heathervescent

Road Warrior

It has been a luxurious week in Los Angeles, but my time here is coming to a close. Over the past 6 months I have had to completely change the way I work. No more long weeks in my office, I have been away from it more than I have been here. 

 (Note: I started this post three weeks ago... back when I had a gorgeous week at home.)

Reduced Productivity

I'm not as productive when I travel. This is because I have a highly optimized work style for a home office set up. I've had to change this. My office is now my beloved Brenthaven backpack (thank you @urbanverse and @busynessgirl). In this I carry 2 laptops, an ipad, an iphone, an itouch, a kindle, various headphones, a notebook, office supplies, business cards, and a myriad of necessary power cables, cords and power adapters (when I travel internationally).

Respecting the Introvert

Most people don't believe me when I say I'm introverted, and that's because people see me when I'm out in my extrovert character. You don't see me, like this past week, when I spend hours on end in my office, very quiet, talking to no-one, listening to music, typing away. It's not that I try to hide this part of me. It just by it's nature isn't seen except but a very few intimate people. I am a different person when I am around people.

So while traveling, I have had to change this. Let the introvert show a bit more. Not engage with people. Eat lunch at my desk. Listen to headphones. Not book every evening with events. Not book every traveling moment with meetings. And to give myself a break. To stay in my hotel room, order room service and spend quality time with myself.

Respecting the introvert in New York is especially hard because of so. many. people. It's exhausing just to go into the office. People everywhere, bumping into you, crammed like sardines into a train. I hate it. Which is why I come in late and work late. I just can't stand the onslaught of humanity.

Air travel hacks

I thought I was good at air travel, being the daughter of a flight attendant. Traveling 50-75% of my time has optimized this. I don't bother to pack light anymore. I check my bags and have a flight carry-on that includes includes

• my leather moccassins
• face mister and moisterizer (face and hand)
• noise-canceling headsets
• my iphone/itouch (to take pictures out the window)
• Window seat is a MUST
• Internet on domestic flights
• Snacks
• I drink a lot of (sparkling) water

I almost always make sure I get to the airport early. I don't like the stress of missing a flight. (That's the years of flying standby.) I try to make sure I eat good food. No junk food.

Making it fun / Keeping it stressless

I try to make it fun to travel. I hate the TSA - I find it degrading and non-effective. So I try to make it fun. I try to humanize people. Talk to them. Joke with them. Make myself (and maybe them) laugh. Taking pictures and Instagramming them.

Missing Home

I miss Los Angeles a lot when I travel. I love this city. What it represents. Who is here (my dog, the boyf, my car, the freeways). It's proximity to the desert. I miss my easy weekends in the desert. So I travel with a piece of it. I have a painting of a Joshua Tree that I bring with me. There are other memories of home I bring with me, my West Coast style. My coffee with cinnamon. I've been known to imagine NY skyscrapers as Joshua Trees and Mountain Ranges.

Sometimes I listen to Los Angeles' police radio. Often I'll catch early morning tweets by the LAFD. I always check in on the LA Times. And always there is Twitter and Instagram. These are important links to my city while I am gone. 

Time Traveling as Therapy

I often think of the past. Moments I have essence snapshots from. I remember years when I didn't leave LA. I think back to those dog walk mornings. I think back to my times in grad school, spending every weekend researching and writing. I think back to camping trips. To home cooked meals, to cakes made from scratch. I visit their sweet memories - a juxtaposition from waiting for my flight at an airport, riding in a taxi cab, watching the earth pass below me. I think of these moments  - while in another: waiting in an airport, riding in a taxi, flying around the world, riding the subway, eating out. Present in these moments, I savor the opposite, holding both in my mind, present in my experience. Later, I will visit the snapshot of jetset memories for the same type of therapy. Perhaps when I am on a dusty lakebed or driving off road for several days or something more mundane.

 An Iterative Process

I'm still learning how to have a satisfying life traveling so much. I am reflecting on a comment from a William Gibson novel - about a writer who wrote much of his books in hotel rooms. I am looking for activities I like to do - and do at home - that I can transport and do with myself in hotel rooms.  I try new things and adjust what I'm using to make it work better for me.

Snapshots of Home

I cracked the largest grin of my trip when I saw the Virgin Atlantic flight sign showing destination: Los Angeles. LAX. What have I become? This trip convinced me, that while the world is a grand and interesting place, I live in the best place in the world. I don't want to move to Austin, or Portland, become an expat or become a global nomad. Right here in West Hollywood. Dreams are created and realized. 

--

It's the smell of LAX: jetfuel and airplane exhaust. I've told my seatmate, a Brit who is coming for a Hollywood gig, "In LA, anything can happen. Your dreams can come true. That's what's amazing about this place. You _can_ stay," I say to his desire to find more work after his short-term gig, "but the trick is give yourself no option to go back." It's step 4, Burn Your Ships.  He's off on an amazing adventure to explore the City of Angeles. I am excited for him.

--

Up, early morning. Everything is quiet. The dog, the boyf are asleep. I take the truck and drive the city streets. In search of half and half and breakfast provisions. I step outside. The air is chilly. But there's an undertone of warmth. Then I breathe deep. It hits me, the messages traveling my nervous system from my nostrils, lungs to my brain, exploding into meaning. The smell of Los Angeles. Moisture. Cool. Undertone of desert heat. The edge of possibilities. 

Sun rising upon the Hollywood Hills. 

--

So many choices. The aisles are stacked with boxes, products being unloaded. I admired the branding, the perforations to unpackage individual packaged entrees. I had never thought about the wholesale and shipping side. I see the choice. Such variety. I think, this is an upside of the free market. Such selection. It's kind of amazing.

I get into a conversation with a shop stocker. He talks to me in Spanish, I hesitate and reply. My brain is a scramble with languages. I realize I'm much more comfortable speaking bad Spanish than French. 

I come across a display of Avocados. It's like I've found the city of gold. I restrain myself from kneeling in worship to selecting a few for breakfast. Then there are strawberries from Salinas, I imagine the fields, rows of short green clumps up north. I know I'm romanticizing, but what can you expect? I'm an unapologetic Angelino.

I am so happy to be home. I've missed my city.

My SXSW Talk: The New Age of Money

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Economic Collapse

If you weren't able to catch me at SXSW or Digital Money Forum last month, my presentation slides are posted below. SXSW captured the audio of my talk, so you listen to me speak very quickly (I had a very short period of time and wanted to show a preview of Flowers for Grandma).  I went into a bit more detail and showed both Fly Me to the Moon and Flowers for Grandma (sneak peak still photos below.)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Economic Collapse

View more PowerPoint from heathervescent

Flowers for Grandma stills  (we're finishing this up as fast as we can)

European Fields

I was having one of those days. A day when I was in no mood to deal with people. Didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to see them, didn't want to be around them. I have been fairly lucky to set up my life such that when I have one of these days I sequester myself in my office with my dog. I don't like feeling this way and I don't like inflicting a cranky, negative Heather on the world. I gotta keep up my, I am so awesome, invincible, rah-rah-rah personal brand, you know on the blog, ya know!

So anyway, after an awesome day of London shopping, I had to cram everything into my suitcases (which I barely fit stuff into), then lug all this LUGgage off to the train station to catch the high speed Eurostar to the continent. When I arrived, the train station was a madhouse. Crazy lines, people cutting in line, rolling these huge suitcases everywhere, people bumping into each other, no awareness of space and people behind them. For 3 seconds my blood boiled and then I looked around. There was nothing to do.

I watched the guy in front of me become red-faced with his wife and two kids. They had waited until the last  minute to get to the station. I watched him try to bully the woman keeping order among the chaos into letting him cut in line. Her response was pure pleasure, straight British to the point. Unbudging. The Europeans sure can talk straight. (How refreshing!)

Finally I'm on the train. (All my luggage lugging reminds me of a train ride 20+ years ago with my Mom and Grandmother. Between us, we had 7 huge pieces! And all this, before roller bags.) I'm engrossed with my latest iphone app purchase, zoning out to my downtempo mix. Across the aisle from me is a family - I think they are Americans. But I'm not feeling chatty. (Come to think of it, until the conference call this afternoon, it had been more than a week since I've heard an American accent. Even the English non-native speakers speak that damn British English!) American family is crashed out across the tables. It's a bright sunny English afternoon. Which means the sun is rising over the US. Jetlag. I wonder if they are from Austin, California, New York, Colorado - the time zones in my phone. 

I'm watching the countryside. It looks strangely familiar. (More on that later.) We cross under the Channel, then we're in Calais for a short stop. Sleeping family starts awake... the teenage son is dragging his heels... almost wanting to go back to sleep. I'm watching detachedly. There is one bag they missed. I call out, but the teenage son is intent on getting off the train. I jump up, grab the bag from under the table and run down the aisle. The family is off the train and down the platform. I wonder if I can catch them before the train leaves. But the train attendant sees me (running down the aisle) - understands - and takes the bag from my hand at the train door. She calls out to the family and they turn, return and get the bag from her. I see their sighs of relief as I return to my seat at the window.

That would have really sucked, hm? Leaving your bag on the train. Who knew what important things, money, passport, clothes, phone, were in it. Hours of heartache, frustration and anxiety - the possibility evaporating in a moment. Along with my cranky mood. I was left only with a feeling of relief and the view of European fields, wind turbines spinning, black and white cows frolicking and another day living.

Foreign / Not Foreign

I had a strange realization just as my Virgin Atlantic flight took off from Los Angeles bound to London last week. I was listening to the directions - all in that lovely internationally sounding female British voice. I overheard my fellow passengers chatting - most in that British accent. Flight attendants also all in that British accent. Finally, the captain came on and welcomed everyone on the flight that would take them ... "home."

Home?!?! What shock then! Los Angeles is my home! From my perspective, this flight is taking me away from home!

That's when the epiphany came. _I_ was the one with the accent. I was the foreigner. 

--

As I've walked these London streets this past week. Managed my jetlag (brilliantly, I might add), met with people, had conversations, eat, go to the office, go to stores - all the normal everyday things I might do at home, I've been aware of my foreigner status. I've made no effort to try to blend in. I've made no effort to change my LA (recently strongly influenced by Texas) style. I'll bet, I'm the only person walking around the London Bank district in black cowboy boots. They're just my favorite pair of shoes at the moment and I couldn't bear to not bring them with me. 

What fun is it being a foreigner if the whole time I'm trying to fit in - trying to smooth over my standing-out? Squashing my California expression? Does a rock star change their style when they are traveling to fit into the local look? I don't think so.

The point of all this a awareness. The conscious choice to stay attuned to my culture, while in another culture. This goes for corporate culture too. 

--

When I send emails from my corporate account, the British English spellcheck always catches specific words, trying to convert them into their British spelling. This is a strange thing for me - because for some words, I already use the British spelling (thank you International Flight Attendant Mom). But for others, I use the "American" English and refuse to change the spelling. 

It was a cute thing at first... and it's certainly helping me learn differences between American and British English. But if I ever start saying/using "maths", will you please shoot me with my own gun?

--

When I was a teenager, "banished" to grow up in Iowa - the great plains - the MidWest - farm country; I used to entertain myself in the afternoons by driving the open roads. I'd spend hours exploring gravel roads, barely paved paths, of course at as high speeds as I could push my teenager-safe car to go - I would listen to new-wave rock and think about other places. Exotic, cultured, foreign places. Places like Europe, Africa, India, South America.

One day it hit me (after I had returned from six months in Brazil, so full of saudade I could explode) - this place I lived in - where I freely drove to Hell and back. Down to the Mississippi on a midnight lark. Racing trains, kicking up dust on gravel roads, triumphantly stopped on the bridge overpass, waving as the train passed under. Hiking old Indian paths in the forest, barely visible, picnics in old horse thief caves (long since collapsed). These "boring" "normal" "unexotic" places to me - were to someone else ... quite exotic. And these were grand adventures. 

--

It's about perspective. Where you stand when you look. Isn't that magic? That the same object, the same experience, the same thing... can be interpreted dramatically differently?

Who can say, which perspective is "right" or "correct" - rather than "is."

The Montessori Smile

As I was packing some of my favorite books today (faerie tales, Italio Calvino, Brothers Grimm), I wondered what my first social experiment was. As I flipped back through my memories I came to 3 year old Heather. I went to a Montessori school just down the block. I was bored, having already finished the assignments - I had too much energy - my teachers didn't know what to do with me.  

It was picture day. They lined us up. As I stood there, waiting for other kids to get in place, settle down, they said they would take three pictures. Bored, waiting there, I wondered how I could know which picture they would use. There was no way I could know this now, before the fact, or during the picture taking, but I could do something that would tell me which picture they used in retrospect. I decided to make three faces. Then I could remember the order, thus knowing which one they used. Ready for the first shot, I made my big usual smile. Second time, a slight smile, Mona Lisa style. Third shot I went full emo frown. (I wanted faces that didn't look like I was making faces.) 

When the picture came back, I was disappointed with the choice but I knew which one they used. It was the third one. Of course, then I wanted to know what criteria they used for their selection. 

It's probably not my first social experiement, but it's the one I thought of today.

The Present vs The Future

Eckhart Tolle's work and the concept of being present has come up in my network from several places recently. For several weeks, I've been percolating upon my issues with this work, trying to reconcile my negative associations with it - while practicing and living in the present moment - something I have spent years doing with various successes. I wondered, why does something about his work rub me the wrong way, while I generally agree and practice the concept?

It's important to note that I've spent years business/life planning as well as professional training to be a futurist (using scientific and creative methods to explore future possibilities).

And I've spent more than three decades understanding, decoding and reprogramming my own programming.

Here's the rub. It's not either/or. It's not a choice between the intertwined past, the present or the future. One must move fluidly between these states; mining, acting, learning and creating.

I should be honest here, my intention is not to live a life of happiness, to get my needs met, gain power or money. My intention is to consciously be - create who I want to be/am. Which is both creation and be-ing. It's a "goal" that is never met, always met, never changing, always evolving.

The present moment is about action (or inaction). It's where the shit happens (GTD baby!). It's the moving spark in time of manifestation, creation, action, re-action. It's where choice occurs. It's where one can jump from one quantum branched reality to another. (Which I have done upon numerous occasions.)

But how does one decide how or what one wants to act, or call in the programming (e.g re-act)? Is there is a preferred branch to jump into? How does one know what to look for? To read the signs? To understand the impact, the ripple of one's actions? In the pregnant present - a moment just barely into the future.

One decides how one wants to consciously act by mining the past and visiting/seeing future possibilities/implications.

Of course, it's not as simple in practice. 

Living solely in the present is as much a trap as living in the past or dreaming always about the future. 

Tolle's work, and the mantra to be present in the present moment is too simplistic for me. It's missing a magical world of manifesting, creating the world, creating the future (for accurate work once must know the past). I'm not saying, don't live in the present moment - but to live in the conscious present - you must regularly visit the past and the future.

The Invisible Arts

I lose myself to find myself. 

I'm assaulted by the smell of raw fish and grey shrimp. Cartons of Chinese vegetables, prickly Durian, fat fuscha Dragon Fruit. I navigate the streets full of people. Stopping to peruse the red envelopes and knock off bags. Wandering these small streets, comfortable in my illiteracy.

In the park, my eye is drawn to the Tai Chi practitioners. I don't know the specific series, but I know similar ones from years of warrior practice. Watching them push and pull with energetic tension makes me long for my martial weapons. I continue to watch them and observe they are plucking the strings of energy, pushing and pulling, creating an invisible work of art. It comforts me. Seeing them paint and play and pluck the energy, seeing each series of movements creating a work of art. The body a paintbrush, the painting invisible. 

It's the same with song. There are several groups playing music. I'm loitering near one. I imagine they get together every Saturday to play and sing together in this park. Friends stop and say hello, embrace between stanzas. I'm seeing the invisible. Hearing the song, seeing the relationship interactions, the Tai Chi series paintings.

I am a similar artist. This body, these hands are the paintbrush; my ephemeral, transient life, the painting. A work of art created in/with time - moment by moment.

 

New York Fail

I'm standing at the counter of a UPS store on Broadway crying. My dead laptop in one hand, my phone in the other. What was to be the triumphant sending of my Thinkpad to Lenovo for repair was complete and crushing failure. (This was plan D going into action, after the failure of plan A, B and C.)

Simply, the required packing materials were not at this UPS Store - or any other store in Manhattan either. And no one - not the clerks behind the desk or the UPS Customer Service Rep on the phone could tell me how I find a store with the required packing materials, other than individually calling each store (of which I did call 7 with failure).

In desperation, I called Lenovo and asked them if I could send the machine (aka my other brain) in other packing materials - but No, that would void the warranty. I was completely crushed. I hated this city and all it's people - their unwilling, inability to solve this problem. And that's when I realized what I hate about New York - it's the people - the attitude - this culture. 

Not friendly, not willing to help someone out. Seemingly only in it for themselves, hyper competitive. Ready (and willing) to fuck you over, cheat you, mercilessly watch as you crumble offering no assistance what so ever, no help. What an archaic paradigm.

What the fuck New York? It's not about the competition. You've got it wrong. 

"The battle is not here with your fellow men, but out there, in Infinity."

We can do so much more together.

The World I want to Live in

Feeling beaten down by a stressful week, I am reminded of the reasons I do these things.

"You don't do them for money or fame or because it's easy. You do these things because that's the world you want to live in." - Jean Poulet

I want to live in a world where people think outside the box to solve problems beyond the standard procedure. I want to live in a world where someone can have rockstar hair in traditional business environment. I want to live in a world where granddaughters send their grandmothers flowers - every month. I want to live in a world where people make amazing experiences for other people. I want to live in a world that evolves down a pathway that increases possibilities. I want to live in a world where people are aware of the ripple of their influence on others and themselves. I want a world aware.

I create this world I want to live in - bittersweetly, even if I rarely get to experience it. 

Creating the world you want to live in is a hard task. The status quo beats and attacks and shuts you down. Sometimes breaks you. But there is always another day, another attempt to create this world anew.

Giving other people (who are mere reflections of myself) the experiences I desperately crave.

Leveling Up

Six years ago I compared the way I viewed my life to Diablo II (ok, yes, I was a gamer at one time). I was going through some challenging things after kicking major ass at everything I had previously done. I felt pretty awesome and had new (audacious) plans.

But here I was getting my ass kicked in what seemed like all my new endeavors! What was the deal? I was the one kicking ass just moments ago. And in fact, my past ass kicking lead me to my current ass getting kicked. What the hell happened?

I'll tell you what happened. I had leveled up.

The playing field changed. The demons were stronger, sharper, faster. I had to up my own skills to kick these demons, skeletons and undead asses.  And I was taking a beating. That's the bittersweetness of leveling up. Paying homage to your awesomeness, even while eating your humility. The Zen Mind / Beginner Mind. The challenge of/for growth. Evolution.

I probably don't need to write this, but all kinds of things level up: individuals, companies, teams, ideas, products. It's a natural part of the process. But it's never easy, in fact, it requires more diligence, attention and effort. But it's worth it, because you're playing in a new game.

You've passed the previous levels and it's here you find worthy challenges. Challenges that you will pass, another level complete. The levels themselves don't really matter, except in the play, practice and execution you engage in. No one level is particulary better or "higher" than another. The importance is present awareness and attention to the worthy challenges. And practice. Lots and lots of practice.

 

Announcing the Future of Transactions Survey, Year 2

In September 2010, I conducted an initial survey on the Future of Transactions. The response to the survey was overwhelming and launched my obsession into Future of Transactions. 

The Scenario, "Dinner with Friends" based on my research results

• Won an Honorable Mention by the Association of Professional Futurists 
• Was produced into a short commercial (with financial support from Innotribe @ Swift) 
• Is nominated for a Most Important Futures Award

I shared the results of the survey in 2011 at 

• Future of Money and Technology,
• World Future Society in Austin and Vancouver, 
• Web 2.0,
• Mindshare,
• Sibos,
• Compass Conference and
• Association of Professional Futurists Virtual Conference

Finally, I was invited to join the Swift Innotribe team as their Innovation Leader for the Americas in August 2011 where I am working to make my preferred future, co-re/creating our financial systems with the financial community, a reality.

This year, with the help of futurists Emily Empel (http://localrat.com/meet-the-rat/) and Justin Pickard (http://justinpickard.net/), the future of transactions survey is back with a bang!

The intention of the updated survey is to gather yearly information in order to explore how we may "pay" for items in the future. Results will be shared at upcoming conferences including SXSW, Digital Money, World Futures and the Future of Money & Technology. 

--> I invite your participation in The Future of Transactions Survey, year 2. <--

The Thunder Breaks

I alway use January 1-29 to put the finishing touches on my yearly goals/plans/intentions/focuses. This year I've got two very different sets.

1. Americas Innovation Strategy: which is focused on what I want to accomplish as Swift's Americas Innovation Leader. It is focused on activities that support and encourage collaborative innovation in the financial industy by the community for use of the community.
2. My personal 2012 Plan aka my Warrior with Heart.

Both of these strategies/goalsets were well focused before the end of 2011, but these 30 days in January have been a series of conversations with intersted and impacted parties (in both my professional and personal life) to get feedback and be open to comments. To makes these two yearly plans more co-created.

So these past few weeks have been more like honing and polishing and trying on different situations, taking actions to try on these situtations. As these actions unfolded, and I gathered new information, situations changed. Even without completing the action, new pathways opened up. Stuck energy flowed forth.

Note: the previous paragraphs were written on Jan 31. 

--

In the past two weeks, I've begin to walk the pathway I mapped out. Walked down West Hollywood streets, through airports, train stations, pristine stone 45th office hallways, dirty city streets, subway undergrounds, talking with friends, the boyf, the dog, weaving through strangers and tourists. Walking with elation, depression, tears, desperation, intention, celebration.

I stopped hanging on. Spinning center. A ball, cracked, whacked in a home run dream come true execution, traveling far beyond the fence, spinning, speeding, pinball branching quantum possibilities. There is no grounding. This is the jump. The flying. A springboard high dive into the the deep unknown.

I asked for this. I took the leap, but one never gets used to the free fall speeding, passing all possibilities except that one out there, the one you're headed too, the one that is so far away, and yet laser beam focused. Every pedaco, your guts of steel, impossible possibilities, passing hundreds of impossible possibilities in a split moment. 

Free flying. Spinning. Hands pulled in tight, no resistance.

Our Co-Perceived World

We had an extraordinary Los Angeles sunset a few days ago. The sky was a combination of vanilla peach and pink colors. The lenticular clouds over the city were highlighted pastel pink contrasting with the darkening blue of the evening sky. 

Los Angeles has fabulous sunsets and those of us who live here enjoy them. Just look up from our palm tree lined streets into a pink swirled sky and you'll get the feeling, an LA essence, a palm tree shadowed, behind a changing rainbow sherbet of colors. 

This sunset was better than usual. I noticed it on my dog walk, stopped to enjoy it and took a few camera photos. Minutes later, I started to see friends and colleagues tweet and instagram photos of this very same sky from all over the city.

We don't necessarily realize that we are perceiving the same environment - and in our current paradigm, often documenting it. What does the sunset look like from Hollywood? Silverlake? Venice? It's the same sky, viewed from many perspectives. Our digital mobile devices make it easy to capture our perceptions, our perspective. Instagram filters act as thesaurus for our images that we share with our networks.

Our capturing and sharing activities today are innocent, undirected and unintentional from a collective perspective.

What will the world be like when it's easy to access multiple perceptions/perspectives of the same situation/experience/landscape? Through a timeline - I am reminded of Richard Misrach's Golden Gate series of photos of the sky above the San Francisco Bay, but also of place, like the sunset view from Venice, Hollywood or Silverlake. 

I am reminded of the radical performance theatre, Sleep No More, where the audience is let loose in a 5 story set, in which the actors move from space to space performing/embodying the character within the confines of the set space. No more is the audience limited to rows in front of the fourth wall; the audience becomes part of the performance. Is threaded through the performance space. Each attendee (is responsible for) and has their own personal experience. 

I have trouble with absolute truth. 

I want to believe there is absolute truth, but I just can't see how it could be. Absolute truth would have to include all these various (and potentially conflicting) perceptions.  I see value in being able to perceive. 

Perhaps Absolute truth is a continuum, encompassing perceptions as sub-variables, explorations. There are infinite perceptions, and who is to say which one is "right" and which one is "wrong?"

But back to the long term impact of digitally capturing our co-perceived world. How does the world change when we have "user-generated" content capturing the same scenes from various perspectives? How do we as humanity change in our way to interact with others? The world? Our experiences? And how will the content we've created today (take these many pictures of my beloved LA sunset) be used and for what purpose in the future?

I think we're creating/collecting the raw materials today, in these digitally collected snapshots - documenting our co-perception, that will become something awe-some and transcendent.

Reflections on Preferred Futures, Possibilities & Impossibilities

I am fascinated by possibilities. There's nothing I like better than seeing what can be, than perhaps transitioning those possibilities into this world. In the past few years I have honed my ability to see possibilities (and a process to make them real). I can see around corners, juggle variables and play a metaphorical shell game with data, research & time extrapolations to create a cone of plausability, mine the possibilities in and around it (wildcards fall on the edge or outside of them) and identify (sometimes multiple based on your valueset/variables) preferred futures.

All futures are possibilities. The future is subjunctive tense. There are no future facts, as Bertrand de Jouvenel writes in The Art of Conjecture. So by definition the future is pure possibility. Of course, with the demonstration of the cone of plausibility, some futures have an increased likelihood of occurring, for various reasons. The probability of those futures occurring is more likely or of higher probability. While others have very low probability. (Wild cards aka black swans aka STEEP surprises defined by very low occurrence probability). But low probability does not mean impossible, although for all practical purposes, it may be.

It is interesting to note, that the probability of possibilities doesn't really matter when the present arrives. The present is made up of possibilities that held all kinds of probabilities: from the habit to the wild card.

When thinking about the transition of future possibilities into present reality/action, I like to borrow an example from Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig explains quality with a train. The train is riding on its tracks with quality the ever moving place at the front edge of the train as the train moves on it's tracks. This metaphor has stuck in my mind for over two decades. Rather than use it to define quality. Let me use it to explain the transition of the future subjunctive to the present (and riff off of China Mievelle's Iron Council a bit).

The train is moving along the track (representing time) but instead of one track in front of the train to drive on, there are many tracks (sure, go quantum here), some are more solid than others. Any track is possible; the more probably the track, the more real that track seems (higher probability). (Habits and other things create solid tracks for our metaphorical trains.)

The track the train has not already passed on is the future (even if it's the daily commuter train). There is no guarantee the train will pass on it (it could get derailed or float off into the sky of it's own accord a la the Glass Hotel or the Land of Green Ginger). As the train passes the tracks, pregnant possibility ends, rendering one possibility amongst all other, now impossibilities. This happening many times each second, train clipping along the track.

So let's talk about preferred futures. A preferred future is the future you would prefer to occur. You may have some (or a lot of) control in making it occur. And the more direct control you have over the variables, the increased likelihood for you to make it happen. And by variables, I'm talking about people, companies, technologies, etc. Whatever you need to make that future real. Subjunctive present. You are laying the track you want the train to run on. You want to increase the probability of the train running on this track when it gets to it. This is your pathway to your preferred future. (And here we can go full Iron Council.)

Now let's talk about impossibilities. For every present moment (a rendered possibility), there may be a thousand impossibilities. Evaporated forever. Or perhaps for just a moment (I will not eat that chocolate today! this week! for the next 5 minutes!). As a lover of possibility, you'd think I'd hate the impossibility and yes, they do provide some sadness. But one must love the impossible, unrealized futures as much as the one that is realized. And while the train is not on the track, those tracks still exist in possible form. Perhaps never to be realized. Or realized at another time. Possible impossibilities. 

Reflections on the Concrete Jungle

New York got to me. 

 

In past trips, she coaxed me with beckoning caresses, this trip she dug in her nails. Biting cold, wind whipping through the urban canyons. I opened my coat and let that cold wind pierce my heart, remembering cold January's in the early 90s. I found no solace in people. None in work. I felt I had lost my path with heart. And in heathervescent land, there's only one thing to do when that happens...

Returning to Los Angeles, brisk wind blowing through her, I was thankful for my new found NY clothing. At first moment, I took Lady Vescent on a long embrace. I was interested if I had grown rusty with almost two weeks of subway traveling. But I was sharp as a knife. Threading the needle at 90 through city streets and favorite freeways. The speed, she heals my soul. 

I needed to push my boundaries. I wanted to kiss the edge, go beyond it, etch a remembrance of my tires in the pavement. I went to the wildest place close to Los Angeles: not Latigo, Piuma or the Malibu hills "racetrack", but the raw mountains of San Gabriel, Big Tujunga and Mt Wilson. 

Lost, and found.

Lady V and I weave out of Hollywood, through the San Fernando Valley and I finally hit the triple digits on the 2 north of Glendale. Racing up a mountain, top down, wind blowing, white knuckle riding, conversing with my city. I decelerate quickly, pause at the stop sign and head north into the mountains. The stop is as critical as the acceleration. There can be no speeding without being stuck behind the slow car, no acceleration without the stop. 

I feast my eyes on the scenery as I pass the 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 elevation markers. It's getting colder, I'm glad for my heated seats. The road is moist, rockfall peppers the pavement. We're above the clouds, a road twisting between the mountains. 

I reach the top, view shrouded in fog. There is no Los Angeles overlook today. But that's ok, because I know what my city looks like. I didn't come for the views today, I came for the roads. And off we are again. Painting the double yellow through a burned forest. 

Sharing the road with a few sightseers, motorcyclists and locals. I came to the roadhouse, a row of motorcycles parked outside. Lunch stop perfection. Body refued before pressing forward. With the intention of getting lost in the mountains. Easier with no cell reception. I sped again on roads, tracked and backtracked, turned off and turned off again. The mountains eventually changing, until I realized I was entering the desert. 

Such was my delight! Lost in the mountains only to find the desert. Look at those wide open spaces! 

The afternoon waned and I felt responsibilities calling. My heart rejuvenated, I returned to the mountain roads, pushing faster spurred on with favorite songs, winding my way onto the freeway system: 210, 118, 5, 170 into there's no place like Hollywood Home. 

Home again, home again. 

The Spike Returns

I'm walking a couple down Amsterdam in the UL /unlicensed district. Except in this reality, it's the upper west side not Triton. I'm wearing a fur shug, no gold eyebrow. I have been chatting with my new companions  over guava and a glass of wine. I've found a great connection with these two. We continue our conversation on the city streets, until I turn to stand in front of a familiar red door. (Familiar from my childhood.) My demeanor changes. I am no longer chatty. The show begins, the door opens and we step inside.

The building reminds me of Victorian remodels from the Midwest. Plaster and lathe ceilings, peeling paint, a worn buffet, dusty floors. I am tempted to explore, but do not. I know more faces from last time. We are all much warmer.

There are performers, there is an audience, I am a guide. Through rooms, up stairs and down, for listening, observing, interacting. A journey, an experience, a commentary of man and nature deep in the mechanical beast of Manhattan. Finalie culminates, led down the aisle. I whisper a few words, unlatch the door and the show is over. 

I take a momentary pause, then return to my place. The show plays again.

Note: this post is about a real microtheatre performance in NYC. I take the name Microtheatre from Samuel Delaney's book, Trouble on Triton, wherein, his character, The Spike, writes, coregraphics and performs (with her troupe) microtheatre or theatrical experiences in the street for an audience of one.

And the Italian one

For Mom, here is my third favorite selection... Fellini Satyricon.

My other favorite film

is a collection of tales... with my favorite section starting at 7:30 of this analysis. 

 

"All these adventures begin simply. The listener thinks it'll soon be over, but one story creates another, and then another.

We are like blind men lost in the streets of a big city. The streets lead to a goal, but we often return the to same places to get where we want to be.

I see a few little streets here which, as it is now, are going nowhere. New combinations have to be arranged, then the whole will be clear, because one man cannot invent something that another cannot solve."

 

 

 

Life is but a dream...

The final scene from my favorite film

The 2011 Retrospective

What a watershed year! Pivotal. My 2011 Mindmap of goals was packed, and yet, I did not fail to deliver. After 2010 - the year I did too much, I wanted to relax things but still kick ass. My themes were: Relaxed Awesome, Weaving the Threads and Return to the Path with Heart. I most certainly "succeeded" at all three.

• Grad School: Hit the books big time with my Future of Transactions Research, on track to graduate at the end of the year until the dream job put grad school on hold... ;)
• The Conference Circuit: Spoke at SXSW, Future of Money, WFS Austin, Web 2.0, WFSummit Vancouver, Sibos Toronto, Compass, Mindshare & APF Virtual Gathering; Attended TedxCalTech, PayPal Developer's Conference, Internet Identity Workshop (A & B)
• Awards! Honorable Mention for the Value Exchange, Fly Me to the Moon nominated for Most Important Futures Work
• Scholarships! Kay Hamilton Future Studies, PEO ELF Award
• Produced two Films: Fly Me to the Moon and Flowers for Grandma (post-production)
• Became Bi-Coastal: Boy, did New York really get under my skin, but she had to bring out the big guns to do it. 
• Found my Dream Job: Who knew it existed? (Actually, I did.)
• The Usual Cacophony in March, June, August and December: Brides, Caveman, bi-coastal Santarchy and a surprising wolf pack in upper Manhattan. 
• Tons of great times/re-connections with friends from my early SF Intervista/Cacophony days in SF, NY and Portland.
• Despite family death and illnesses (cancer, knee surgery, brain tumor), I have the best relationships with my family I've ever had. Spent tons of time and holidays with my family, including my first fly fishing trip with Dad. Became an aunt for the second time.
• Travel! Hawaii, SF (3x), Montana, Colorado, Belgium (2x), Black Rock City, London, Toronto, Vancouver, New York City (5x), Austin, Houston, Salton Sea, Mountain View, Mammoth, Palos Verde, Portland and always to return to my City of Angels.
• Barcamp LA Returns! After a two year hiatus, I was part of the team that brought it back. 
• Writing: Completed two scripts, although I didn't do as much Sci-Fi story writing as I wanted...

My focus for 2012 was going to be "the Return of the H-bomb." (H-Bomb is one of my nicknames, mostly used in 2005-8, my kick ass years.) But after reviewing this year, I think the H-bomb is back in full force.

So 2012... is the year of living the future in present tense, with all my ass kicking warrior rockstar dreaming manifesting magic. Take my hand, there is plenty of space to dance here in the eye of the tornado... 

Nominated: Most Important Futures Award

I'm very excited to report my film, Fly Me to the Moon, which was created to show the results of my research at Sibos has been nominated for a Most Important Futures Work by the Association of Professional Futurists (disclaimer: I am a member of the APF). This is a huge honor and as you can see by the competition is very high with Nassim Tableb's Black Swan, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Jane McGonigal's online game, Evoke. You can click through to see the other nominations. You can watch the video below, which was proudly shot and produced in West Hollywood, California, USA.

-Heather Schlegel, SWIFT Americas Innovation for Innotribe

(cross-posted at Innotribe's Blog)

2011 Retrospective, 2012 Sights Set

It's that time of year. When I revisit my yearly goals/objectives/mindsets and plan for the next year. This is a ritual I've done more or less publicly on the blog since 2004. This year, 2011, my themes were

• Relaxed Awesome
• Return to the Path with Heart
• Weaving the Threads

with a lot of specific, vague and inbetween goals. Part of this year was weaving the threads, bringing things in my life that seemed separate or unrelated together... like the winds joining in a tornado.

The other return focus this year was to the Tao and my warrior ways. To this end, I have returned to many conversations with the 2006 self (time travel conversations to a past hero self), this vibrant ruthless woman, nothing standing in her way. This was the woman who intentionally created her dream life and lived literally in the future. Somehow over the past few years, that women got sucked into the day to day present life, while professionally studying the future. While that's all fine and cool, I vowed to never live a normal life, a life that anyone could have. The waters of forgetfulness lulled me to sleep and my weapons were stolen, edges rusty and dulled. Searching this year, I have regained them. Sharpening them with increased subtle understanding in their use. 

I bring my seven daggers and a sword with me into 2012. Along with several other tools:

• Positive
• Adventure
• Travel
• Passion --> Love
• Work
• Transformation
• Courage

My sights are set on the fruit at the top; to adventure in the unknown while living/walking the path with heart.

2012 is the return of the H-Bomb.

Trust Strongly

I walk up to the doorman, say my name, am ushered in, despite the line. "I'm the cacophonist." The dark inside is not so different from that outside, except it's soft darkness, all encompassing, no neon, no filter light. Darkness that hides.

I am handed the 7 of clubs. Stripped of my outer layers, I enter the space, walking up the stairs, slowly, slowly. This is the transition. Leaving the reality of this New York world, of earth, of humanity, behind. Entering, an unknown world. I want to savor it. I want to experience the transition alone. Anticipating.

Familiar tinkling of ice in glasses. I spy a favorite Italian bitter on the shelf. Look for a dark corner to relax a moment. I'm thinking of my screen play, I'm thinking of Los Angeles, I'm thinking of my unfinished science fiction story. This room, reminds me so of a particular scene. Samuel Delaney. The Spike. Her micro-theatre productions. More drinking from the same collective unconscious.

I've been given advice and I take it. I enter a dream space. A (last) dinner party. I want to stick to the back, hiding even more from the mask I wear. The party breaks, guests go their ways, most being followed by a pack of the masked. How discombobulating?! 

Eventually I learn. The action is with the actors. Weaving the threads, twining, untwining. We follow them from space to space, from action to action. There is no character down time. The time and space is immersive character experience. White masks  surround them, as if ghosts from another reality. And we are. As members of the audience, we are not of the same material as these epic archetypal characters. Housed in this created space, actors as vessels, channeling the expression.

I am conflicted, to watch as voyeur, to follow. And I think, how New York - this voyeur experience. This anonymous watching. 

The evening passes, I return to the bar, my red drink. Collect my coat, continue reflecting as I step out into the New York night. Full moon muted behind clouds. Leaving one stage and re-joining another.

Please note: This post is about the NYC Interactive Performance Theatrical, Sleep No More.

Introducing the Innotribe Startup Challenge

I'm excited to announce the Innotribe Startup Challenge. For the past month or so, I have been working behind the scenes on this Global Event Series that connects innovative financial startups with the big guys in the industry.

Back at Sibos, I had a revelation:

• Incumbents and Start-ups: They need to work together.
• The current system doesn't deserve to be destroyed.
  
• Embrace and extend.
  

I had a vision of connecting daring, risk taking, disruptive startups (and divisions inside larger companies that act like startups) with traditional big companies and incumbents in the industry. Startups are often looking to disrupt the existing paradigm (well at least those from my Silicon Valley background) and surprisingly enough, from what I've learned in the Banking industry, banks want innovation. They are searching for it. Yearning for it. Everyone knows the industry is changing, but how exactly? That's up to everyone in the industry.

The Startup Challenge is a way to connect innovative financial product/service developers with the people in big companies who want to support it, encourage it, potentially invest in it. Startups are invited to apply, with semi-finalists selected to pitch at the NYC Feb 8, 2012 event. You can read more about the details of the challenge.

The Startup Challenge is the first event I am producing with Innotribe, and I'm bringing my usual heathervescent energy, style, fun with substance and value. It's also my first New York event, and I'm determined to bridge my California culture with New York's. (Hence my deep dive into New York.) 

What can you expect on Feb 8? 15 pitches by interesting companies to a room full of "the right people." Conversations and connections with decision makers who can be your startups lucky break. A positive wildcard that may be the defining moment (in retrospect) for your company to thrive, while you create (or in some cases) re-create our financial paradigm.

I hope you will spread the word about the Startup Challenge.

An Open Door

It is done. Past trips have scratched the surface, querying conversations found the edges; friends, family and ex-pat Californians have given hints on the location of the lock, key, handle. The city herself shares hints of Los Angeles - those perhaps only an Angelino could recognize. With patience, sweetness and ruthless abandon, I have cracked New York City. The door is open. I walk her city streets as tourist no longer. As traveler, adventurer, explorer, artist, creator.

--

Subway errands. My favorite fluevogs lost a heel the first day I arrived, but I didn't notice until yesterday morning. Instead of wearing them, I put them in a bag (along with my dry cleaning) as I walked out the door in the morning. Before the subway, I dropped of my dry cleaning (which will be delivered to my apartment!), after work, I subwayed to SoHo/Little Italy to fix my fluevogs. Picked up the heels from Fluevog, then hoofed it to the cobbler before he closed. Later, walking up 6th Avenue, passing a wine store, to another subway stop, catching a train home. The intertwined subway line webs. No backtracking necessary. 

 

New York Reflections

I'm watching her. From across the water. Late night. Finding myself alone. A rare moment of solitude amidst lapping waves. My new walking shoes jump from rock to rock. My black shadow moving closer to the water. Gazing up, I see towers of stone. Stone carved and stacked by men. I look at the metal gratings, listen to the transit waves. Hear the light clipped lapping of water waves. I see the lights across the water. A glittering skyline.

I breathe in the cool air. I'm enjoying this moment. I look to the sky, finding the moon, sliver growing larger over the past few days. And I'm surprised. Because I see stars. Old friend Orion is stretched across the sky. The coldness of the sky reminds me of the desert and for a moment I can imagine LoriLisaMojave and her cold star speckled sky. But the metaphor can't hold more than a minute. 

I return my gaze to the underside of Manhattan Bridge. Stone rising into metal grates. I listen to the subway train light it's way into the city. I'm beginning to understand. I have continued my questions of this city. I've almost cracked it.

--

Chelsea walking. Brownstones, parked cars, an unattended pickup full of split wood. With a note to "try some of the best wood in the city! Sure, take a piece and then call me to get more." Something I would not have expected here. I'm walking down this street when the thought unfolds in my mind. That I could live here. The revelation comes as a complete surprise to me. Or rather, I see _how_ I would live her. In the ordinary. Everyday. Living. A different person. New York is no longer extraordinary, the familiarization has begun. 

--

East Village Evening. Dinner with amazing women, the conversation turn to a subject I wrote a book about among many others. I am reminded of many things. Possible pathways open before my eyes. Life being lived. The tourist view has shattered. I've cracked it. But I don't necessarily like everything I see. My only question remains, which of these paths will I walk?

Continued Awe

Six years ago, I perched upon the edge of the LA Times Building for this (cover) photo.

I was in love with Los Angeles. (I still am.)

I am in awe at the world. At the wind in the air. The palm tree lined streets. The feeling of my clutch stick in my leather gloves. The french silk sky with ribbons of pink carmel. (read more)

Six years later, I know her curves well, love her no less. Driving down Olympic, the top down (in my second Saab convertible) playing a favorite mashup, I am struck with strong emotion. With the conversations we have as I shift up and down the gears, switching lanes. Wordless expressions. Rubber on grooved concrete. My every glance seems to end at the Hollywood sign, up in those hills me and Mr Pup explore. I think about that Red Hot Chili Pepper's song...

Sometimes I feel
Like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend
Is the city I live in
The city of Angels
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

I drive on her streets
'Cause she's my companion
I walk through her hills
'Cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and
She kisses me windy and
I never worry
Now that is a lie

It's as if my city is the only thing I can love with my full expression. Of course, she can not deny me. Or maybe it's a homecoming, return to the place of my birth after so many years of exodus. Or maybe it's because here in this city, where the wind blows in hot and cold from the Mojave desert showing the sparkle of the San Gabriels, we live on the edge. We create the edge. It's here we can pluck the possibilities from the unknown, from the edge of nothing, and yet maintain a connection to manifest, create, build these things plucked. Audacious possibilities from an audacious unknown. Movie magic, inspired by and inspiring scientific efforts.

Los Angeles, I love you like no other place or person. An abstract affection for a place, an idea, a concept, the possibilities here and the reality of making it real. You are me and I am you, inspired co-creators of this mega-city on the western edge of North America. 

Speaking in 2012

As 2011 winds down, I'm actively planning my 2012 year. As in this year, I plan to speak and lead the discussion on the Future of Transactions and the changing thing we call Money. I have a few confirmed speaking gigs.

• The New Age of Money or How I learned to stop worrying and love the economic collapse , a Future 15 session at SXSW Interactive, Austin, March 2012. In 12 minutes I will share positive visions of the unfolding new age of money and how this will make the humanity more effective and have more fulfilling lives.
• Tomorrow's Transactions, Digital Money Forum, London, March 2012
• The Future of Shopping with Emily Empel at the World Future Society, Toronto, July 2012. Emily and I are joining forces blending our research on the Future of Shopping and  Future of Transactions to lead an interactive session where we'll share the results of our academic research through hands-on inter-activities.

If you're interested in hearing about my research, invite me to speak at your conference or private events. Just contact me. 

Writers Meet

It's early dark, the sun set hours ago. I'm driving east to meet a friend, the first woman I met in Los Angeles. Hard to believe that was so many years ago. I remember staying in her house and the mutual inspiration, the years of adventures we later had in the Future (the name we affectionately called the house we bought together).

We had been trying to meet up for several months, but our travel schedules were opposite. Finally, for one day between trips, we found ourselves in our same city. We met at a natural cuisine restaurant on Hillhurst. I don't make it much outside my West Hollywood borders these days and I forgot how much I love this street with it's restaurants (many new ones!) and boutique shops. I've got to get over there more often.

So here I was, back with my Future pardner and we're catching up and talking about our writing projects. I tell her about my films, she about her hard-boiled screenplay and book. We're talking about the writer's craft, and I ask her, if her characters have taken on a life of their own. Oh yes she replies, telling me her characters are very different from the way she initially envisioned them. Surprising to her and also challenging. 

I experienced this with my recent screenplay stories. The characters I envisioned at the onset, change as I bring them into this reality through these letters, words. As Steven Pressfield would say, it's the muse talking through my fingers. These stories are not mine, but use me to express themselves, to manifest - often out of the collective unconsciousness.

The best advice given to her, "Write ferociously."

Caressing a City

It's freaking cold, probably only 50 degrees or so, but for someone who doesn't own a winter coat, that's cold enough. I'm bundled up, wearing layers, sweaters, gloves, hat, scarf. I'm walking around the East Village. I'm taking it in. Running a finger along the edge of this city. 

Over drinks, in passing conversations I question. I'm gathering research, experiences, impressions. Tapping out the studs while admiring the wallpaper. Some tell me I'll never crack the essence of NYC. The vibe, the experience. But I'm not shooting to understand all in 7 days; just identify the pathways to unfolding, walk a bit down them, caressing with my presence, awareness, observations. Identify the anchor points.

I learn, see, understand as I probe. Then it's enough and I go back into the city. Walking her streets, dark, gritty, dirty streets. Finding my way (easily) through mazes and tunnels. Trains. Watching people. As individuals. As mass. I'm them too. The wind blows (cold), chill with Autumn. I lift my head, open my nostrils and deeply inhale. Taking the cold scent into my lungs. The city gives me what I am looking for, embracing me back.

Showing the Throat

I learn a lot about other people when I show my vulnerabilities.

From my perspective, I don't have a lot to lose being vulnerable. Or rather, I have come to terms with the (possible imagined) downsides. On the positive, we've forged an anonymous connection; while the best scenario is we forge a real connection. But if there's no connection, it's totally fine, I've gathered information.

Someone a long time ago, said it was my vulnerabilities that made him love me. I was in a very vulnerable part of my life, reconfiguring it dramatically (trading my previous traditional choices for a life of possibilities, walks into the unknown and unknowable). It was fucking scary. I didn't like being vulnerable. Showing my flaws, imperfections. I learned you have to be open to let the impossible/unknown flow into life. To trust. Sure, I've been betrayed, stabbed in the heart. But in the end, you have to get over the pain, the amargosa. (Se eu nao tenho meu amor, eu tenho minha dor.) Cabiria knows, life goes on.

Life is not a safe place.

I think we forget that, because we have used technology to make it safer. Technology and Knowledge and Culture insulate, make us forget this wild, magical, world full of beauty, possibility, pain and raw experience. To experience that, I offer my throat.  

Urban Camping Exploration

With begrudging excitement I zipped through traffic on the 405. Shifting up and down the gears as I defragged the freeway, playing a game I call threading the needle. A final zip into the parking garage before the parking break and clip clop of fluevogs on pavement. I left my race driver persona along with my keys with the attendant. 

I'm embarking on an adventure I have been calling Urban Camping. 

Let me explain. While staying with some friends in San Francisco I was looking for some easy exercise. Rosie suggested I do some urban hiking, which was basically going on a hike in the city. My destination was Mt Davidson - the highest point in San Francisco - and I did some serious hill climbing to get up there. I decided to take the concept farther with my next New York trip.

New York is a weird place for an Angelino like me. I've traveled through the City often enough. I've had more than one SO hailing from the place. But I always thought of myself as from the wild west, riding my iron horse, big sky mountain range Mojave vistas. I turned my nose up to the Big City. It could offer me nothing my Queen of Angels couldn't provide in bounty. Besides, I wasn't convinced New York was a modern city. It was an old piece of machinery, well greased, but built and representing an old paradigm. 

Ok, so I had some baggage. 

And when I find baggage, I proceed to unpack it, assimilate it and/or throw it out. What better time to challenge my assumptions?

In my mind, I'm packing for the desert. I've got my camping gear, my hiking gear, warm weather clothes, serious footwear, my morning coffee ritual needing only boiling water, which for urban camping is an electric teakettle. My mind is open, I'm leaving judgements behind, the space for possibilities exists. Unknown possibilities. Wildcards in my mind.

Midnight arrival. I immediately feel the press of humanity. Discombobulated. Setting up camp at 1am is never much fun, especially if you haven't been to the campsite before. Fitful night of sleep. No coyote calls. No stars at night, but the lights are bright and brilliant far into the sky. Morning coffee calms, complete with my Vietnamese Cinnamon. I meditate on clothing selections for the upcoming hike: Times Square via Subway from Brooklyn.

I hesitate for a moment, take a breath, charge my metro card, then jump. There will be only a short time of new, fumbling, discovering. Eventually we will know each other. I ask the Queen of Angels to forgive my absence. I have never loved a city like I love her. But we haven't seen much of each other recently. New York calls, as does London, Brussels, San Francisco. Cities of past adventures, returning to the spotlight. What can I do but acquiesce? Explore possibilities. Cultivate curiousity.

I ride the subway. I walk. I take elevators. Everywhere people. I look at the view. I study maps. I start to understand the land, coated with humanity, our efforts. I watch balloons rise in the towers of air, between towers of steel and glass. I start to recognize. To familiarize. Things stop being new. I'm starting to unpeel the layers. To feel the pulse. To adapt. I hear the proto-words whispered, the proto-language of the city. I respond with affection, exploration, calm presence. We've got time to know each other. To enjoy the unfolding.

 

 

Taoist Futures

I'm having an on-fire day today. Things are converging. The universe is sending me love letter from all sides and I'm sending my own share out too. I feel good. Stupidly happy. I enjoy the chemicals flowing positively through my body. Feeling these emotions. Knowing, that with the flow, there is the ebb.

Washing up after my morning coffee, I remember previous days. (Not necessarily the immediate preceding days.) The days of funk. Of feeling out of the groove. Not getting the love from the universe. Not making progress.  As I rinse my wine glasses, I remember that many great days, follow funk days. Months of activity, follow years of quietude. Feast follows famine. 

On these up days, I try to remember that this what I have, will change. A partner of years ago, the old prospector, always said, "you want to be approaching perfection, but never attaining it." I've never forgotten this. Good luck, bad luck, who knows. The tao knows no judgement. And I strive (and sometimes don't strive) to be one with /a vessel of the tao.

So my mind thusly primed, the dishes clean, I started thinking about that which I love thinking about these days: the changing state of our economy, money, currency, transactions. And right now, I think we're all in agreement that things are BORKED! But, it's not like this is the first time things have been borked, or the first crisis - and were still alive, here, transacting. (B. Lietear mentioned an amazing number of crisis's tracked since the 1600s in his talk on Monday at Compass Summit.) Then the tao flowed into my mind.

The only thing TO happen is to adjust the direction of the flow (I'm not talking stock and flow diagramming flows here). Things _are_ borked. So when things get to be completely borked, the only next step is away from complete and utter borkdom. (Ok, I realize this whole bork thing is getting out of hand, but stick with me.)

I'll translate. The only place the current financial economic global system has to go - is to get better. I realize there are still some doom and gloomers that will say it can get much worse, but I'm not talking rationally here. I'm talking taoistically. And with that, I hereby coin the phrase, "Taoistic Futures."

;)

 

A Contrarian's View of Identity: Only Real Names

When I was at IIW earlier this week, I held a session called, "A Contrarian View of Identity: Envision a World with Only Real Names."

The ground rules of this session were:

• There is no discussion. We are starting with the assumption that real names are the only reality.
• No dystopian or negative perspectives (relieved this for last 5 minutes of info gathering)

I then asked those in the room to close their eyes. Take a deep breath. Envision all of the identities that you use online and out in the world. See them moving to the middle and coming together, becoming one identity, and that name is your real legal name. If there is any negativity coming up with this, just put it aside for the moment. Sit with this vision of your identity as your real legal name. Take another deep breath. Pause. Now open your eyes. 

Here's what we came up with. 

• Make it easier to decide what I won’t do online, simplify decisions
• Stop doing things on line. 
• I changed my name to one I like. 
• Transparency:  More empathy because I see you 
• Easier to find connections between people and create opportunities, because you see all capabilities. E.g. not only limited to see me as someone who just does this...
• People would be nicer to each other if tied to a single ID. 
• Alleviates Simplifies – don’t have to manage multiple personas don’t have to know the context of relationships. 
• Better connected to the real you – See multifaceted people. 
• Less Victimization, but sociopaths will always be sociopaths. There could be the chance that some people could really hurt and manipulate people. 
• Sociopaths will not stop/be deterred,  people will find easier victims. 
• ** More protections for our privacy because we are more vulnerable.  It’s an everyone problem so maybe governments act more.
• If you can tell who I a:
•      easier to vote with the internet
•      eliminate Fake Public Policy Groups
•       literally find people easier (physically) 
• You own you -> others can’t impersonate you, lie about you as easily, harder to be impersonated, defrauded, protected. 
• Better connected to your history.  (could be a pro or con)
• Short Term vs. Long term effects (e.g less watching porn but ok to watch porn no stigma) 
• There would be fewer IIW Working Groups because Less work to do, save work. 
• Reaching your full potential w/o being able to explore ID. I would not have reached my human potential if I had not been able to explore with various IDs, even though I may not have/be/use them anymore.
• Highly repressive governments would have a much easier time.

After 15 minutes of information gathering, I released the "No dystopian or negative perspectives" rule and all comments were welcome.

After the session, one person remarked that by requiring us to start with positive perspectives, we came up with some really interesting and creative responses. (That was my goal. ;) ).

I highly enjoyed taking on the contrarian view of Identity. It was refreshing to put my judgements and assumptions aside and try on a new, usually discarded view. Everyone who participated found the session highly interesting and at least one person mentioned they were going to try this technique with other topics. I found it a great way to see around my blind spots.

Updated: Makeup of the Future

With all the talk of privacy going away, cameras and surveillance everywhere, and people actively fighting, I see a different way. Evolve with the technology.

So what, there are cameras tracking you, and face recognition software - where's the visually scattering make-up? I can envision a future where makeup (and clothing and accessories, shy not) have additional benefits. Not only can you have healthy glowing skin or waterproof eyeliners, but it provides a privacy fog around you. Perhaps it scatters or shifts the way your face looks (so it's not identified as a face). For example eye makeup that renders your eyes invisible to the algo processing the video feed. 

Alternately, I can see using these makeups or clothes to show information, patterns or art. Could someone create a visual virus that infected algos that were exposed to it.

It's a mashup of They Live, Gully Foyle's face in the Stars My Destination, Ghost in the Shell, tattooing, beauty and tiger stripes.

 

Update: After I tweeted this post, Scott McWilliams (@macengr) replied to me on Twitter with the genius Dazzle Camouflage. 

@heathervescent ala the Dazzle camouflage of World War One?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_ca…

Aikido Flow

I was talking with an old Aikido friend when he stopped me in the middle of the conversation and said, "I want to Ikkyo you." Now, it's been at least a decade since I regularly practiced on the mat, so I forgot what Ikkyo was, a pretty gnarly joint wrist lock. Drew and I have both practiced this move on each other (decades ago). I was confused, but then he explained what this meant. 

Aikido is about moving energy around. In the simplest terms, an aikidoist is someone who takes the energy being directed at him/her (generally in the form of an attack) and fluidly moves it to a place of safety. The aikidoist stays safe and also keeps his/her attacker safe. It's a strange form of intimacy - accepting in any force, not fighting it directly and re-directing it to a safe expression. 

Many of the movements have varying degrees of "bone crackingness" meaning that a conscientious aikidota will only put the least amount of force needed to appropriately redirect the energy and maintain safety. Not only are you physically close to your attacker/uke/practitioner, but when you're real about practicing, there is a non-physical, intimate, energetic interaction. It's the Ki.

Uke must trust that when they take on the role of the attacker, they will be safe in their energetic expression. The aikidoist must keep integrity when being attacked. I remember my favorite practice: Shio-nage. My attackers would come at me, I'd swoop down, redirect their energy, grab there body and place it on my chest, like a mother cradling a baby, as I swooped and spun them around, releasing them with their own energy as a throw.

Discussing these nuances, I realized I had internalized Aikido long ago. While I have not stepped on the mat in I don't know how long, I practice aikido every day. The world is my dojo.

On Change and Adaptation

The landscape in which we live, to which we are adapted, will also change; and that any one adaptation leaves the truths of the others outside its domain. - Rob Tow on Neo-enlightenment

 

Reminders from the world

I found this written on the whiteboard of a local (Albany, CA) high school circa 2003 or 2004.

How to live a Happy Stress free Life

1. Be impeccable with your word   
   Before you speak: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
2. Avoid being judgmental   
   Ask questions, express what you really want
3. Give the benefit of the doubt   
   We are all doing the best we can at our level of awareness.
4. Always do your best   
   In doing so, you avoid self judgment, self abuse and regret

 

The Unknown: Fireflies and the Rain

(another one, from another time)

I was driving the N. Virginia back roads. I'm stalking the battlefield I recently visited. A technique I've found myself doing is going back to places twice, but never from the same route or necessarily the exact same place.

It's misty. Been raining. There is the misty fog on the road. The pavement is black. Slick. Sleek. Inviting. The lights from my car do not penetrate very far into the darkness beyond the mist. I have the windows down. The mist and rain is flying into the car and my hair is flying around. I can feel the power in the air. The wind. The moisture. I drink it in.

I'm backtracking and I don't know it yet. I follow roads and turn onto new ones at the slightest flicker of direction. I find myself pulling into a parking area. It's very dark. The sky is that cloudy grey. The trees are black against the grey. I get out of the car. I hear the rain falling from the trees, yet it is not falling from the sky. The field is open and I hear creaking noises (almost like branches rubbing together but deeper) coming from it. I peer into it. I see flickers of light. I realize they are fireflies. 
The strange creaking, the mist, the black outline of the trees, the flickers of lights. I walk out into the field to be surrounded by it.

 

On Death

"Death is very likely the best invention of life," he said in the speech. "All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important." - Steve Jobs, RIP

Kissing the Unknown

I could not resist the call of the forest surrounding my hotel. Pulling myself away from a the crack called twitter, I pulled on my sneakers, trench coat and went out into the European dusk.

The air was thick with darkness, the last bit of light filtering through the high canopy. I thought for 1 second, that it might be crazy to go for a walk in an unknown forest in the middle of nowhere. And I didn't even have a flashlight or pocket knife on me. But never, mind, I've done this before. 

My eyes adjusted to the lower light. The gravel path turned to forest bark. The moist silence descended on my soul. The light became shadows as I walk deeper in the forest. The silence became thicker. Surrounding me. I surrendered to the present. 

I stopped in a crossroads. Standing and listening. A faint rustle. Leaves falling. Then the wind. The wind blowing in the trees. The wind blowing through the forest. Hearing first the wind. Then feeling it across my skin. Breathing it in. Remembering how I love the wind. A bench appeared and I rested. Soaking in the silence and wind and rustling leaves. Drinking it in. 

Then off in the distance, dark trench coat, a mirror image of myself, picking her way along the path. I stand, ready to fight, but it's not time. We will just have a conversation. She will remind me. When the time comes, I will gratefully release to her all that I am, and start a new journey. I ask her to remind me of this often, lest I grow complacent and fail to express any pedaco of potential, fail to create the most unbelievable life I could ever (and not) imagine. 

I remember my previous dances. The sacrifices I made. My stumbles and missteps on the path with heart. I recently began wearing a reminder of my greatest sacrifice. It's potent. And doing it's job. 

Through the darkest part, I heard an Owl. Then the rustling of some creature. I looked into the woods, could see nothing in the darkness. I remembered my afternoon hikes in high school - bush whacking along Indian paths, finding dilapidated ruins. I wondered if any predatory animals lived in this forest. I expected not - or if so, well fed. The fields of this area are lush. The owl continued. I thought that Red Riding Hood must have been told in forests like these. I could believe the fear of the wolf pack. But I expect to come face to face with Coyote or a Bobcat in Griffith Park. Although I had been visited by a Coyote of a different sort. 

Off in the distance I saw light streaming through the trees. I thought about the warmness that one would feel, if one had really been traveling by foot in a forest. It turned out to be a truck, packing some things up. Blinding me as I returned to civilization. A rebirth? A re-member. Returning, holding the knowledge, the feeling, to keep the present, from the past to savor, remember in the ever-present. 

An encounter with Death, circa 2002

(Note: this was written almost a decade ago, before this blog existed)

Last night the Virginia back roads coaxed me away from my glowing liquid display and conditioned air into the moist pleasure of evening. I found myself on two lane roads. I didn't know where I was, how I got there, or how to get home. I followed the nudges of infinity. To turn here or there. I found myself at the end of a dead end road. The tarmac was crumbling into the overgrowth. There were two dirt tracks that went on behind a vehicle barrier. I parked the car. I was wearing my work clothes - business casual pants and shoes. The forest called to me. I was drawn to a path near the vehicle barrier. 

I got out of the car. As I walked towards the path, I looked down and saw a spinal column set of vertibraes. I stopped. I was surprised, shocked, a slight wave of fear went through my body. I looked at the vertibraes. They were beautiful, bone white, they fit together perfectly. My eyes followed the line and I saw the skull still attached. I realized that it had been a deer. 

As I looked at the spinal column, I thought about how crazy it is what I am doing. That it is crazy for a single woman, all alone, unfamiliar with the area to go randomly driving, stop someplace where she doesn't know she is, and walk into the forest. My brain is churning with how crazy it is. I know it sounds that way, but that doesn't stop me. The spinal column is a reminder of my death. That one day I will die. Perhaps it will be this night in this forest. And if that is the case, then I must go to it with courage, curiosity but no fear. 

For a moment, my brain creates a view of the world where I am getting back into the car and driving away, and then I realize that I am walking into the forest. The air is calm, moist. It is just after sunset. The light filters through the trees. There are bugs humming in the air. There are fireflys flickers orbs of light here and there. It is magical and I feel the power. The light is that of my dreams, I call it the darklight. 

At the end of the path I find a reservoir. The water is calm. There are a pair of fishermen out in a boat. I can hear their voices across the water. I sit by the edge on some rocks and become enveloped in the silence. In the dream of this place.

 

A Travel Poem

I'm translating the hours from three different zone.  An exercise in time travel, as I move backwards and forward in time. In my mind, I hold the vision of my home city. Is she wearing the Vanilla Sky or Neon Sparkles? I do not miss her. I am her beyond her boundaries.

I walk streets. I navigate people. I pretend to be a tourist. I pretend to be local. I meet with friends, old and new, eating way too many steaks and mushrooms and glasses of wine. I'm trying to understand. Understand this entity that is called a city. People. Humanity. We create I. I creates WE.

I'm from the frontier. Space. Wide fields. Open Mojave landscapes, naked mountains. I have been the single human within a 30 square mile radius. This city rising into the sky is strange to me. I set my strangeness aside. I decide to be comfortable. To drink deeply. To breath it in. I give my rational mind a vacation. The freedom to stop thinking about how to solve, do or understand logically - to feel. To feel with my body.

I'm enjoying the cool. A thunderstorm rolls across Manhattan, lightning strikes, rain falling on the rivers. Stray drops as I walk the streets. Later, to my delight, getting caught in a torrential downpour. The cold water soaks my non-raincoat. My leather fluevogs turn a darker shade of grey. A chill goes down my spine. There's nothing to do but enjoy. Enjoy - I do. After the thunder, the tension released, is always the sun; blazing bright on an empty Sunday motorway. The morning comes, the perspective is expanded. I move into the day in a different city, bringing with me, my memories, connections across the globe.

The Answer to Big Questions

1. Why does the universe exist?

2. Why do I exist?

3. Why does _(fill in the blank/anything)_ exist?

These are big questions (I wanted to know the answer to), with a simple answer. I meditated on these questions over a decade ago. Each night as I slept I swam the sap in the world tree. (I know it's a strange metaphor - but that's exactly what it was - a droplet circulating from specific leaves to other places.)

After five nights, I knew the answer.

I have never forgotten that answer. I never questioned it's "correctness." Occasionally, I share it. But it's not an answer to be given lightly. No one has argued with the answer. When I learned of Spiral Dynamics, it helped me understand the subtle truth of it. 

When I think of it, I become more tolerant, open, curious. Fear disappears. I want to understand, not judge.

Call for [Systems Thinking] Collaborators

I'm looking for collaborators to help me flesh out the rest of this systems diagram that shows the flow of tangible/dollar transactions to non-tangible transactions. Basically it's an attempt at showing how non-financial transactions come out of financial transactions. Contact me if you have experience with systems diagramming/thinking and are into this space. (Yeah, I know it needs a lot of work!)

Respect for Modern Farming

This summer I've been exercising my gardening muscles after I got a small space in the new West Hollywood community garden. I had been doing active container gardening for several years, trying out some vertical gardening ideas - with varied success. Flowers, ornamental and herbs did well, but my attempts at growing food never thrived or attracted pests. So when my number (literally) came up in the new garden lottery, I accepted it with excitement.

It took a lot of work to prepare the soil. (The garden area used to be an old lot so the soil was not that great.) Then I planted the seeds, watered them diligently, daily. I watched them sprout, tender and fragile, until they grew stronger, maturing. Often after I finished watering the garden, I'd stop by the grocery store and pick up things for dinner.  The irony was not lost on me. After months of diligent tending, I was finally able to harvest some of the fruits of my labor. 

Like my container garden attempts, some items thrived in the SoCal summer better than others. This coupled with a harvest screw-up made some items inedible. After the months of nurturing this was a tragedy. Still, I had more than enough chard, peppers, tomatoes, and basil (had I not let it go to seed). The sunflowers grew tall with their happy yellow faces. 

Of course we ate what we grew - but there's no way we could have lived on what the garden produced. Yet, at the same time, we had more than enough of some things. This gave me new respect for high yield seeds and professional farmers. Those farms that focus on growing amazing, lush foods for us to eat. (I am probably more spoiled than most, living in Los Angeles with the fertile San Joaquin Valley a few hours away.)

I thought, who are these people that want to go back to the old way - of tough small harvests. Science and technology has made life easier - life more productive (both for plants, animals and humans). Why throw these discoveries away or worse, ignore them. They give us the ability to focus on finer grain issues in the world. 

Possible Future of Facebook

Here's the math equation: 

Facebook timeline + Dan Simmons Flashback + Stephenson's Diamond Age (Or A Young Girl's Primer) + AI = Possible future for us Gen Xers when we are old and in old age homes aka "TV" for the old people. 

Here's the scene: you're old (but you don't have to be), you want to reminiscence, with/about your friends. Well, lucky you - you lived your life on Facebook (or Twitter or Google or your blog, etc.) and there is a ton of information about you to not only create your life timeline, but an avatar AI representation of you. (I've written about this in my scenario entitled, Trantor Mentors. Extra credit to anyone who gets the name inspiration.) So you can decide to jack in and re-experience certain times - or maybe just read your life like it was a book. (I admit I do that with my own blog sometimes. I am my primary reader, Oscar Wilde inspiration.) And there are different levels of media engagement. Like I mentioned, there's the book/reading, there's the watching, there's immersive VR (probably 3D).

 Facebook might wanna consider teaming up with Singularity University right about now.

Protopian Flipsided View: one can use these group memories for various esoteric practices that increase self-awareness, understanding and tolerance.

Caressing with Eyes

I open the shades just in time for the rockies. I'm above the earth again. My flight trajectory is taking me across my favorite landscapes: the Colorado Rockies, Southern Utah and the California Deserts. I've had the good fortune of watching this landscape from the air a lot recently. 

I'm glued to the window, a glass of sparkling water at my elbow, the soundtrack Bjork's possibly maybe/hyperballad covering up the droning engines. I feast my eyes, recognizing Pike's Peak to the southeast, Aspen's shaved ski slopes on the mountain just below me. I remember a fast drive on Interstate 70 below me - and a favorite roadtrip moment.

We pass over Moab - I see scratched red rocks. I remember two conversations in this natural land. Who calls into a business conference call from Arches National Park? (One guess.) As I view this landscape from above, I remember the view from below. I first discovered it during my Great American Roadtrip. My mindblowing drive along the Colorado River, hitting my high speed at 7am on a desolate Utah road, winding up and around Capitol Reef, Dixie National and Escalante/Grand Staircase. 

I see the same land from a different perspective and it is just as beautiful - mindblowing. In rock I see the roil of boiling water. I imagine a movable landscape, fluid rock, spewing Volcanoes. I imagine the crust under a shallow sea. 

These landscapes, formed in geological time remind me of the long term. Remind me of the long line of the past, the trajectory of the future, and the tiny moment of the present. It doesn't make me feel small though. It vitalizes me. It makes me love this time on earth - and feasting upon the gorgeousness of the land. 

Your's Truely on the Grandstand in Death Valley's Racetrack.

20 Euro Dare

On the outside, it's a boring looking box - building material enclosing a space, the interior, ripe for possibilities. I ride up the escalator, hear music playing, see lights flashing, the space is filled with stages, activities, people. 

I weave through the crowds, looking for familiar faces, scoping out the layout, observing the scene, finding new friends. I'm reminded of a Malibu house party years prior. I retreated from those crowds. I found myself a balcony and watched the scene.  Detached. It's what I want to do here, now. I tell myself my inner introvert was left back in the states, in my LA office. Besides, I don't live the same life twice. I decide to fully engage in the scene. 

Movie scenes play in the back of my mind, memories of playa parties, Silicon Valley parties. We're all humans, despite the industry. I look for the meta-view. "Pull back camera," as Jodorosky says. I gather data. Observe. Wait. On the dancefloor, I pretend it's Bootie. The mashups are in my mind, while my body moves. I spill the wine.

The next morning, as I blear through customs and security finally arrive to the coffee shop. I dig in my wallet for the bill I won. I hand it to the cashier who hands it back to me. Not Canadian. I laugh. It's Euros. A 20 Euro bet, I would have done for the thrill. An exchange to display the courage to take a risk beyond the usual. A transaction.

I've converted/compressed the value of something that can not be exchanged on the stock market (in it's original form) into the binary exchange. Did I just exchange social capital/wuffie into Euros? I don't know.