A zen perspective on how we think about the future
Make Magazine founder, Dale Dougherty, is a member of the emerging online DIY trend of technology makers. We're talking about things like kits and rich user-vetted instructions on how to make digital cameras, computers, sewing machines, and the list goes on. At the seattlefoodgeek.com blog, Scott Heimendinger offers hyper-tinkerers everything necessary to build their own very factional-cost sous vide immersion cooker. And with 3-d printers like those showcased by the MIT labs, the sky is the limit when it comes to...
In the Cleveland urban neighborhood I live in, Tremont, we have characteristics parallel to more celebrated places like New York and Chicago. In one square mile, 10k people, two dozen major restaurants, two dozen bars and coffee shops, two dozen art galleries and shops, two dozen churches. You get the idea. When I first moved here over 30 years ago, there was massive ethnic decline, urban blight and despair. And as always, there were less than 100 people who sparked the transformation of festivals, amazing sense...
Today was the most incredible 3 hours of sushi in the western hemisphere, wine, cigars, and transformative conversation with my old friend Sam who leads one of the prime multi-star restaurant legacies in the US. The conversation on the top culinary and entrepreneurship leadership in the east coast restaurant space kept spiraling back to the theme of humility-infused innovation, suggesting that humility and innovation are fusion mates, not adversaries. When any leaders in any space think about the future, how do humility...
So, I spent most of the day with nursing innovators from around the country in the alternative healing space, the afternoon visiting one of this region’s senior sculptors in his studio, and this evening with local amazing poets in a peer critique workshop. What these people from diverse disciplines share is a passion for their craft, and it is more accurate to describe what they do as craft than as a job or work or professions. One cannot spend time with these people without being inspired into new levels of thrivancy...
So the three generations of men in my family this weekend honored a very old tradition of spinning stories and views through wafts of cigars, organic cigars to be specific. My father, who had a long career as an innovator in commercial engineering and politics and continues the craft, tendered the interesting strategy in a conversation about fuel prices, that if everyone in the country left their tanks on one-quarter full, the gap would force prices down. What other collective acts of innovation could push the envelope...
The Wall St. Journal reports that Americans annually spend an unprecedented $1.2 Trillion on unnecessary stuff they don’t need. The trend raises inquiry on what might this be better invested into even if we tithed a mere 10% on things that matter to bring happiness to the whole. It also speaks to our common definition of happiness and implications on waste and reuse. What’s on your list?
Global economic conditions continue to wreak havoc on the inflation rates of our daily bread, and transportation, and costs of living. In the past 12 months at the top of the list, gas up 28%, lettuce up 27%, bacon up 16%, energy up 16%, followed by beef, potatoes, tomatoes, coffee, pork, and all fresh vegetables, each over 10%. For most people, incomes did not rise proportionately, unless you run companies. It gives reason to think about what it means to live more off the ever-expensive grid. More people are taking...
Apparently the emerging trend in US states in electric car infrastructure support is yet another Red-Blue (Republican-Democrat) divide. The preponderance of support in Blue States. Look for Red States champions for the oil industry declaring civil war with claims that Blue States are treasonous and at a par with foreign enemies of US oil profit interests. Is there any possible space for both-and intelligence and if so who would you invite into the first iteration of conversations around that?
Today’s conversation highlight was in an accidental commute conversation with a new law student grad launching into a fresh human rights career in the UK. Part of her passion is focused on death row inmates who in the vast majority of cases are plagued with the most severe psychiatric illnesses and system incompetence on the planet. And at obscene costs and human rights issues. Do we, the psychologically and socially gifted, owe anything to these people? And from an ontological, spiritual, and existential dimension...
10-time author and designer with a focus on change in organizations and communities. HappinessChoice.com. Contact Jack at jack(at)happinesschoice(dot)com
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