heathervescent

WE DID IT The Future of Money TV Series is NOW FUNDED

Quick update: WE DID IT! Last night we hit the goal and raised the $35k needed to move to the next step on the project. Thank you so much! I could not have done this without each and every one of you! More updates as they happen...

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I'm really excited to share my latest project. Allow me to introduce you to (drum roll please).....

Since 2010, I have researched the Future of Transactions. My scenario work from my research caught the eyes of Peter Vander Auwera and Kosta Peric of Innotribe, the Innovation division of Swift. With their financial support, I made 3 short scenario films and 2 documentaries. I even joined the Innotribe team for a year to help make these visions a reality.

While working for Innotribe, I was struck by the impact my films had on people. When I showed them at SXSW and other conferences, people would come up to me afterwards and tell me how the visions in my films changed their perspective. Over and over I saw people's ideas about the future change after watching my films. They were positive and excited about coming innovations.

It's this change that inspired me to develop the idea into a TV Series for a general audience. I know from a research expert perspective that finanical innovations are exciting. The past 3 years have been filled with many new technology innovations. I know as a futurist, that the future is full of possibilities - but most people don't see how things can work out positively for them. And it doesn't help that we have a lot of negative baggage and fear around the topic of money and finance. I want to change that. I want to put a spotlight on the amazing financial innovations that will improve our lives.

We are living in a fantastic and most abundant time. (Yes, I know there are still problems... my 1st place Award winning paper, The Human Problem addresses this.) I truly believe the future will be even more abundant - if we allow it to be. It is fully within our choice.

With this backstory, I've developed the Future of Money TV Series since February. An international distributor came on board in May and has agreed to distribute the series internationally with your help. I need your support to greenlight the project. 

I've launched a Kickstarter to raise $35,000 to fund the first milestone of the project - expert interviews. 

To date, I have self funded all of my research and the development of the series. Innotribe graciously funded the production of the scenario films and documentaries - which were part of the inspiration. Now is when I need to hear your voice.

Want to hear about the Future of Money from a positive, balanced and honest perspective?  

• Greenlight the project by sharing the link
• Follow the project on Twitter and Facebook
• Back the project

I'm taking my research of the past 3 years to the next level. But I can't do this alone. Please co-create the future - a future we can look forward to. 

Thank you.

The Future of Identity at PII, Sept 17 in Seattle

I've spoken on Identity and participated in the Identity community for a long time, going back to my work at AOL on Account Linking for Instant Messenger (circa 2002). With that background, I'm speaking at Privacy, Identity, Innovation in Seattle on Tuesday, September 17th at 5pm. 

The Future of Identity

Like privacy, the term “identity” means different things to different people. In this conversation with Mozilla privacy engineer Monica Chew and futurist Heather Schlegel, we’ll discuss those nuances and consider what the future of identity might look like. What role does contextual identity play in protecting privacy and how can companies like Mozilla enable individuals to manage their various personas? How is use of a real-name identity changing the digital experience? Will pseudonymity and anonymity as we know them exist in the future? Or, as Seinfeld’s George Costanaza might say, are our worlds colliding as our online and offline personas merge?

If you're interested in attending, you can register for the event with at 15% discount using this link.

Future of Enhanced Intimacy

Think technology is tearing us apart? WRONG.

[W]hat I discovered in the course of my reporting was something quite different. As traditional family structures are falling apart for working-class men, many of them are forging new kinds of relationships: two old high-school friends who chat so many times a day that they need to buy themselves walkie-talkies; a father who texts his almost-grown sons as he goes to bed at night and as he wakes up in the morning.

Christians often talk about a “God-shaped hole,” a need inside us that can be filled only by faith. But perhaps we share a “family-shaped hole.” When the old structures recede for men, they find ways to replace them with alternative attachments, bonds with one or two people that offer the warmth and intimacy typically provided by a wife or significant other. If anything, these improvised families can prove more intense because they are formed under duress and, lacking a conventional domestic routine or a recognized status, they must be constantly tended and reinforced.

 From this Atlantic article: Murder by Craigslist

What's interesting about this, is the technology that facilitates these intimate familiar relationships. Based on my recent research on the Future of Intimacy, this is going to happen more and more. I think this is a GREAT thing, so my team and I have submitted a panel to SXSW to share our findings.

The New Age of Technology Enhanced Intimacy

As the technology becomes a natural augmentation of our physical relationships, virtual interactions are becoming less of a substitute for physical proximity and rather a mechanism to extend and augment intimacy (play/engagement/closeness) between humans and machines. 

Humans are drawn to create and sustain intimate connections with each other. This goes beyond a partner sex bond and includes close friends, family and work colleagues. Technology will increasingly facilitate and strengthen these deep human emotional bonds. 

These deep intimate connections are not limited to human to human subjects. Technology will also facilitate deep connection with machines, computers, devices and sensors embedded in our world.

We'll answer these questions

1. How is technology is increasing human intimacy and connection?
2. What is the technology facilitating human to human and human to machine intimacy today?
3. What technology can we expect to facilitate human to human and human to machine intimacy in the near future?
4. What are the implications of increased intimacy through technology use? For couples/individuals? For groups/communities? For machines? For our world?
5. Why is an increased literacy of technology facilitated intimacy important to solve today's wicked problems and save the world?

Our all-star team includes

• Heather Schlegel The Purple Tornado
• Carl Hastrich Biomimicry Institute
• Zahra Ebrahim archiTEXT
• Karen Oikonen Kerr Smith Design

If you're interested in this topic, please vote to support the topic. 

The Future of Intimacy

This summer I kicked off a new domain of research with 3 colleagues in Toronto: The Future of Intimacy.

As the virtual becomes a natural augmentation of our physical relationships, how will virtual interactions become less of a substitute for physical proximity and rather a mechanism to extend and augment intimacy (play/engagement/closeness) in 2050?

To show a vision of this future, we created a company: UME; which was founded in 2025.

UME is the leading company in emotion extension technology. At UME, we connect how you feel with your loved ones.

UME offers two products that facilitate deep connection with loved ones. EMP-CONNECT and INLINE.

While we envisioned positive ways to use this technology, including an increase in emotional literacy; we explored the dark side of complete mind-melding. 

And other scenarios share more possibilities, like a general overview of this world, an empathic high school and a feminist perspective. 

These scenarios show a vision of what the future could be. How could this world become a reality? We created a Backcast to show plausible events happening in the next 37 years that could lead to this reality. 

While we can't say for certain that this vision will happen, the technology and trends of today lead us to this vision. The value of this work is in how it makes you think about this topic. Is this a future you want to live in? What things about this future are exciting and pull you toward it? Which items about this future concern you?

Without a vision of the future to step into and experience, we can't explore these questions. The answers to these questions changes the way we interact in the present, and this, in turn, changes the future. 

A Possibility Tour

For my talk at WFS on Sunday, I took my audience on a Possibility Tour with some of my favorite people to explore what commerce might be like in the 22nd Century. Enjoy.

A Possibility Tour by heathervescent from heathervescent

The Self-Actualized Currency was really popular. Here are some tweets from/about the session: 

• Maree Conway: Nice ideas - applying embedding emotion and values in currency.
• Rob Moran: This is the BEST futures presentation I have ever attended. Amazing ideas....
• Eclecthink: Thanks for the mind messing, brainstretching talk on alternate currencies at WFS

Chicago Talks at World Future Society

I'll be in Chicago this weekend speaking at the World Future Conference 2013. It's going to be another marathon conference for me, as I am speaking twice at WFS in addition to organizing the APF ProDev day and running a workshop there. Here's the rundown of where I will be. Come by and say hi!

• A Possibility Tour: With Special “Guests” Philip K. Dick, Bina48, Samuel Delaney, Stanislaw Lem, and Donella Meadows. We will visit and view a variety of potential outcomes of our economy, as might be seen through the eyes of noted futurists of the past. Our tour will feature a balanced analysis of commerce possibilities, highlighting the seeds within our existing system that may lead to each prospective reality. Expect a wild romp through the future, with your guide Heathervescent’s cacophonistic flair!
• ProDev Workshop: Mapping the Future of Futurists. I will leading this workshop mapping our territory. Who are we? What businesses are we in? What communities are we part of? How do we participate? We create a Big Map, then step back and ask how we can expand into new territories, seize new opportunities? Session at the APF Professional Development Day.  [Open to anyone with an APF member recommendation.]

• Best of Houston Futures. This is my 3rd year on this panel and I will be presenting my Award Winning paper, The Human Problem, where I describe how to solve all the world's problems. 

I'll be around Chicago all weekend, so be sure to grab me and say hi. If you don't see my purple hair, find me on twitter at @heathervescent. 

Being in the Present

It's morning. I'm sitting in my sun porch, drinking coffee. The dog is sleeping nearby. The windows are open and I breath the sweet, moist California air. I feel the heat under the moist cool. I know today will be hot. 

I'm listening to my ambient/Boards of Canada station. It mixes well with the noises from the neighborhood. Gates opening. Birds. Weed wackers. The jingle of dog tags on their morning walks. I look out the window at my favorite plants. The bush with the petit purple flowers. The spring green of my Brugmansia leaves. The tall stalks of my sun flowers. Deep green of Rosemary. Fecund fruit trees. Spiky palm leaves and soft willowly Jacarandas, dropping their carpet of fragrant sweet purple blooms. 

I've got that feeling again. The softness in my heart. Content in the present moment. To accept what comes. I think of my friends. So many that I love. The various connections. These moments I share in present space, expanding the love I have for them. Connecting over our love of shoes or film  making or SciFi or years of friendship and often over long distances through the magic of technology and text messages and twitter. I am thankful for them. I work to be a better friend. To be there for them. And when I am, when I give, I feel so much return. 

This present moment, this bliss, this is what I try to give attention to. Awareness and enjoyment of the moment.

Momentary Happiness

I've threaded my way through Beverly Hills, raced a Telsa, reaching up to 70 mph on Sunset. I zip through the construction by the 405 and find myself a spot in the parking garage. I wait for the tram and then ride up the mountain, looking at traffic on the 405, the Ocean beyond Santa Monica and Venice. I disembark. I'm early. I find a cafe table in the shade. At first I fuck around with my phone. Then I decide to be present.

I sit there. I breathe. I watch people taking pictures. (I stop myself from tweeting snarky comments.) I lean back in the chair, my feet propped up on another chair, close my eyes, arms behind my head, breathing. The breeze comes. Caressing my face, my hair, finding its way into my lungs through my nostrils. Utterly luxurious, pleasurable. I exhale. Only to inhale another magnificent breath, a part of the wind, which continues to caress my skin, tease my hair. I'm in heaven.

I am calm. Chemicals flood my brain. And then I feel it. The Happiness. With each breath it sustains and I revel in the momentary feeling.

Calm with the Challenge

These luxurious mornings. Up early, thanks to the #globalnow brain. I awake. Morning coffee ritual. I grind the beans today, the ritual changed due to mispurchasing whole beans. It keeps me aware.

I walk the dog. The Jacaranda purple above and below me. I inhale deeply of the moist air. Count to six. Exhale. Calm. Birds singing, chirping, tweeting. I walk among, through. The familiar dive bomb whir of the Hummingbirds. Stopping to smell the roses, admire the flourishing greenery of neighbor gardens. 

Today, I practice being calm. I've been running at a fast pace. I unconsciously felt I had to make up for lost time, the failures of the past year. Well, that's me choosing to focus on the things that went wrong. Analyzing how to avoid those situations in the present/future. I really have nothing to complain about. Life is about as dreamy as anyone could dream. So I'm gonna enjoy it for a while.

One thing through all this is the learning. Each morning I am greeted by a Joshua Tree painting in the bathroom. It reminds me of the challenge of finding my grounding while I flew around the world. It took a wider view to find that grounding, but I did. Even now, at home, not traveling the world, this view serves me. 

New challenges feel uncomfortable. Learning new skills, one sucks. That's why the zen mind, beginner mind is helpful. To release expectations. Put in the hours for the skill and one is bound to get better. Now is the time to stop with the dream and get down to action. The hearth is cold, chop wood. It's time for coffee, carry water.

Unraveling, Integrating

Note: I wrote this on December 13, 2012, with an update from tonight.

I always wondered what it would be like when one of my parents died. You see people fall apart when their parent dies. They become someone different after the experience. I watched it with my mom, when my grandmother died. I've seen it in other people. I knew it would happen to me, sooner than later. Mom told me she had cancer in 2009. I was at SXSW when she told me. I had a lot of road trip driving to think about what it meant.

I feel like I have a good relationship with death. It is a real friend of mine, whom I use on an almost daily basis to motivate myself to be conscious, aware, to be the person I want to be, to realize my potential. Death and I, we're old friends.

My grandmother, who was the most important person to me, died 7+ years ago. I dreamt her death days before she died. I felt her acquiesce into it through my dreams. I was in a strong personal place, and able to send her off well. When my grandfathers passed, again, I was in a place of power and strength, able to send them off on their next journeys. Back in August, I knew my mom was going this time. I was in denial of course. Until I saw her in Portland in October. The face of death does not lie.

And here I am, barely two months later. What's it been like, this experience of my mom dying? 

The last week she was alive, I experienced life very different from my usual way. (I usually live partially in the past, present and future. Past and future give information I frame and interpret in the present to act in the present.) With my mom, I lived 100% in the moment for several weeks. The past, the future, had no meaning. I knew they existed as two bookends, but they were abstract. I knew I would think about them, and visit them again, but in the moment, they did not matter. At one point I was sitting and talking with my mom and her friends and I described my experience like Burning Man, but I wasn't on drugs. There are a variety of experiences that force one to live in the moment. When I perform or put on events, I plan, but the moment comes and the planning ends, performance or execution happens in the present moment. Like last Saturday. The event begins, and you enter into present tense.

Re-entry to everyday life (moving between past and future) was difficult. Much like re-entry to life after a week in the desert. However this re-entry feels harder. There's an echo. And frankly, I continue to reference those moments of presence in October even now. 

Part of this is that I have the burden of unraveling another person's material life. I'm sharing this burden with my brother, so this helps; but we each have a lot more than usual going on. My own life is completely unstable - part of this was of my own doing as an attempt to stabilize for a different paradigm (a traveling all over the world for work paradigm).  

So that's the material challenge. But there's the emotional. 

I've got the usual cocktail of emotions around this, but on top of it all is a lot of anger. Anger at the timing. Anger at me being already in a reduced state due to other set-backs. This anger is compounded by a lack of trust.

Despite this impossible situation, I move forward. But often, each forward step is replied with a push backward.

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Fast forward to today - June 16, 2013. Mom's been gone for months. I've had time to get comfortable with her absence. The anger has subsided - as has my focus on unraveling her estate and dealing with the material world. 

Last Sunday, her ashes were scattered into the Pacific. With that act, a sense of relief, a weight I did not realize I felt, was lifted. 

Sure, I've had moments of missing her. Especially when all her furniture landed out at the Dome. I really wanted to call her to tell her all her stuff arrived. Of course, it's not a phone I could ever make to her alive. 

Like my grandmother and aunt who passed before her, I have her, their things. My writing desk was my Great Aunt's. Much of my furniture and cocktail ware was my grandmother's. These things comfort me. They trigger the positive memories of these women - a version of themself in the strange loop of my brain. 

I work now to integrate, discriminate, differentiate, decide what I want in my life, as part of my character. It's a strange piece of work; this braiding, dovetailing one life into another. I will be someone different and yet the same after it is done.

 

Swimming in the #globalnow

I did the math a few weeks ago. I spend 80-90% of my time alone. Solomente. Ok, my dog is with me most of this time, but I do not share physical space with another human. I am in my cocooned environment of my integrated life/work-space.

But am I really alone all of this time?

My past days have been session after session of Skype, Google Hangout, with phone calls, text messages, emails, back channel chat sessions, private network messages, monitoring activity of friends, interacting/responding with/to them. Passive and active interactions. Push and pull. I've had lots of face to face meetings too. Lots of time in the cocoon of my car, an autonomous node circulating around the physical grid.

Always connected. Always on. But not always monitoring. Not always streaming. Not always receiving. 

I awoke from my work trance yesterday, to realize I was in my living room. For hours I had been jacked into a virtual workspace with a variety of friend & colleagues. In reality, I was sitting on my couch, with Mr. Dog. But I was more than my physical. My virtual counterpart was elsewhere - in some liminal space. 

I am not alone in this space. I am connected to many brains. I extend my own brain tendrils, thoughts, actions, interactions and converse linearly and non-linearly. This nonphysical space becomes more and more real. Abundant for sharing and connection. 

So while I spend 80-90% of my time physically alone (with Mr. Dog), I am also a node in the #globalnow, connecting, re-connecting (and disconnecting) from this rich nonphysical space. 

Anarchy Anti-fragility Evolution

"I think it's important that there are professional people working to inject a sense of anarchy into our day to day lives. It's more important than it used to be."  - Mark Pauline. SRL

"When faced with a threat, living things move to the edge of chaos." - Todd Gentzel

 

 

Acolades

Last week I found out I won the 1st place prize from the Association of Professional Futurists for my paper on The Human Problem, where I unpacked and described how to solve every human created problem we have today. 

I wrote the paper when I was in a dark place. My mother had died a few weeks prior and I had lost faith in almost everything. I was suicidal, I was stuck in rainy Portland. The problems of the world meant nothing to me. Caring for nothing in myself or the world, with detachment and death by my side I plunged in. I rarely work half-assed. I'll share with you my opening paragraphs. 

When I sat down to think about the big questions or problems in the world I could not find a big problem worthy of attention. The questions and problems that keep my mind occupied are ones about human consciousness, awareness, identity and the evolution of these concepts. These are ideas that most people do not find to be particularly important. So I went on a quick search to find what other people thought were the big burning questions of our age. 

A survey of three lists of big wicked world problems resulted in the following common set of problems:

• Pollution
• Limited Resources (especially water and energy/oil)
• Various Crisis (Economic, Environmental)
• Global Warming
• Rising Population

I pondered on these big problems. They are truly problems we must face. But why were they problems in the first place. How did they become problems? It’s not like we, as a human species, set out to destroy the environment, use all the resources available and engage in destructive activities to bring about crisis. 

Writing this paper changed my attitude. I entered the writing process from a dark place. I finished with my optimism renewed. In the journey, I uncovered many societal beliefs and unserving myths. And the change has already begun. A ripple effect of positivity coming from a dark part of despair. Blossoming into the changing of the world.

 I am happy the paper won 1st place. Thank you Association of Professional Futurists!

The High Cost of Dreams

I'm heading to Houston for some grad school stuff. I delayed booking my hotel because I assumed the University hotel would be empty during summer. Not so.

Now, I wouldn't take no for an answer. I know hotels always have a few rooms, so I went to work. But before I started, I executed my backup plan. Then I called one of my favorite credit cards: American Express.

I love American Express. So I decided to see what they could do. I called them up, explained my situation, told them what I wanted and asked them to wave their magic wand. And wave their magic wand they did. They found those rooms I knew the hotel had (and that Hilton Reservations denied). But here's the thing, the cost was high. 35% higher than my backup. And the room, while unique, was not, in my mind worth it.

I was sad. All this work. Breaking through the barriers. Finding the rooms I knew were there. Only to turn it down in the end.

Jacaranda Phase Shift

Nine years ago I took a chance. I followed my heart. I packed my things in my car. I stopped for one last coffee at my favorite cafe and I drove south. To dream a new dream. It's the time of year I remember that journey. I remember the start of the adventure. I remember trusting myself following the whisper of a dream. The destination opening a whole new playing field - my most beloved city, full of adventure and possibilities.

So much has happened. Many adventures. I've created, lived the life I wanted. I still do. 

I've been thinking a lot about the way I was at that time. The trust I had in the universe. The trust I had in myself. To take off in a direction, because that's where I felt the pull, because that's where the path with heart lead. Despite my logical brain saying, "that's crazy." Despite knowing where things would lead, where I would go, who I could become. Trusting strongly. Dreaming Big. Fishing for David Lynch's transcendental big fish.

It's phase shift time. A magical moment in my year where the realization of my dreams are closer to the surface. An invocation, an homage, a tribute to that day: Phase shift June 6. 

 

Dreams in the Dirt

This past week I returned to a hometown. It's not the place I was born. It's not the place I lived the longest. It's fairly unknown to the rest of the world. It's only one of the most defining places of myself, my identity, my history, my family. It is the remnants of a booming pioneer town on the Des Moines River in Southeast Iowa. The area is named after an Indian Warrior - Chief Wa Pe Lo. This town on the River is called Ottumwa. 

The land in Ottumwa and environs is fecund. In May it bursts with green leaves, fragil shoots, birds swooping, Canadian Geese resting in the many waterways and much much more. Deer bounding across the two laners. The humid air makes my heart blossom, open - amongst all this beauty, I have much pain.

I consciously chose my entry point. I flew into Kansas City - another city of personal meaning. I visited my childhood home in Gladstone - happy and unhappy times - before starting a route I knew (and hated) well. 35 N to 34 E. A route filled with anxiety, fear, unhappiness, unfulfilled dreams. But here I am, 20 years later, my own rental car, an independent, successful adult. I have to come to reclaim.

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I drive the gravel roads out to Cliffland and park on the bridge. I remember when Lady Knight (my California Saab) and I were last here. I watch the muddy river flow. I don't think about jumping off this bridge. I watch the water flow. I think about this place. This area. Where I buried so much hurt. Where I talked to the person I am today. Where I inspired myself to be what I have become. Where I saved myself. Was my own hero. My own Gully Foyle.

There are two places I must visit. Old places. Places I promised a return decades ago. I park. I take my fancy Spanish Desigual purse filled with water and wear my hand made in Portugal Fluevogs and go into the forest. A forest that welcomes me back with lush Jack in the Pulpits, Iowa Wild Roses, wildflowers, lush green underbrush. The path is well worn. Muddy. I remember these paths, I remember my many solo hikes. These gentle and rolling forests saved my life so many times. They feed me today too.

Mossy rock. An opening in the earth. The sound of water over rock. Falling through air. The air is moist. Sunlight filters through the leaves. I stand in the silence. I connect to this place. I connect to the past. I connect to possible futures. These threads extend from my present moment - a place in this reality, my physical feet grounded in the cool depth of this cave.

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I'm standing on the other side. I'm on top. Watching the water fall over the edge. I look to the path. I go deeper into the forest. The edge of a field. The top of a hill. I have found what I was looking for. 

The Cemetery has no name. The dates are well worn and date 100 years to the past. The earth has sunken in where the bodies have decayed. Peonies and Iris thrive and bloom. Calf high grass and miner's lettuce fills the sunny places. I stand in a circle of three sets of pine pairs. I talk to the dead. I ask them questions. Their answers come from the intertwined tree branches. Wind blows through them. I share these moments in time. In the stillness of this Pioneer Cemetery. I promise to return again this fall. 

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These dreams in the dirt. This old hurt. These fears. Insecurities. Stirred up like the dust on the gravel roads I speed down. 

I think of these things: the fear, my desires with the core of my being, my failed attempts to create that reality. And I make a decision right here on this bridge over the Des Moines River. Where I stand. My unsatisfied, unfulfilled dreams/goals, my heart full of fear and uncertainty - I anchor these things to 1/4 of an analogy. Their corresponding comparison pair is where I was in my life 20 years ago with where I am now, what I have accomplished, who I have become. I see the bookend of the analogy - no fear, a promise, my heart content and overflowing with love. 

I plant the seeds for this dream, deep into the fecund Iowa dirt.

Living in the City

I'm driving my city streets. Visiting old neighborhoods. The Past. The Future. A building, branching, exploring the new, next to the known. It's great to be visiting these places. The neighborhoods change while staying the same. I'm different and the same too. 

I've missed living in my city.

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Franklin to Hyperion to Atwater. Shakespeare Bridge. The secret backroads have turned into bicycle share streets. I put my top down, breathe the air and play loud music. The bridges, the hills. I've missed this commute. I've missed the east side - despite it's hipster gentrification. I remember the dreams I had over here. I remember living in the Future with Gloria. (The Future was a house on Future street.) A Future in the past. 

A party a few weeks ago took me back to the Future neighborhood. It was 3 blocks away. I almost wanted to visit it, walk up the hill to three stumps, the old dog walk route. But I've got a new future unfurling each present moment these days.

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From one meeting to another I navigate the web of freeways. The 134 to the 2 to the 5 to the 10. Speeding further east. I weave between cars and take exit only off ramps that lead to no exit; but to another freeway. Each road leading to another, and another, and eventually the roads lead home.

Back in the glitter and grit of Hollywood, I drive Sunset Blvd. My life is a dream. A reality of my creation - sustained. Well-worn grooves: Fountain, La Cienga, Sunset, Santa Monica, La Brea, Melrose, Highland. My tires on these roads, my hand on the stick shift, breathing the air, the power in this place. Power I refine and return in abundant multi-fold. 

Building to Burn

Earlier today I was telling my friend Liz about building art for Burning Man. I described how the creation process feels different when you build something you know you will destroy. As we talked, I told her the story of building (and burning) my unicorns. I remembered how I felt building them. I sucked at building them. It was a lot of work and I had to try multiple times. I persevered. Only in the end to strap explosives and fireworks to the wood frames, douse in gasoline and give to the fire. 

I stopped a beat while telling her the story. This concept, building something up to burn it down, came down on my head like a frying pan epiphany. Of course! 

I was reminded of the paradox of peeling the onion when Shane Carruth did his director Q&A for Upstream Color. He asked, "When you peel back the layers of the onion, what do you have left?"

That's the problem with the onion. The obvious thought is that you are peeling each layer of the onion to get to the core of the onion. And there's another layer below it, until there is no more onion left to peel.

The answer is a simple, yet profound shift of thinking. The layers are the onion.

It comes down to Perception

I find it hard to believe in an objective truth - although I'm sure there's one out there. I don't know that I (or anyone) has the ability to see the objectivity (even math, physics and science comes from a perspective). Because we see things from where we are standing. That's our perspective. 

Two people can experience/see the same thing, and yet take away different experiences - based on their perception of the situation/person. It's true that perception can be changed. Shifted. In an instant. Like a lightswitch (my recent favorite metaphor).

You don't change what you're seeing/observing - you change how you see it. And this in turn changes the world - what is there - what is possible. So it's really up to you and your perception. And it doesn't necessarily really matter what you are perceiving. 

The Experience of a Transaction at Tedx Zwolle

My Tedx Zwolle talk went online, so if you're were not able to attend in person, you can watch it online. I hope you enjoy my latest presentation on the changes happening to our financial system. Enjoy!

 

Amsterdam, Trust and the Tao

I've been in Europe for about a week now. I came over to talk at TedxZwolle. I'll talk about my fantastic experience there in another post soon, but for now, I want to write about a thing rolling around in my head.

My heart has been so broken. My trust broken too.  Felt like a big dream was not just impossible - but impossible not against the odds. It didn't work. I couldn't wrap my head around the possibility of impossible despite efforts. The will is exhausted and the way is blocked. There is nothing I can do, but acquiesce and move on with my life. A train pulling away from another, building speed, along a different track. 

So this hurt, I'm trying to make sense of. Trying to rebuild my life, my sense of self, my identity. Heal my wounds. Jettison baggage. The idea of having to date again is soul crushing. I don't think about it. This is my time. Time to do. Time to be.

This last week, flying to Europe, walking around London, Amsterdam, Zwolle. Taking the trains. Staying in people's homes, an occasional hotel. I put myself out there again. I decide, with the switch of a light switch, to trust again. These people have not hurt me. I can't hold the hurt others have given to me against them. So I trust. Why not?

Trust returns. Pain fades. Amazing opportunities, exciting syncronicities appear. My train gains speed.

To the point of epiphany today, here in this city. Where I am reminded I am the universe. If I am the universe, then my pain is the universe's pain. And the universe is also the "cure". So I walk these streets, gazing at the tall canal houses. I lose myself to re/create myself. I mirror the Tao to create the world I dream and give it back to the Tao. I enter the Tao, one with it as the Tao, and change it, by acquiescing to my dream, becoming the world. All I have to do is align with the Tao. And here in these city streets today, I have begun.

Speaking at TedxZwolle

I'm pleased to announce I am speaking at the Tedx event in Zwolle next month! I will be talking about the Future of Transactions and Shopping.

I'm revamping and cherry picking the best from previous presentations and sharing new themes from recent research. Most recently I have been working on the ideas around solving all the world's most difficult problems (no kidding!) and I am weaving these concepts in to my talk. This will be the first time these ideas are shared outside of a small group. I'm very excited - and I hope you are left inspired and positive about future possibilities. 

If you're in Amsterdam Area March 9-14 - let please meet up! 

Announcing: The Future of Transaction Survey, Year 3

As our economy and technology evolve, the Annual Future of Transactions Survey tracks the way we spend money and the types of money we spend, including questions about Bitcoin, Mobile Payments, virtual and alternative currencies. 

The 2011 and 2012 results were analyzed and thanks to the financial support of Innotribe, produced into two short video scenarios depicting how we will buy and sell in the future, “Flowers for Grandma” and “Fly Me to the Moon,” which was nominated for Most Significant Futures Work of 2012 by the Association of Professional Futurists. Data from the surveys was shared with audiences at SxSW, Web 2.0, Future of Money Summit, and the Digital Money Forum. 

Click here to participate in the Third Annual Future of Transactions Survey! 

The results will be available later this year, and will be combined with the data from the 2011 and 2012 surveys to track the emerging trends in our transaction behaviors.

Dolphins

This morning I had to run a long delayed errand out in Venice. It was a great excuse to put the convertible down and enjoy the beautiful LA weather. Since I was out there, I called up a great friend and we walked down to the beach for coffee. 

We're catching up, sharing dreams for the coming year while sitting just beyond the hide tide mark watching the ocean. Directly in front of us, I notice dolphins among the waves. We watch them jumping into the air, high jumps, low jumps. Soon pelicans flock to the same spot - pausing and diving into the water. We speculate they must be feeding. We watch the dolphins. They stay in our view for 30 minutes or more. It's a fantastic sight. Inspiring. After a particularly spectacular series of jumps I exclaim, pointing to the dolphins, "I want my year to be exactly like that!"

I'm less inclined to create a laundry list of goals and achievements and blah for 2013. Bring magic. Bring synchronicity. Bring joy. Bring happiness. Bring adventure. Bring awe-some projects. Bring renewal. Bring abundance. Bring balance and a bit more stability (but not too much!).

Inspired by this morning's show, I invoke you, Dolphin, to be my power animal for 2013.

2012 Recap by numbers

I just finished my 2012 goals/practices recap. 2012 was a very ambitious year. I had 77 different goals and practices. 2012 was also the shittiest year of my life so far. I took a huge risk professionally and while I have a list of moderate successes (none included in the numbers below, those were a different set of goals), I endured trauma. One risk was leaving my stable ground of Los Angeles. I leveled up, but I didn't play the game by traditional rules. Adding insult to injury, I endured collateral damage at home. While regaining a small footing, the biggest blow came. It wasn't unexpected, and the timing wasn't the absolute worst; but it's not like I needed another thing to be angry about. Things got bad. Very bad. But then I remembered, I have nothing left to lose. So it's back to being who I am, and creating, living, dreaming and manifesting my life. As soon as I could, I went on the road to see the American Lands. The open road and the long timescale of earth's land masses calms me. Gives me perspective. I'm here in Utah, a tilted prehistoric lake, I am finally ready to put 2012 behind me.

But before I do, let's recap the numbers. I had 77 "goals" and "practices" in my yearly mindmap. Of those:

• 51% were Achieved (27%) or Practiced (24%)
• 16% are In Progress (and with positive upward trajectory)
• 10% were Interrupted
• 17% were Not Achieved 
• 6% were Not Applicable

Removing the interrupted and not applicable items, and considering the In Progress ones as successes, that's an 80% success rate. 80% of 64 items came to positive conclusions.

Not too bad.

Especially considering it being the year it was.

Thank you 2012. You gave me  the opportunity to learn lots of new things. You knocked me down and you landed multiple blows. But, I am stronger and wiser.

Eulogy for Mom

Tomorrow morning, I have to give an eulogy for mom. What the hell do I say? What can I say? Given a choice, I'd rather drink this bottle of Malbec and stress about my lack of funeral clothes. So, here goes, old blog. Let's get to writing. 

Hi everyone. I want to thank you for coming out today to celebrate the life of my mom, Pamela. 

I don't need to tell you what an energetic, thoughtful, friendly, person she was. We all know that from her actions. So I thought I'd share some stories about her. I was reminded of these stories going through her things and coming across some photos of our travels together.

Growing up, it was really cool to be her daughter. I knew it was special, but I didn't realize how special it was until much later, that mom enabled me to experience the world and many different cultures so early in life. My parents often talked about their time in Italy. I always had an awareness of the world that was larger than the small town I grew up in; especially thanks to the Italian Globe Bar in the library. Mom introduced me to many high cultural tastes like sparkling water, which I have come to live off of. Pasta was always spaghetti carbonara (never with red sauce or peas). And desert wasn't worth mentioning unless it was chocolate mousse. With mom, it wasn't the world on a shoestring - it was the glamorous life, even if we were at home. I remember jars of Nutella from Europe in the pantry and once my brother and I woke up to a a live lobster in the crisper! Which we later cooked with great celebration.

When I was 14, mom took me to Egypt. This was a dream trip and I look back on it as one of the highlights of my life. During the two week trip, mom would keep me behaving properly by joking that she might sell me to the many men who attempted to buy me. I understood I was traveling in a more primitive culture so I was never worried, plus there was no way mom could transport 50k camels back to Missouri!

I was an old hat at International First Class travel. While most of my trips were domestic, I would stand in the international terminal in St. Louis and dream of exotic locations. All free thanks to mom's air passes. 

Later, I took a trip Istanbul with mom and my grandmother in the nose of a 747. We flew first class of course. You could still smoke on airplanes back then. A famous pop star sat a few rows ahead of us. I recognized him (he was from Milli Vanilli) and joked to mom about going to talk to him. Mom replied back, seriously, you should interview him for your school newspaper. I shrugged off the idea, saying I'd do it after take off. We had a 6+ hour flight from JFK to Paris, but mom wouldn't let me forget. I rallyed my courage and talked to him. Eventually his manager and me swapped spots and we spent a few hours chatting as we crossed the Atlantic. 

Experiencing these diverse cultures at an early age gave me a larger view of the world. It has made me who I am. I'm thankful for these world experiences. 

I wasn't one of these kids that hid things from their parents. (This was impossible anyway.) It was difficult to surprise her no matter how hard I tried!  However, the reverse was not true. One evening we were sitting on our beds in a shared hotel room. I was playing with my computer, when from mom's side came the sound of America The Beautiful on Harmonica. I stopped everything I was doing as my jaw dropped. I thought, when did mom start playing the Harmonica!!! She still had the ability to surprise me. I thought it was so cool that she played Harmonica. She then told me about her harmonica trio. I was so excited to be surprised by her! I know playing harmonica gave her great joy.

Most of all, mom taught me I could do anything. It wasn't an explicit lesson. I saw mom do all kinds of things, so naturally I went ahead and did them too - and a lot more. I didn't realize not everyone had a mom like her. To this day, I do what I want, I am who I am because I can be and that's because mom always supported me. She never held me back (except for that one time she wouldn't let me go to debate camp). She was my biggest supporter - and while I never did anything for her approval - I didn't have too - knowing she was proud of me in my achievements meant a lot, especially my speaking and career successes.

I remember when mom told me about her cancer. Back in 2009 I asked for a miracle. I wanted her to have a few more years. There were many things she still wanted to accomplish, do, see. Mostly to see Aedyn grow up. I think she used her time well. She wrote a book and became an educational advocate for ovarian cancer. Still, we all wish she was still with us today.

I have more stories of mom, as I'm sure you all do, but I won't keep you here all day. While the physical form we called Pam, or mom is no longer with us, I don't think she's gone. I have a version of her up here - with me at all times. We all do. I know I can always talk to that person. It's a shadow of the real person we knew and will miss. But inside us, she lives on. And for now, that's the best we can ask for.

PDX Closings

It's the hardest part of the marathon. I'm past the mid-point, but do not see the finish line. 

This morning, I am in the center of chaos. A chaos of my making. A pre-requisite of the new order. It's not a choice. The path is often messy. Chaos does not scare me. Nor order. I pull both sets of strings.

Clothes are out of drawers, closets. Surfaces are covered with items to be sorted. To be distributed. A life unraveling. Threads of a story, unwoven, extracted, to be threaded into other stories, lives. Some known, some unknown.

There is no end. There is no beginning. Except there are.  Bookends.

And while all this ending/beginning is occurring in this space, all around me is the world. Cars driving across the bridge. A ship being built. The river keeps flowing. Eating. Sleeping. Breathing. 

It's more chopping wood, carrying water.

A 10 to the 9

I'm at 30k feet. Looking at the window. For some reason, my mood always lifts when I'm in an airplane. It's the traveling I guess. Anyway, I'm starting down at the snow capped Sierras, Tahoe, Mono Lake, then Pyramid. Farther east I know is the playa. Then it's the cascades.

But my mind is elsewhere.

I'm thinking about Saturday. Santacon. I look at the pictures. I see things I missed. I was behind the scenes a lot this year. I feel like I missed out. At least I did the mosh pit. That was a sight, Santa Punk Band, Santa Mosh Pit. And the teenage punk Heather couldn't hold back. I jumped right in. I didn't stop the person lighting fire on the dancefloor. I just thought, damn, we're going to get kicked out.

I take a lot of shit for that event. Fucking anti-authority trolls. It used to irritate me. Now, it's a badge of honor.  They don't get it. I accept them into my integral paradigm. Raging against me as an authority figure is a fucking joke. These are my misfit children. They have to hate me.

Who was it that inspired this in me? Easy answer: Patron Saint Cacophony: Michael Mikel aka Danger Ranger. 

I am one of his 10 to the 9. 

10 to the 9 is a phrase Singularity University uses to talk about impacting 1 billion people. That sounds like a daunting task, but it's not really.You have to impact 10 people, who each impact 10 more people out to 9 exponential powers.

I'm thinking about the many emails I get each year; thinking about the photos (and experiences I personally missed) this year. I'm wondering if the guy sitting next to me was there wearing a Santa suit. Then I wonder if the flight attendant was. I imagine my fear of public speaking melting away as I imagine my audience wearing a variety of Santa suits. I remember my late night conversations in Boardners. The creativity people expressed in their holiday costumes.

And here it is. One of my own 10 to the 9s.

I don't even know who I impersonally impacted. And many don't even know it's me holding this moving temporary autonomous zone for Santa's Cacophony. And that's ok. Because I know by the mere fact of it existing - me helping it exist - the world has changed.

Quiet in the Morning

The sounds of the morning resemble that Pink Floyd song. An English Breakfast or something like that. Loud clicking clock in the kitchen. Sounds of making coffee. Striking the match. Pouring the water. Sitting in my living room, sunlight streaming through the window. Dog silently sleeping. My gaze wanders from spot to spot. Thoughts arise in my mind. Thoughts like ambient melodies. Fading in and then out. I breathe. I drink my coffee. I am relaxed. It's been a long time since I've woken up feeling this way. Feeling my normal usual self. It's all I want to do. To sit in the silence of my room. Morning sunlight. Drinking coffee. All quiet. No desire to put my wants and hopes and dreams on the day. Only to see what may become.

Mist in the Night

It's a Northwest day. We don't have many of these in Los Angeles. They are nice. Misting all night, maybe a light pitter patter. The sidewalks show their many shades of grey. The sky reflects these like a mirror. 

Moisture makes the pavement absorb what light filters through the mist. I zip through Hollywood traffic to the Valley, returning back via Laurel Canyon. As I'm driving home through these iconic hills, I watch my speed. It's new asphalt, black and gleaming and just aches for dancing up the gears. But I know the cops watch this, so I keep it purring softly. I glide through the turns, pairs of white lights snaking down the other side. 

I crest the top and we coast into the valley, mist rising out of the darkness. 

I can't help but think, this is the city I love. These dark, misty nights, streets black with moisture, my hand on the stick, safe in the grid.

Climate Change = Good?!

This is a quick blog post following up my tweet here. 

It might seem like a radical perspective, but what I'm really doing is challenging our traditional view. Before I turn the view upside down, what do I understand that traditional view to be?

• Global warming is BAD (for humans, the environment, life)
• That we (humans) caused it.
• There's a sense of guilt (the elephant in the room) around the topic of global warming and climate change.
• There's a sense of urgency, as if we don't do something immediately, all is lost.
• There's this (stupid red herring) argument about whether climate change is actually happening, whether scientists evidence is valid. 
• Values and beliefs are drug into this debate as well - it's science vs religion in the boxing ring.
• Global warming will kill the earth

For the record, I am comfortable with the scientific evidence showing a warming earth; but I really don't care.

Why?

Because I take a very long term view. (Longer than the Long Now Foundation.)

We see this problem only from a human/known life/so called earth/global view. 

I think it's a little audacious to think us puny humans are going to do something so dramatic as to KILL THE EARTH?!?! Now, what global warming may do is make the environment inhabitable for human and other current life as we know it.  (Past science shows our climate has not always been hospitable for the kind of life that exists today.)

But in the scheme of the universe - a universal timescale - maybe we puny humans are a mere blip. Who really cares whether we live or die? (Except us.) I don't have the kind of preciousness or urgency around this topic.

I don't have much love for the human species, even being part of it, so I frankly don't care whether we live or die.  When I bubble this thinking up to life in general, I take a stronger interest. I would be seriously bummed if all life went away, ceased to exist - but that's going to happen at some point anyway, so why cry about a certain possibility? (OK, you're right, it's not a certain possibility.) The bummer for me about all life as we know it ceasing - is that then life has to start over from scratch again to do whatever it's unfolding itself to do. But life has a lot of time to develop itself, so what do I know as a puny human blip.

In my mind, the only reason global warming is a potential problem is that it might wipe out all life. 

But I don't actually think that is a real possibility. 

It's because life is resilient. Sure, the environment might shift so that lots of living things die. Bummer for those things. But life will continue on, in some form. It will evolve. Who knows to what?! Maybe something more awesome-better-creative-cool-new.

So now that you know where I stand, I'll share my flipped view of global warming. 

I was reading/watching this article/video, sent to the WFSF (World Futures Studies Federation) listserv. It's going on and on about the very real problems of permafrost melting, glaciers melting and how this is a reinforcing feedback loop to increase warming. I totally get it. It's a big problem if you want the world to stay the same. 

Watching this, fresh in my mind is a presentation/paper I wrote about BIG PROBLEMS FACING HUMANITY. The usual suspects: global warming, resource limits. 

And all I could think watching that video was - AWESOME - more fresh water (solve your fresh water problem - lots of fresh pure melting ice caps!) and more land mass (manifest destiny Antarctica!). I could see, that rather than cold, white caps, verdant green fields of farms and towns. It's not that far-fetched! Forget about Mars, Antarctica is right here.

Hell, we might even find something crazy and mindboggling in the melting ice! Things revealed that we might never know if we hadn't turned on the global hairdryer. Where are the scientists and entrepreneurs to catch this fresh water melt off before it goes into the ocean? Opportunities!

Now, as I said in the first sentence, I know this is a radical perspective. I don't actually think anyone would back it up. And I'm not saying that we should stop doing anything to reduce our impact on the climate. But I am asking us to challenge our usual thinking.

We look at this situation as if we (humans) are separate from climate. We're two sides of the same coin. The (previous) climate contributed to the creation of us, just as we changed the climate. 

I'm saying, shake up your thinking! Get out of your usual paradigms of thinking.

Cool Night

I've spent the day cooking. The house smells like simmering black bean chili. Spicy. Warm. The dog is sticking close to me, giving me his doggy eyes. None for you tonight little beggar. 

I made the decision to cheer the fuck up today. Enough of the doom and gloom and anger and frustration and going over the unfairness of it all in my mind. Hey - I don't live in those realities anymore. That's the past, biotches. Let it go. Never have to interact with those people again, so quit going back.

It got pretty bad. (I'm sure it will get bad again.) It didn't help that I got the triple, 1-2-3 punch. All while shifting my stability to a new paradigm. I wanted to finish my commitment, then disengage to heal the massive trauma I had sustained. Only that was when the biggest blow was delivered. Yeah, it took the heathervescent down. Down into some really dark places. It's a miracle I'm here. In some realities, I am no longer experiencing time/space. I had completed all I was to do. But that is not this one. Blood remains flowing in my veins.

You know what world, don't make me go through that fucking shit again - at least not without an army behind me. OK? Got it? I'll do a lot of crappy work, and I'll persevere, but don't put me in a situation were so called allies stab me in the fucking back and sabotage my work, ok. And while I'm dictating to you the future I will no longer tolerate - no bullshit politics either. I know you're eating their souls for dinner, but you know, I'd really prefer to not interact with them. Life is too short to weigh myself down. We got a lot to do here and I'm not the one staying home watching Roku looking for a comfortable life. Strengths Finder remember. I'm here to kick ass. Not play political games and live a comfortable life.

But enough about that. I was really writing to you, to tell you of the sight in the sky.

Mr Dog and I went out for the evening walk. It's winter in Los Angeles. Cool. Means I have to wear a jacket. The air is moist - cool like the marine layer. Overcast sky, just a few clouds twinkling through. 

The full moon rises through the illuminated slate grey sky. I love a full misty Los Angeles Moon. Silhouetted Palm Trees. A slight breeze. Twinkling. I made out a moving grey image in the sky. A slight flashing. It was the blimp. It floated like a gentle beast in the air. Grey on grey illuminated by misted moonlight. Helicopters flashed their red and white lights; complimenting the stars that poked through the night clouds. 

There are others walking at night. I am one of them. One of many living in this city of dreams. Breathing in this air. Walking these streets. I need no validation to be here. This is my city. We feed each other. We are one exploring this reality, what could be and what will never become.

On these misty nights, I am reminded of the veil of this city. It you are loyal or even if you are lucky, you will see through the veil, the ocean mist, the overcast moonlit night - and you will see dreams. And if you are skilled, you can pull that dream possibility back with you, as you walk along the street with your dog, and you can make it real.

Flowers for Grandma

Flowers for Grandma shows an emerging concept called Intentcasting, spearheaded by Doc Searls. Lots of information on his site at Harvard. The idea is a paradigm reverse that enables shoppers to request fulfillment. Retailers respond to the request. As shown in the video, a 5 second request results in 12 responses. 

Watch.

 

There are a few things I'd like to draw attention to. While the main focus of the short is on Intentcasting, several other concepts are braided into this design future. 

• Transparent screens: This is more and more becoming a reality. h/t to Sam, my technical advisor for these product designs.
• System Currencies: The intentcasting application (Syncbidz) uses it's own currency.
• Computer as Transaction device: I used the same SecureCoin from Fly Me to the Moon, integrated into the hardware. It's no secret the SecureCoin is based off Bitcoin, backed by a central transaction infrastructure.
• Voice recognition: The voice recognition was inspired with Windows Live Mobile - an application the predated Siri by at least 2 years. The APIs for voice activated commands exists.
• Seamless sharing: While merely touched upon, specific pieces of data can be share with pre-authorized devices. It's an invisible example of the internet of things + digital asset grid control management with real time changing data.
• Beautiful mobile connective hardware: In both, Fly Me and Flowers, the physical objects that interact with the technology infrastructure must be beautiful from a traditional aesthetic. That smart bracelet is also pure silver. From a personal perspective, I'm not interested in using a bluetooth device until it looks like a beautiful piece of jewelry. I am not interested in looking from Star Trek. 
• Video Cards: This idea came from a conversation with my Technical Advisor, Sam. As video cameras and screens become more flexible and disposable, it's going to be easier than ever to send a video card. 
• Finally, and in my mind, most importantly, this shows a future with the customer/individual in control of their data. The world of the digital data transfer (which is shown in Slices of Life) is hidden and we see only the user experience. It's a positive, delightful, happy experience. There is no fear about who is using or mis-using personal data. 

The technology to make this vision real already exists.

If you're interested in the inspiration for this short, it's from my real life. I really send my grandmother flowers each month. Because that's the kind of world I want to live in.

--

Updates: Rob's Hummingbird comment reminded me to share the shooting story behind it's cameo. It was a Sunday morning about a year ago, and we were shooting at the house. There were these two hummingbirds that would not leave us along. Over and over they would zip around the crew. One was particularly bold. He dive bombed up several times. We kept rolling, something wrong with each take (a shifting overcast Los Angeles sky). Finally, the lighting was perfect and we rolled. It was during this take, Mr Bold Hummingbird zipped into the frame and paused right in front of the camera for more than a split second. I was watching from the porch and my heart almost jumped out of my chest. 

There's also an inside joke for a certain Internet Identity community. ;)

Granny Punk

Granny Punk is a style term I use to describe my living style.

When I think about the term Granny Punk, I think of my grandmother. She's the Granny part, what I bring is the punk part. Taking her style, mixing it with my modern edgy things equals my most comfortable style.

Classic glasses, tea sets, silver ware. Home cooked food. Bakery items. Home-Made.  Time to prepare. Comfort. Traditionally Edgy. Black lace, white doilies. Classic glamor. Champagne. The good life. It's not giving a fuck. Loving my mish-mash of style. My Clockwork Orange print alongside grandma's antique carved table and my classic purple velvet sofa. Cocktail glasses from the 20s, 50s, 70s. A cut glass candy dish. A bouquet of roses. A nice cheese plate. Comfort and style. No girdle required. You don't have to worry about looking young and skinny with no wrinkles. You've lived through life - and it hasn't always been easy - but you survived and you have stories and knick knacks and that batik from Africa along with the horse from India. So come on into granny's house, except this granny is under 40 and her children don't speak english and wear fur.

Desert Winds

My city lights twinkled like the universe below me. I grabbed my bag from the overhead compartment. The smell of the city, of Los Angeles' moist cool jetfuel tinged air curled into my nostrils and my lips curled into a smile of pleasure. The sound of fine shoes echo through LAX's underground tunnel to baggage claim.

The wind whipping the palm trees on my street. Rustling the palm fronds. Clear night like the blackness of the desert. The wind swirls around me as I walk Mr Dog in this misplaced desert night blowing through this city. I think, smiling, if you can't go to the desert, the desert comes to you. I am thankful for these strong, cold, clear Santa Ana winds. 

At night, I bundle from their chill, remembering times around a sole flickering campfire. During the day, I strip down to t-shirts and hike the heat warmed creosote chaparral. Sweet dust desolation. 

I think of empty Mountain Ranges. Full fat moons rising in a pink sky. Black and white lunar surfaces of rock. Hot black cracked pavement. These memories evoked by these swirling winds of the desert. Penetrating my heart, finding the pain, drying it's wet bloody crying to dust, blowing from my heart to join with dust in these Santa Monica Mountains, the San Gabriels and beyond.

Possible, Plausible, Probable

These are three terms that are used often by futurists. I recently reviewed a lovely paper by Ruud van der Helm, that looked at the difference between these three terms. 

Enjoy.

Towards a clarification of terms from heathervescent

Breakfast in Bed

As I've mentioned, Mom was a flight attendant. That meant she was gone from home a lot, but home a lot too. One of my favorite things to do was to make her breakfast in bed. On a Saturday morning, my brother and I would get up early and Mom would still be sleeping. (She might have gotten home late at night or maybe at 6am that morning.)

I'd enlist my brother in the kitchen to help. Mom had this great wicker bed table and I would lay a full First Class breakfast for her complete with linens, multiple pieces of silverware for the courses and a fresh rose from the garden. The menu was usually some melon, scrambled cheese eggs (a family favorite), maybe a piece of bacon or sausage, some toast or a fresh scratch baked biscuit. (I was quite a cook back then - as I am now.)

We'd open the curtains. I might have gotten my brother to take the tray into mom and we'd jump into bed with her with our own plates. I always made too much food for her. In retrospect she was probably pretty jetlagged.  But who can complain when your two blonde kids come in with a full breakfast tray. We were happy to see her.

Chad and I found that wicker breakfast tray in her garage a few weeks ago. I pulled it down and talked about it. He didn't want it, so that's one thing that's coming back to LA with me. 

It's a bittersweet memory for me. It's one of the things I did for my mom, because I wanted her to have that experience. Partly I wanted her to give her that experience, because that was the experience I myself wanted to have. It's going to be a bittersweet memory, because if I want that tray filled with breakfast again. I will probably have to do it. Instead of the experience of receiving it.

 

 

My Grieving Rules of Engagement

As I am dealing with my mom's death

• I may not always act at my best. But I am always trying to do my best.
• I will not accept personal or judgemental attacks on my behavior, even if I am not acting my best.
• I will not accept personal attacks on taking time to take care of myself.
• I will give myself as much time as needed to deal with the death of my mom and her estate.
• I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are doing your best, and not judge or attack you for your behavior.
• I will protect myself when I am attacked.
• I will have compassion and empathy to the best of my ability.

I am doing the best I can, honoring my human form, my emotions, dealing with this difficult time. I ask for care, kindness and compassion. 

I refuse to go through the grieving process isolated and alone. I refuse to bottle up my emotions. I refuse to bury my sadness in work and other distractions. I refuse to pretend that I can take on and solve everything. 

I know through time, space, compassion and attention I will come through this grief recovery process with the wonderful memories of my mom, with her estate wrapped up in a teal bow and with closure for her amazing life.

Death Ramblings

(This post was written on Oct 18)

I was on Highland when I got the call from my brother. I was driving to Hollywood, to kick off the first Los Angeles Ignite at CineSpace (several years ago). I knew something was up. My brother and I weren't really talking to each other much at the time. I wondered who died. It was my Grandfather - Poppa Schlegel - the Patriarch of the Family. I pulled over to the side of the road before I answered the call.

Twenty minutes later, I was at the venue. My phone rang again. It was my Dad. I stepped into an empty closed back room and talked for 10 minutes. My Dad told me how Poppa died. We talked. And then I had to get off the phone, take a deep breath, and get up on stage and introduce the evening. And laugh and smooze and stuff. 

I did it. 

Part of me did it to see if I could do it. If I could segment the news of the passing of the family patriarch and go on with the show (called life). 

I had my moments of mourning later. I went back to my hometown, to the Church, to bury Poppa in the cemetery I spend so many teenage goth years hanging out in, a few blocks from his house.

----

I'm reminded of this. I'm reminded of Poppa's death. I've been in Portland for much of this week. My mom is dying. 

It is amazing how stripped down things get. How things boil down to their essence. My schoolwork, goes undone. I have, against all odds, produced the most amazing third film I have the honor to work on. I applaud the team I hired. I applaud what we have created together. It has been a nice distraction.

----

The veil is thin. 

I can already see her going.

I am thankful she is not in pain. I am in awe at the woman she is - the woman who is not my mother. The woman all these people know. I only knew her as my mother. But she stands as an amazing individual on her own. And I think about this. I think about this fabulous person who is my mother. Who had so many challenges in her life, and faced all of them, mostly alone, a single woman.

I'm sitting here in her guest room, finally having a view of her, as she is. Not wearing the mom glasses. Not doing the nitpicky things like telling me to stand up straight or stop biting my finger nails, but as the woman who travel around the world, who had great friends, who enchanted men all over the world and ended up being my mom in Kansas City, Missouri. 

I am honored to be her daughter.

Retro-causative grieving

Back in August, as I was preparing for my last trip to Europe, I had a premonition. I was driving around in my car, my beloved manual saab turbo and a weird thought popped into my head. I was going to get a new car. I thought, WTH, I don't need a new car. And besides I love this car. And then everywhere I looked, I saw my the same model my mom drives. And I felt, mom's going soon. I pushed the knowledge away.

As I was packing for the trip and talking with mom about it, I felt the knowledge again. That mom was going soon. Again, I pushed the knowledge away, after I briefly acknowledged it.

I didn't question it. I didn't deny it. I didn't tell anyone about it. I was dealing with enough shit in my life at the moment. Finishing up a film project I was proud of. Working through a crappy business situation, a disintegrating/bumpy romantic relationship all while keeping up a crazy travel schedule. I wanted to focus on the trip, finishing my commitments and exploring future possibilities.

Through all this, my emotional volatility increased. I chalked that up to my triple threat stress level. I couldn't stand my life. I almost ended it several times. I'd be fine one moment and the next, I'd flip out. While I am an intensely passionate individual, these emotional swings were exponential from any I previously experienced. Pretty much exactly what I am experiencing now that mom is gone.

About this time, I kept remembering this old boyfriend of mine. The last two weeks we were together, he was grieving for the loss of our relationship. I asked him about his behavior once, wondering why he was being like this now, before we broke up. (It was imminent that we were breaking up.) And he replied he was getting over it now, while we were still together, so he'd be done when we actually break up. Why did I keep remembering this?

There's this theory, called Retro-causality. Where the effects of an action are observed before the action occurs. Back in 2008, I attended a panel on the timing of conscious experience. This was the first time I heard about retrocausality and it was fascinating. And familiar. 

I've often had an uncanny ability to know just slightly what is coming next. My timing varies, sometimes it's seconds, other times months and more often than not - years. And despite my conscious attention to understand if these were just good guesses or what, I have no conclusion. However, I to support the hypothesis of retrocausality - always wondering how one might create an experiment to test it. Even myself individually. 

Despite being unconvinced of its existence from the scientific community, and myself at times; the only way I can explain my explosive emotional roller coaster the past few months, is with retro-causative grieving.

Dia de los Muertos

In honor of the Dia, I give you my alter-ego

and my first incarnation, from way back short blonde hair days

Why I lost my shit to Chase today

So Mom died a week and some change ago. She had two accounts with Chase (among many others). Many of these accounts refuse to give you any information unless you have a death certificate. In Oregon it takes about 2 weeks to get one. We got ours in 8 working days. 

I called most accounts the day or two after mom passed and notified them. Got the paperwork in motion, sent in the mail, while I waited for other things to move. Well, Chase, unlike EVERY OTHER ORGANIZATION I SPOKE WITH (and I spoke with 15+ of them) REQUIRED me to go into an ACTUAL BANK to speak to someone about mom's account. Well, I thought, there's no point talking to them until I have the Death Cert, so I waited until I had one. 

I was dreading going into a bank. I don't even remember the last time I did it. It was probably before the economic collapse. Anyway, today, after talking to the priest about mom's service and having a not so relaxing spa experience, I went in when I had a free hour before a dinner, thinking that I can at least get things started.

What ensued was that I waited to talk to a banker. Then when I told the banker what I was there for, he was not necessarily trained in all the death stuff. I had all the paperwork. We're dealing with both a trust and probate. I had statements and information about her accounts. I had information. I wanted to know my options. I wanted to know what could be done with the account.

What I got was a conversation with a middleman. Since my situation was complicated, and my dude (it wasn't his fault the company he works for has this situation) could not tell me anything about what to do himself. He had to call the legal department to find out the answer to every single question. After about an hour of this, and several calls, because every answer he gave me (telephoned from the legal team because I could not directly talk to them on the phone) caused me to ask an additional question, I was frustrated, but understood the fucked up system I had to deal with. I was about to walk out to report back to my brother and decide what we wanted to do.

Last item, I wanted to deposit a check that came to my mom into the account. It was for $207. 

Well, he said, after calling legal for like the 4th or 5th time, they couldn't do that now, because she was deceased. 

And I exploded. I'm not sure if I went full Angelino or New York Asshole, but I had it.

I was done with their fucking rules and bureaucracy.

I was trying to do the RIGHT THING - being deposit a check written out to my mom, BEFORE SHE DIED, into her account. 

But no.

They can't do that.

Instead, I have to request the check be written out to her estate.

And deposited into an estate account. (That doesn't exist yet, because I don't know big he estate is going to be filed as. And there's a snag in that, because they won't tell me how much is in her account, despite me being her daughter and beneficiary - to know at what size we have to file at for her estate.)

And guess who gets to do that legwork. 

And call the company to ask them to reissue the check?

Moi.

All because their bank can't take on the risk of the $207 check. READ THAT AGAIN. A $207 risk.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? 

And guess which fucking ivory tower legal team can only be talked to from a telephone puppet banker in a brick and mortar archaic bank?

I was so livid, I couldn't even think who I knew at JP Morgan to complain to. 

I know, they are NEVER GOING TO HAVE MY BUSINESS. And they shouldn't have your's either.

Really Chase, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Update on Mom, Me

It's been a week and a half without Mom. She passed rather quickly. Talk about exponential change.  I wrote a blog post on her blog a week or so ago to tell her friends there. 

I haven't really felt like talking about it much. Some days I feel like I am doing ok. Then the next thing I know, I'm hit with some emotion. Sadness, weirdness, anger.  Crying. Just par for the course.

I've been distracting myself with launching my latest film. With Los Angeles Santacon. With Stanislav Lem. With School. 

I've been spending a lot of time with my brother and his family. Me and Aedyn, my nephew, are great pals. (We're building on the great Thanksgiving lego experience.) It's healing.

I miss my dog. I miss Los Angeles tree lined streets. I miss some fucking stability.

Slices of Life

My latest design future, Slices of Life, is about personal data, personal clouds and how we might have our data work for us in the future.  I'm really proud how this came out. 

I hope you enjoy it.

 

The Digital Asset Grid

After 6+ months of work, I'm finally able to talk about this amazing project I've been part of. The Digital Asset Grid is a new platform to enable safe and secure transfer of personal data assets. With control of personal data assets with the individual. It's a paradigm shifting idea. 

Here's a short documentary I did about the project, and the video, Slices of Life, that describes the scenarios will go live on Wednesday. 

Enjoy.

The Time is Now

If you are going to love me

Love me now, while I can know

The sweet and tender feelings

Which from true affections flow

Love me while I am living

Don't wait until I am gone

And then have it chiseled in marble

Sweet words on ice-cold stone

 

If you have tender thoughts of me

Please tell me now

If you wait until I am sleeping

Never to awaken

There will be death between us

And I won't hear you then

So if you love me even a little bit

Let me know it while I am living

So I can know and treasure it.

- Unknown, found in my mom's important papers

On Death, #2

Mom's cancer is back. It's fast this time. It's bad. I think this is the one, despite my attempts to pull a positive wildcard out of the field of possibilities. I know a way exists, but perhaps, we already walked that way, and that's what's lead us to here. Perhaps I pulled that card three years ago.

It's hard seeing her weak. Watching her body fail. I think how hard it must be for her. I think of my own. Aging every day. I remember my grandmother's death. Her body. Our dreams each evening. Every night I fight in my dreams. I rip out lips and wander angrily, anxiously through dream corridors. I wake myself in the might, fighting with an invisible adversary, trying to take my favorite book from my hands. 

I find this quote, from Terrance McKenna,

I always thought death would come on the freeway in a few horrifying moments, so you'd have no time to sort it out. Having months and months to look at it and think about it and talk to people and hear what they have to say, it's a kind of blessing. It's certainly an opportunity to grow up and get a grip and sort it all out. Just being told by an unsmiling guy in a white coat that you're going to be dead in four months definitely turns on the lights. ... It makes life rich and poignant. When it first happened, and I got these diagnoses, I could see the light of eternity, a la William Blake, shining through every leaf. I mean, a bug walking across the ground moved me to tears.

I've spent the evening with a group of my mom's friends. I am reminded of my own deaths. Not many, a few. Those times I've turned the wheel. Those were not final. Those were metaphors, methods to help me become a person I could only dream of. My mom's death is not one of those. She will be gone. 

Anti-Fragility, take 2

Anti-fragility, coined by N. Taleb, is the concept that some things benefit from bumpy, chaotic shocks.  

I've written about my theory tying Fragility/Efficiency, Resilence and Anti-Fragility before. Driving around lost in the construction filled, closed freeway ramp and slow driving cars of Portland, a new example of anti-fragility showed itself to me: being lost.

To be efficient, to know the best routes at various times - one must experiment, explore, fail, be frustrated, get lost in the streets of a city only partially known. 

When we talk about progress, results and success, you've got the best shot for certain high results when playing in the efficient/fragile bucket. That's where the 10 steps to X, 5 best practices for N, Timothy Ferris recipes for optimization fall. You can follow those recipes, but even then success isn't guaranteed. It's just a recipe that has worked for someone else.

Anti-fragility is the space of wildcards and emergence. Sure you can win big, but you can also completely fail. And there's a lot more failure than success. (Actually, to be honest, the values of fail/succeed are not applicable in this bucket - except they are used by people from the efficient/resilient value set.) But when you're trying to create this kind of space in your organization, most upper management expects some kind of solid results.

Enter Resilience. 

A middle ground. Resilience has solid results. It's optimized for values of stability, consistency and certainty. Which perhaps isn't very optimized. Like jello, or silly putty it's about returning to a stable state. The known. Certainty.

It's moving between all 3 that is interesting. Sure you can hang out/prefer one of those buckets. Many ideas/concepts/companies/products/industries move through all of these. 

 

Option to not Dominate?

Thinking lots about competition, domination, collaboration, co-creation. Disheartened at our human limitations. The words in this favorite Stereolab song make themselves aware to my morning conscious. Listen. Read. Italics mine.

Margerine Melodie by Stereolab

When two people have a project
they begin a competition
In which there will be a winner and a loser
State of dominance over one or the other

This dominance is integral to
all human's ways and actions
The necessity to keep at disposition
An object or being desired by another

Knowing through training that he wants to keep it
Learning everyday, he will have to dominate

Our brain makes us act
behave and react
A pulsion that drives us to stay alive

Need to satisfy our fundamental needs
The nervous system enables that drive

Through consumerism, escape and struggle
As well as inhibition

All these mechanisms that preserve balance
Biological well being

Seems that until now we have used our brain
Just to dominate, just to dominate

Knowing through training that he wants to keep it
Learning everyday, he will have to dominate
When two people have a project
they begin a competition

We've to widen the knowledge of
how our brain works to understand
Or nothing will, will ever change
(?)Will to an end

Give birth without seizing
Act and except nothing
They flower let them free
Unite with the dust and be

Give birth without seizing
Act and except nothing
They flower let them free
Unite with the dust and be.

The Tarot Drome

A dank london tunnel. Moisture and crumbling stone walls. A Luchadore wrestling ring. I felt right at home.

The Mistress of Ceremonies enters the ring. Two cards are displayed. My throat chokes. Hot tears run down my cheeks. It's my situation exactly. (What I have started to refer as "Hogtied across the Atlantic"). She had me at Jodorosky. 

I find myself in a dream. I'm experiencing these things I am desperate to experience - the experiences I create for others - I'm in it now. It's not Alice in Wonderland - it's a segment of the Holy Mountain. I'm delighted, inspired, fully conscious in the moment.

I learn from the embodied cards. Ephiphanies. Understanding. Richer than I could have dreamed. Ending in a spectacle on roller skates.  This was exactly where I was suposed to be. This was exactly what I was suppose to experience. I leave the experience changed.