it and named it "Lassie," after a dog she had seen in a movie.
Her father said, "You can't take care of yourself! How are you going to care for a dog?"
But Olga proved a good master and proceeded to train Lassie with a determined patience she rarely accorded humans. In no time Lassie was standing and playing dead. Olga would make her climb the stairs one at a time. If Lassie failed to stop on a step until given permission to continue, Olga would make her start all over. By the end of the month she had an act." -- Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil, by Mark Schreiber
*****
"“I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.”
Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses."
. . . For Ms. Houpis, the network has a psychological dimension. “The most exciting thing you feel when you start is this sense of contribution,” she said. “You have much more than your bank account says. You have your mind and your hands.”- "Battered by Economic Crisis, Greeks Turn to Barter Networks," NY Times, October 1, 2011
*****
"Now all [Olga] she needed was a train ticket to Tyumen, her first stop on the road to Moscow. She had no money of her own and certainly couldn't approach her parents. There weren't many jobs available for a young girl, and she was still attending school. She and her friends had brought lollipops from gypsies in Ishim, but none of the townspeople sold them. So one day Olga asked a gypsy woman how they were made and went in to business for herself, stealing sugar from her parents' kitchen. The first batch was awful, but the second was good enough to sell to her friends. Her father kept asking where all the sugar was going. To this day he doesn't know it financed her escape, the first yellow brick in her long road." - Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil, by Mark Schreiber
*****
Exactly one year ago today I was living in NYC.
I'm not sure if I were there today I would be part of the Occupy Wall Street protest.
mid-14th century (implied in protestation) "solemn declaration," from Latin protestari "declare publicly, testify, protest," from pro- "forth, before" + testari "testify," from testis "witness" (see testament).
my public declaration
I can certainly identify with many of the frustrations of the protesters. I was broke, I was running out of options: tried and tired all the grant proposal crayon inside the line forms, tried potential investors (long story, 'twas a media venture), tried X and Y and Z's and Kickstarter and plain hustle. Gave up. Try the government. Trudged to the food stamp office, uh-huh so they'd alert my landlord, and that would send them red flags (I was month-to-month, not on a lease) -- so there goes that. I'd never felt so powerless. So I left NYC before rent was due up again. I did not Make It in America. Near penniless with just enough for airfare, I moved in with family across the country.
(btw, I'm only able to share this aloud now since I've shifted into
a growth mindset...
even if the USA is predominantly a fixed mindset...
it's
a #
not me
although one can fixate on poor too)
So yeah, I can certainly identify.... and yet....
I am not 1%. I am not 99%.
I am the 100%--and I don't see that message conveyed much.
Except I just did when I read this. There are instances... for instance, that one woman.. you'll recognize her when you get to that point in the story below (and this again is an excerpt of a longer piece) conveys the I am the 100%:
"We stood there for a while, and when it started to rain, we got under an umbrella with an older, white couple who looked to be in their mid-sixties or so. Then they walked up to a police officer, spoke to him, and he motioned for them to approach the ranking officer in front who was standing with a bullhorn. We then saw this couple walk out of the netted area and leave.
At this point, Rebecca and I walked up to the same ranking officer and politely requested to leave. We were told no and to get back in the crowd. We overheard two officers holding the netting asking each other what they were going to do with all these people. They obviously had no idea what the leadership’s strategy was, if any. We then went under the umbrella of a group of young women who were in their teens and twenties and were talking to a detective (or someone with the NYPD who was wearing an overcoat). He asked us some very leading questions: “Are you all together?”, “So no one told you to disperse?”, “Did you know you would end up here?” We said we had no idea what was happening. Then he told us to talk to the same ranking officer with the bullhorn. This time when we approached, the cops gave him a signal and he motioned for us to all pass through. Just like that.
As we were leaving, I asked one of the women what she had said to the officers before we came over and why they had let us go. She said she had struck up a conversation with an officer and told him he was “beautiful” and a “beautiful person” and that the “love and good vibes” she had sent his way seemed to have an impact on him."
Alas, in the next sentence the writer belittles
the magic and power of the 100%...
the compassion of unconditional love and remarks in response
to the truthfulness of that woman, she adds: "Oh, I’m sure."
It's so easy to be jaded.
Dig deeper. Be still. Feel the undercurrent.
Be sure of love. It's there's 100%.
*****
Olga calmly told her parents she was running away to circus school one day in August.
"Let her go," he told his wife, whose tearful pleading was no more effective than his own threats. "She'll be back tomorrow."
. . . . She was fourteen years old.
Olga Sidorova became a trapeze artist with Cirque du Soleil for many years.
Today, she teaches master classes at the aerial dance studio and school she founded in Sydney, Dancing in the Air.
*****
There were too many roads, too many versions. There were too many roads, no one path--
And at the end?
16. List the implications of "crossroads."
Answer: a story that will have a moral.
Give a counter-example.
17. The self ended and the world began. They were of equal size, commensurate, one mirrored the other.
The only place I found in Las Vegas that feels like my kind of 'home' is a cafe (and Red Rock Canyon). The owner is Brazilian, and opened the Sambalatte "lounge" as he named it, one year ago. No doubt naysayers thought September 2010 was a horrible time to open a coffee shop--pastries, cappuccino and chatting all discretionary luxury in times that sees Vegas with the worst unemployment rate (14.2%), the most foreclosures; the state of Nevada has the number one spot in terms of declining income, and second state in terms of poverty rate increases of the nation.
Yeah, whatever they said, he did it anyhow.
And, I can state that Sambalatte is always bustling and buzzing. I've never seen the place even slightly waning in traffic.
So, over a week ago there, I languidly pick up a book in their community bookshelf titled Cosmos and Psyche. The gist is the author applies Jungian microcosm and macrocosm archetypes of the history of the modern individuated man (roughly the year 1496 with Pico della Mirandola's manifesto Oratio ) against the cosmic planetary alignments in those five hundred years. Author Richard Tarnas concludes that right now is identical to cosmic archetypes and planetary alignments with the attendant tensions and tumult that catalyzed the High Renaissance five hundred years ago, stating "this too was an epoch of extraordinary turbulence and uncertainty, and also of great cultural creativity and dynamism."
"To answer that call meant gambling everything Cirque had earned so far."
I originally began to be intrigued with the back story of Cirque du Soleil because of a new project (more soon--next post). By serendipity, while browsing a local magazine at the wonderful Sambalatte (see above), I read:
"Twenty-four years ago, Guy Laliberté developed Cirque du Soleil with a grant from the Canadian government. The former street performer intended for his creation to last only a year, but the popularity was unprecedented. Cirque du Soleil continued to perform and Las Vegas is now home to seven Cirque shows. Forever on the cusp, the performance company and its founder recently achieved two new milestones.
In September 2009, Laliberté left behind this planet for a new adventure. Boarding a Russian Soyuz Capsule, he was launched 220 miles above Earth. During his space flight, Laliberte took hundreds of photos that would eventually become a coffee-table book called Gaia. Proceeds from the limited-edition book will be donated to his foundation One Drop, which is dedicated to bringing safe and clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities." - Vegas Rated, Issue 1, September 2011
In a book I just checked out from the library, we harken back to 1987 when Cirque was invited to perform for the first time ever outside Canada. But the LA festival didn't exactly want to pay for their travel expenses. Conundrum: ""I thought, 'I'm not going to wait twenty years to see if we can make a living off what we do. The opportunity is here, let's make a deal. I told Thomas Schumacher, 'Give us the opening slot, promotion, and one hundred percent of the gate.'"
. . . The simple truth is, at that particular moment in Cirque du Soleil's history, it could only afford a one-way trip to Los Angeles. Transporting the cast, crew, and equipment across the continent from Montreal to Los Angeles stretched Cirque's finances to the very limit. If they didn't earn enough money at the gate, Cirque could not afford to return home. Cirque du Soleil would end there." - Cirque du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun--An Authorized History, by Tony Babinski
(In retrospect, LA Festival organizer Thomas Schumacher says it was the worst deal he ever made. Guy Laliberté says, smiling, "He thought he was saving money, but he could have made a bundle if he'd kept part of the gate.")
*****
"The greatest audacity is the riskiest. In 1987, Guy Laliberté bet everything on that first trip to Los Angeles. Negotiations with the L.A. Arts Festival had been spotty: Guy felt the Festival wasn't prepared to share Cirque's enormous financial risk in traveling to the States. So they decided to go it alone, making Cirque a "fringe" event, the Festival providing only ticketing services, promotion and a listing in their catalogue. It was also agreed that Cirque du Soleil would do the opening of the Festival. Getting to L.A. cost Cirque every penny it had; if Cirque failed, Guy knew he'd have to sell the tent just to get the artists home. Audacity won.
Audicity. Audicity. Audacity. Use the word often enough, it turns into gibberish, a meaningles sneeze. What in the Sam Hill does it mean?
Franco thinks a minute. Audacity is rejecting everything you have done before, he says.
Even if it worked." -- Cirque du Soleil, edited by Veronique Vial and Helene Dufresne
*****
"[Renaissance artists] understood the imagination as a magical power that can “lure and channel the energies of the anima mundi.” - Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee
That sentence is the main theme I'm working with lately. Did the original Renaissance just 'happen', or was it lured into form by pure vision of each as powerful as a magical incantation?
Pixar was coming off a three hit homerun, and hired Brad Bird as a director who was coming off a Warners Brothers failure, The Iron Giant. Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, and John Lassiter told Bird, "The only thing we're afraid of is complacency--feeling like we have it all figured out. We want you to come shake things up. We will give you a good argument if we think what you're doing doesn't make sense, but if you can convince us, we'll do things in a different way," Bird told Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Hayagreeva Rao. "For a company that has had nothing but success to invite a guy who had just come off a failure and say, 'Go ahead, mess with our heads, shake it up'; when do you run into that?"
Bird's ideas for The Incredibles were estimated to cost $500 million and take ten years to accomplish based on current processes. If and only if he could figure out how to lower those estimates, he could proceed with his vision of numerous, rich characters. "In order to help shake things up, one thing Bird did was to seek out people within Pixar who he described as black sheep, whose unconventional views could help find solutions to the problems. "A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things," Bird said. "We gave black sheep a chance to prove their theories and we changed the way a number of things are done here." Eventually, Bird's vision for The Incredibles was within technical and fiscal reach and ended up being cheaper per minute than Pixar's previous movie.
Ed Catmull studied Toyota's concept of a learning organization after watching computer graphics giants (once) like Evans and Sutherland and SGI fail despite their lead and despite access to great talent. (I once worked for E&S, before I got into all things Internet.) They are okay talking about mistakes, and there is a cultural "willingness to be challenged."
*****
"Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." - Tennyson
*****
"I founded Charles Schwab in 1974, when America was confronting a crisis of confidence similar to today's. We had rapidly rising inflation and unemployment, economic growth grinding into negative territory, and paralyzed markets. The future looked pretty bleak.
Sound familiar?
Yet I had faith that our economy would recover. My vision was simple: Investors deserve something better than the status quo. I launched the company with four employees, a personal loan on my home, and an audacious dream. I didn't know exactly how we were going to do it, nor could I foresee that over the decades we would end up building a business that serves over 10 million accounts. But we went for it." - "Every Job Requires An Entreprenuer", by Charles Schawb, Wall St. Journal, September 28, 2011
*****
"Personal Renaissance", by James Burns and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and 1500 people who worked on it. The Mural Arts program employs prisoners, addicts, and youth who previously spent time in juvenile detention "in a way a regular employer might not. Later on, the program helps them find long-term work." - Yes , Fall 2011
"Great art is never silent, can't be ignored, and serves poorly the status quo." - Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
*****
Ellen Kullman was a VP running a $2 division and managing about 6,000 employees at DuPont, when her manager asked her if she would start a new services division from stratch. When she said yes, half her peers believe she'd been summarily demoted; "the other half thought I was crazy." Her story sums up:
"I don't know if I would have become CEO if I hadn't done this. When you're an engineer, you learn to go with your head. When you're starting something new, you have to go with your gut, too. We're a 209-year-old company. We won't make it to 300 if we only ask, is my polymer better? Now when I go through strategy reviews, I say, 'That's what it is. What could it be?'" - "DuPont's Ellen Kullman on Her Risky Path to the CEO Job", Bloomberg Businessweek, September 19, 2011
"Life should be lived on the edge of life.
You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope."
- Philippe Petit, who walked across the twin towers on a tightrope in 1974, in the documentary Man on Wire
*****
"All the things that really matter to us are impossible, you know. They say translation is impossible; sure it is. We do it because it's necessary, not because it's possible.
Writing poetry is impossible. I don't know how to write a poem. A poem--there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don't know. There is so much that comes out of wht we don't know and what we don't have any control over. I think that is one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility." - W.S. Merwin, poet laureate and Pulitizer Prize winner in interview, Yes magazine, Fall 2011
*****
"If you put off everything until you're sure of it you'll get nothing done."
- Norman Vincent Peale
ART CREDITS: 1000 Ways to Escape by Souther Salazar; photo of O Cirque du Soleil show at Bellagio hotel via BestofLasVegas.com; Flickr photo of Rainbow Village by zosoiv7, "this tiny village in Taichung, Taiwan was painted by Mr. Huang Yongfu, an original native of Hong Kong"; it was once known as a military dependents’ village but the painter, 86, covered every square inch in art (via HonestlyWTF blog) ; Before That Dream is Tamed, by Souther Salazar; Personal Renaissance mural by James Burns and the city of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
Before I die I want to.... that was the question sitting there blank on the blackboard. The answer not to be engraved in stone, a fixed and unmoving testament. Just chalk--so it's okay to morph it, play it by ear and adjust to the rhythm of life. I was intrigued by Candy Chang's interactive art projects, as I flipped through the magazine:
"Through a series of large-scale projects that combine installation art with social activism, Chang has encouraged people to engage with public spaces to let their voices be heard. In 2008, while living in New York, she invited Brooklyn residents to anonymously reveal their rental costs on sticky notes posted on a local storefront—helping them determine the fair market value of their apartments. In 2011 she constructed a blackboard over an abandoned house in her current city of New Orleans, stenciling it with the phrase BEFORE I DIE I WANT TO.... Passersby wrote in answers like "go to school," "feed an elephant," and "understand," in chalk. Chang says the project served as a reminder of "what matters to people as individuals and as a community." - Oprah Magazine, "How Candy Changs Public Art Projects Are Changing Communities Everywhere," September 2011
Somehow that story reminded me of at least two things (plus a few interactive art projects I'd been musing around). Before I die, I wantto get back to New Orleans to culminate a creative project I started there. Preferably way way before I die, like more like next month. October 2011.
Before I die, I wantto be real. In the interest of saving face (clients and potential employers Google our names and hold our vulnerabities and voice against us as I've been told by HR folks...) I've not been sharing much of myself over the last three years. Screw it, I can't pretend and I can't live that way (i.e. meekly, in hiding). Plus, context is everything, and since this site is 100% coming from my lens, my voice, it helps to have a glimpse where I'm coming from and going to.
This is a question I got in my inbox a few months ago from a reader:
Question: So I'm curious if you've jumped off the Silicon Valley treadmill permanently or just recharging the batteries before taking another shot at it?
I jumped off in late 2004, ever since the surviving the tsunami, I've never again been attracted to that world, but I also try not to be repelled by it either. I was set up to start a firm with some friends, the four of us were going to do a consulting and coaching practice around social media for business when we all came back from holidays, etc. to kick off Jan 2005. Not.
Obviously too much coincidence to just happen to be in Thailand, just happen to be on the beach, when such an unmistakable wake-up call knocks on one's door. I don't exactly go to Thailand every day, or any of the other nations hit [by the Indian Ocean disaster on December 24, 2004].
The peace came because having witnessed the enormity of that disaster and its aftermath (I returned a year later in Dec 2005 for nine weeks), I immersed myself in a monastic life for the next 16 months. My main thing has been enlightenment/self-realization/whatever-name-you-give-it since that time, everything else is a backdrop. Luckily, I didn't leave Bay Area right away as that is where I found my teacher, Adyashanti.
Speaking of Before I Die, I Want to.... this oldie blog post came up as something to share. Especially for those of you who have only been reading for a couple of years. Wow, and Geshe Michael Roach shows up in it pretty prominently in this post after I rustle it up and skim it. I only just re-read my favorite chapter (on the Economics of Limitlessness) and promptly wrote to his office two months ago. I want him to come speak in New Orleans. Why? A hunch.
"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
There's a practice called "Death Meditation" in Tibetan monasteries. The idea you get in your mind when you hear that phrase is probably lying down on a cold piece of sidewalk somewhere and trying to imagine a lot of tubes up your nose, relatives crying at your side, and heart monitors going off with a beeping sound. But this is not the point at all. To put it simply, you just wake up in the morning and stay there in bed, lying down, without opening your eyes. And you say to yourself: "I'm going to die tonight. What would be the best thing to do with the rest of my time?" via Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. - Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement speech
I suppose you might get the urge to to try skydiving that day, or maybe go sing in a karaoke bar, or get the most expensive tickets to a Broadway play (assuming there's a matinee). The Death Meditation practice has to be done on a regular basis, over an extended period of time - and that's when it has its strongest effect. One result you'll find comes pretty quickly is that you streamline your life: You cut out the things that you own or do that slow you down...
If you were really going to die tonight, would you sit and read through the whole Sunday paper, or most of the magazines you subscribe to? Would you really surf around the TV looking desperately for anything of even minor interest? Would you still go out and spend an hour or two at lunch or dinner, gossiping about the other managers. Decide then: If not on the day I die, then not now either. Because, frankly, it may really be today. - Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter
I read these words last night.
I did the Death Meditation this morning. I did not have an intense desire to beam myself to the Parthenon in Greece (I'm an ancient civilization junkie) or bask in the glow of the Taj Mahal at dawn. I'd no desire to bungie-jump into a canyon, or race a car at top speed across the glistening salt flats. You'll say this is only because I've already done many exotic or biochemical fueled adventures. Yes. Run Boston Marathon, check. Run fifty-milers weaving through mountain ridges, below glaciers, facing oceans and fjords, check. Run intense white water, check. Run off to Prague, Hong Kong, Venice, Bangkok, Oaxaca, Tokyo, Auckland, check. Run through matchbox villages, hidden serene canyons, fern chocked valleys, check. Yes - and no. With all I've done there was still...well, more I wanted.
Or was it less?
There was a practical part of me well aware that I have to wrap up my presentation for the BlogBusinessSummit by tomorrow. Can I make the presentation memorable so that if it was the last thing I did it would be worthwhile? So many folks whip together a few bullet points with little feeling for what they are leaving behind. And then there are presentations that seep into you like Julie Leung's on the social masks we wear (you had to be there because the visuals and Julie's presence are inextricable; but here's the audio).
There's a few things I won't get to by tonight. Beginning the book that won't go away or this new blog I'm working on launching. That's ok. But could write a poem. Better yet revise that poem I'm working on. Get the class blog up and share the poem (for my fellow Taos Summer Writers Conference's The Yoga of Writing students). Today.
And if this was the last post I wrote would it be reflective of what I am for? I think of this not only because of this Death Meditation, but I was reminded of it reading Steven Vincent's last post last week (more context: my RIP post). Yes, at any time this could be my last post. That's not meant to stop me dead in my tracks. Unperfect is what blogging is all about (as Tom Guarriello and I joked at a Starbucks in Manhattan when I meant to say imperfect!). There are days where I rant and days I whine. So I wondered: What was my very last post before the tsunami? Yes, thankfully, it's precisely what I'd have left behind. It's titled: A Story of Peace and Goodwill.
I read about the concept of survivor's guilt the other day (why am I alive when all these others perished?). Strange, I don't feel guilty about surviving the tsunami. My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones and those we lost. I do feel like I have a responsibility to really live and to give and to share.
But the honest truth is I don't feel the quite the same urgency as I did in, say, January without constant reminders.
This morning as I laid there I thought of calling up a few family members and friends and catching up with personal email (including to some of you out there). I called up a friend to go on a hike this afternoon. It's not about the hike, though.
I won't get to it all today, but I get a chance to die again. I hope.
p.s. Just finishedThe Diamond Cutter (and am still too spellbound to do a proper review). It's hands down the best business book I've read this year - maybe ever. If it matters at all Roach was founder of Andid International Diamond Corporation which has sales in excess of one hundred million dollars a year. He started out as an errand boy (ok, not your typical errand boy - he'd been Princeton-trained and is an ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk).
"I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." - C. S. Lewis
I didn't read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2nd in The Chronicles of Narnia) as a child. In fact, I first cracked open the series only a few years ago. I did savor fairy tales and classic myth from globe spanning cultures such as Greek to Sumerian to Japanese to Navajo. (Sweet surprise! The book devas generously are gifting away all the Kindle versions of one of my childhood faves--Andrew Lang's The Green Fairy Book plus other colors of the prism.)
I'd read in many sources that it's worthwhile to recall childhood instincts and inclinations to reclaim natural, innate talent and delight as a potential livelihood. The most recent example I'd come across is real-world game designer (and motivational speaker) Jane McGonigal's story shared briefly in this excerpt:
". . . Jane’s first year in the real world [after college]—editing at a dot-com in New York, ruling out law school and publishing—left her feeling a little lost. One day [her sister] Kelly asked her, “As a child, what did you do that you loved?”
“Making up games and giving motivational speeches,” Jane answered. “But that’s not a career! Who does that?” - Elle magazine's article on Jane McGonigal
So it would seem that I applied the same logic, my conclusion should be read (and write) fairy tale and modern myth. (I'd probably lean toward the stylized parables that appeal to young and old, male and female, like The Alchemist.)
You'd think that's the logic if early innate inclinations are any clue.
Immersed (yet thoroughly trapped indoors as an eight-year-old), I imagined realms where I would saunter in adventures with elfs, unicorns, and undines well beyond the fortress walls of the concrete block house in our Miami suburb.
Even as a child, I wanted to live out an enchanting fairy tale in real life--no mere vicarious thrill would sate me.
Perhaps the closest that rings true (for me) is real-life mythic life and real-time writing of it. Yet to be honest, that feels like I am putting my very life, soul, heart, spirit, plus everything sacred and profane on the line. (Have you ever noticed how easy it is to scramble sacred and scared?) I tremble as if I'm staring down a dragon. Why so? I happened to read this recently, and it resonates:
"If you didn't know human nature, you might suppose that a single activity like painting, mountaineering, or writing could be treated separately, but the whole person is affected because the whole person is being expressed. (This is why it's said that you get to know yourself on the mountain or in front of the lank canvas.) Even if you pick a very narrow skill, like running a marathon or cooking, your whole sense of self shifts when you succeed with passion as opposed to failing or backing off.
The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but actually it's the most natural way to approach any situation.When you hold some part of yourself in reserve you deny it exposure to life; you repress its energy and keep it from understanding what it needs to know." - Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets (longer and worthwhile excerpt online)
The pilgrimage shall in the mists of perceived time slay all identity. In the meantime, gumption and courage might have to do.
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction." - E. F. Schumacher
"I'm working on this because it's the most challenging, riskiest, scariest thing I can think of to do among my livelihood options. Plus, if I live through it intact, it will take me to my edge while using my gifts."
"Creativity is like breathing – pointers may help, but we do the process ourselves. Creative clusters, where we gather as peers to develop our strength, are best regarded as tribal gatherings, where creative beings raise, celebrate, and actualize the creative power which runs through us all." - Julia Cameron, A Guide for Starting Creative Clusters
p.s.I am more partial to the first book The Magician's Nephewbetter than the more popular 2nd in The Chronicle of Narnia series, partially because it tells of the creation myth and authoring of the world of Narnia and of another world. All photos from the movie version, as well as movie stills from http://kingsandqueensofnarnia.tumblr.com.
I was doing what I could with what I had where I was. -- Bob Dylan
What Dylan replied when asked about the secret to his success.
That may be paraphrased as I had to jot it down quickly as I was passing through the casino mall. The point is it's exactly what I needed to hear today.
Drain my energy on whining about what I don't have, and who I can't afford to hire, and the imperfect conditions I'm in for inspiration to work, or whatever. Sure, been there done that. Or--I can do what I can with what I have right now.
------------------------------------------
Above is an example of a public post I shared on Google+. They're shorter and tend to share a singular point rather my rambling shares over here. Note, if you check it out now, that I only be sharing about 30% publicly, the rest are private circles, including one circle (my largest, and hopefully the most active) I've set aside just for creative folks like you that visit here.
If you need a Google+ invite, please leave your name in comments below and I'll send you one, and add you to the fun and mystery-laden blog circle for everyone here.
The prime reason I'm keen on Google+ is it has features designed for interactivity in a way that a blog and/or an email newsletter is not. As Greg Christopher shares, "Google+ is a Salon in the old French style. It is a gathering place for people with something to say. People with opinions and a desire to interact with others. People who don't care that their grandma had cereal for breakfast before planting her farm on Farmville, as much as they care about connecting with other passionate people with something to say. It is a place where ideas have sex, to borrow from Matt Ridley. Where someone who is a Star Wars geek can talk to other Star Wars geeks. Where artists, journalists, philosophers, geeks, and freaks of all types can find their home. Where you can find your own community and talk to each other about precisely what you want to talk about."
So Crossroads Dispatches is more like the stage, and our private Google+ circle is more like the lobby... where connections and conversations actually happen informally.
You hear that term bandied about in innovation circles. In application, it isn't that frequent as "game-changer" implies something that leapfrogs one out of the lock of a current system, institution, industry, regime, paradigm and defines its own brand-new game.
I hadn't connected the dots with the synchronicity of hints and winks that life is a grand "game" until recently.
I sat down to eat lunch the other day, and absentmindly (well, could almost replace instinctually or spontaneously with "absentmindedly") pick up the top magazine in my Mom's pile to browse through for eye-candy. (Not typical for me; if I am going to read while eating it would be the Internet.)
I open up her recent Elle to the story of Jane McGonigal. The article profiles her life and her purpose: fleshing out her childhood joy into a profession, announcing her new game company, showing how she got into real-world gaming (differs from video games in that it interleaves real-world issues and real-life experiences with game mechanics), and the head injury that instigated her latest game: one that helped her regain her joie de vivre and her health.
So I thought: what if we were to repurpose Jane's concept of "how to turn recovery into a multi-player experience" into "how to turn economic recovery into a multi-player experience?" And I don't mean recovery as in return to the past or status quo. Perhaps dynamically better than yesterday: I like what Umair Haque says here about the classic Greek principle of eudaimonia: "Eudaimonic prosperity, in contrast, is about mastering a new set of habits: igniting the art of living meaningfully well. An active conception of prosperity, it's concerned not with what one has, but what one is capable of."
I'd been thinking that economics and money touches just about everyone's life--okay, nix that for fairies, elves and dragons. But humans are fairly enthralled (dare I say, seduced) by this whole game of exchange of gifts that includes bits of colored paper and tinkling coinage.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Bucky Fuller
Backtrack a bit to May 2009, I was working on a grant proposal that tied into New Orleans' "Creative Recovery." (For context, "Creative Recovery" grants were through Transforma Projects mini-grants: "The Creative Recovery Mini-Grant program supported work produced at the intersection of art, social justice, and recovery in New Orleans. It fueled the recovery process with the energy of the local creative community by supporting the vibrant activity on the ground level.")
I realized after I'd dreamed it and written it up (then, reading the fine print) that I disqualified for applying for the grant as I was no longer a permanent resident (however, I was in New Orleans at the time). The seed of the idea kept tugging at me, so I wrote it up as a real-world game concept in February 2011. Here's the original Kickstarter project proposal here (unfunded); although, the concept has evolved considerably.
"The "next Google" is unlikely to be a search engine, however, just as the "next Microsoft" was not a desktop software company. I used competing directly with Google as an example of a problem with maximum difficulty, not maximum payoff. Maximum payoff is more likely to come from making Google irrelevant than from replacing it. How exactly? I have no more than vague ideas about that. I wouldn't expect to be able to figure out the right answer, just as I wouldn't have expected anyone to figure out in 1990 what would make Microsoft irrelevant. " - Paul Graham, entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of the tech start-up incubator and education program, Y Combinator
At this point in my musing, I'm reacquainted with an old blogging buddy in his private Google+ circle last week, and he linked to the article below. (Worth reading the whole she-bang for context and inspiration.) My friend asks his circle how we might use Google+ to correspond with each other and take action towards life-enhancing visions of the world (or what I also call a Renaissance). That's when things get intriguing...
The article my Google+ buddy shared to kick off the private circle discussion:
"Put what, why, and who you love ahead of what, why, and who you don't, and your roadmap will begin to write itself.
Now, my little principle might cause those with hand-made suits and beancounterly tendencies to leap out of their chairs and hit me with the tarantallegra jinx. But even the cynics might be willing to admit: given a mysteriously non-recovering "recovery" for a global economy perpetually poised on the brink of perma-crisis, the status quo's out of ideas, out of options, and running out of time.
In an economy dedicated to the pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, the greatest hidden cost and unintended consequence is that something vital, enduring, resonant, and animating has gone missing from our lives — and it might just be the biggest thing: meaning in what we do, and why we're here." - Umair Haque, "A Roadmap to a Life that Matters," Harvard Business Review blog, July 13, 2011
I was surprised to see this article in the Harvard Business Review blog--it's a bit warm and fuzzy for HBR (at least the HBR that I recall from years ago)... although a great sign... sign... signal, design... as the article lays out a design intention as in William McDonough's mantra: "Design is the first signal of human intention."
Linked in the above post is Umair's post on eudaimonia, Greek philosophy of "a deeply fulfilled life", where Umair contrasts the trajectory we are on with what we may prefer to set into motion, into design. In my own blog (see purpose paragraph under the headline, Crossroads Dispatches), what he calls eudaimonia I've encapsulated as:
"A neo-renaissance, eco-epicurean savors, curates and shares slices from the surf's edge on the inspiration, imagination, the art of living, the living of art - and anything that screams Life."
"In short, I see an outcomes gap: a yawning chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between what our economy produces and what you might call a meaningfully well-lived life, what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia.
The economy we have today will let you chow down on a supersize McBurger, check derivative prices on your latest smartphone, and drive your giant SUV down the block to buy a McMansion on hypercredit. It's a vision of the good life that I call (a tiny gnat standing on the shoulders of the great Amartya Sen) hedonic opulence. And it's a conception built in and for the industrial age: about having more. Now consider a different vision: maybe crafting a fine meal, to be accompanied by local, award-winning microbrewed beer your friends have brought over, and then walking back to the studio where you're designing a building whose goal is nothing less than rivaling the Sagrada Familia. That's an alternate vision, one I call eudaimonic prosperity, and it's about living meaningfully well. Its purpose is not merely passive, slack-jawed "consuming" but living: doing, achieving, fulfilling, becoming, inspiring, transcending, creating, accomplishing — all the stuff that matters the most.
. . . . Though it harks back to antiquity, eudaimonia's a smarter, sharper, wiser, wholer, well, richer conception of prosperity. And deep down, while it might be hard to admit, I'd bet we all know that our current habits are leaving us — have left us — not merely financially and fiscally broken, but, if not intellectually, physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually empty, then, well, probably at least just a little bit unhealthy. Eudaimonic prosperity, in contrast, is about mastering a new set of habits: igniting the art of living meaningfully well. An active conception of prosperity, it's concerned not with what one has, but what one is capable of." - Umair Haque, "Is a Well-Lived Life Worth Living?," Harvard Business Review blog, May 12, 2011
So this is a backstory on the genesis of the game. I've a few ideas for an enchanting real-world game that'd be worthwhile for each of us individually--and widening the circle, collectively. I think the "economic" recovery is a matter of re-imagining our present and future as to what we would truly desire no holds barred, rather than constantly extrapolating scenarios of the past onto the future.
To tie this in all together to the present day, Google+ could be an effective way to communicate with our "allies" (i.e. us) on a near-daily basis to play a game I'm formulating. (I'll admit this is much simpler if you already use Gmail as your hub, as I do, then it's integrated into your Internet experience.)
Allies is the multi-player aspect of the Super Better game that Jane used day to day to recover from her injury and post-concussion syndrome; so it is not a game of solitaire ;)
Please let me know if you need an invite to Google+ by August 1st (I may not check comments at this post later).
If you have game suggestions, or other suggestions, please let me know in comments or over at Google+. And, please note, if you go over to check Google+ out, you are viewing the public posts. The way Google+ works is you have to be in my circle to view the super secret ones ;).
p.s. Jane McGonigal's new company, Social Chocolate, initially starts an online verson of her Super Better concept game that she used to recover from her own head injury; she's extended the game for any type of injury and/or illness (yet to be released, forthcoming). I've been thinking of what game-changing means in terms of healthcare and other fields too--but that's another story.
p.p.s. I'm well aware of the "this is a first-world problem" argument. We start where we are ourselves and branch out inclusively from there; it's not advocacy on public policy. This engages people to people. The game is meant to be something you can personally participate in.
"It is far more delightful to be fond of the world because it has thousands of aspects and is different everywhere. . . for every divergence deserves to be cherished, simply because it widens the bounds of life." - Karel Capek
Are there times you're just not riveted by your desires and visions? Can't do anything to prop them up to be enjoyable to play out? There are certainly lots of reasons for that, including existential. Also it's easy to get caught up in cultural spells of what we should do, want, have, be so that the vision isn't even ours, so we can't truly align with it.
For me, I have had to keep expanding any vision that pops into my mind into ever-widening circles to be more inclusive and more encompassing of the world-at-large until it was compelling and adventurous enough to intice me. Otherwise, I'm just fine sipping lemonade on the porch.
Row row row your boat gently down the stream... merrily merrily merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
My mind recalled all the wild ideas I’ve ever had. I ran one or two by my lunch partner.
“That’s not big enough,” he said. - Joe Vitale, Lunch With God
That's how I talk myself out of my own ideas lately. "That's not big enough." And I mean talk myself out of in the best possible way as it behooves me to be devoted to an idea that's compelling.
(Guess what, I learned that words compassion and encompass have similar etymological roots.)
I'm currently car-free in a city (Las Vegas) that doesn't really make it easy in 107+ degree sunny weather to tool around. On my private blog, I'd been playing a game where I receive an imaginary check each day (the amount increases by $1000 each day) and I have to put it into play right away (no hoarding). Although, I've quit said game and approach it now from "What project do I want to do next?" assuming "money is no object."
For the first week, I used the money to do projects--perhaps a public art installation, or arrange a Hunch Hub retreat or Salon with other folks. As I've already said, I enjoy producing things much much more than consuming things. I find that if I think about paying the rent, or buying a croissant in a cafe, or getting an iPhone and much of the desires I'm advertised to suppose to have--that they fairly boring to me. But if I think broadly "bigger than me," it gets interesting again.
Day 8 into the game, muse: "I really ought to get a car." Although in my heart of hearts I'm not THAT excited about a car.
Why is that? I ask myself. Why don't I want a car? Why do I want a car? I kept on with Why questions in my head. Even that exercise barely helped... sure, I want mobility to have the freedom to go from A to B, true. That wasn't juicy enough, and I can't fake enthusiasm.
This is what I wrote down (slightly edited) in a private blog post:
Going to settle for a VW Beetle, or something practical like an FJ-Cruiser--too bored to even pretend to want them. Rather, my mind keeps being flooded with blue or silver-blue convertibles, so I'm going with it.
So while searching for VW beetle photos... found this gem!--from a car forum: "is essentially a low-cost alternative to the Porsche Boxster."
"If all goes well and the [Volkswagen] BlueSport Roadster receives the final green light for production, the first cars could arrive at VW showrooms around late 2012."
Yeah, it's def more than $8000, but more checks will be arriving. This is my deposit ;)
Still.... I couldn't muster sustaining interest in any car--not even the all-electric Tesla, although at the same time I am in a city with dismal public transit, and a severe lack of sidewalks for pedestrians, etc. And did I mention how hot the asphalt gets in triple digit weather?
I thought about it and saw what I truly want is the about freedom of movement. Car being one of thousands of ways to achieve that end. That could be Zipcar combined with good city public transit, or so many other ways And also, I want to not only flourish myself, but have freedom of movement available to All.
Not so much impose my 'vision' on everyone but add options... something for everyone--walking, biking, anti-gravity propulsion capsules, flying saucers, rockets, flying, teleporting, bilocating, Zipcars, public transit--oh i love those Japanese bullet trains! More stuff like Eurorail (Amtrack, er, so-so). Then, there's that cool guy that runs the super-cheap $30 shuttles to LA from Vegas... more shuttles, limos, flying carpets, Segways, etc.
Monorails, light rails, people-movers, cablecars, gondolas, flying porpoises, Blimps, steampunk airships, hotair balloons, kite trios, caravans of camels, Mary Poppins umbrellas, whatever floats your boat... just get me/you/us from point A to B. Car is NOT the sole way.
Why not make those train cars more aesthetic, fun, spacious, maybe interactive theater with costumes for all to wear and make-believe in the cars?
Just read this tonight [at the time of writing] at bookstore on teleportation, and walking on water. Explains my vast respect for the East:
In 1894, Baird T. Spalding was on an expedition that he wrote up in a tome, Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East. They came to a swift river and many in the expedition party wanted to pay a visit to a neighbor on the other side. The stream was about "two thousand feet wide, running bank-full, and the current was at least ten miles per hour."
"When Jast [one of the guides] rejoined the group the twelve fully dressed, walked to the bank of the stream, and with the utmost composure stepped on the water, not into it... I held my breath, expecting, of course, to see them plunge beneath and disappear.... I think each of us held his breath, until they were all past midstream, so astonished were we to see these twelve men walking calmly across the surface of the stream... and not sinking below the soles of their sandals." - Spalding
Spalding was too afraid to try this himself although Jast and Neprow insisted he could do the same and be safe.Jast instead that none of the folks that crossed over were special. "They do not have one atom more power than you were created with." Spaulding also mentioned that he had witnessed Jast materialize and dematerialize his body at will and be at two places at once.
"How is it, a few are able to do the things we have seen accomplished, that all men cannot accomplish the same things? How is it that man is content to crawl, and not only content to crawl but is obliged to do so?" - Spalding
If my guide insists that I can walk across a raging river--no bridges, other the 'bridge' to spirit--just as gracefully as he, would I? Would you? Now, that, my friends is what I want. To expand our view of what is possible, and to walk the talk.
p.s, What is this beautiful old-school convertible? Found during my car search. Lovely (via Honestly WTF).
p.p.s. This post was originally posted in my private for-my-eyes-only blog, then re-edited for Encanto circle members. The me-only blog is basically a place to sift and discern what I want to create apart from the many voices in the fray and explore project ideas before they're fully crystallized.
Recent Comments