Category: professional activities

This is going to be my primary medium for now.

Hi, all. I’m refocusing from design, technology and teaching to universal human kindness. Some of this is going to sound kind of new age-y, but I’m not interested in any of that.

It’s March of 2016. Things are changing quickly. I’m writing to capture my feelings that have come over the last month. February was eye-opening. I’m strictly limiting participation in most social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. I left traditional media, like TV, a long while back. it’s pure, continuous, streaming propaganda interspersed with ads now. I don’t listen to radio though I sometimes miss NPR’s ‘driveway moments’™. I can choose when to listen or watch via streaming services. But otherwise, I’m cutting it all out. I feel that I need to. Many of my friends are surprised, some say they are worried. They are asking “Will you freeze?” and “Are u going to live in a hut?”, mostly by text. They remind me I have lots of gadgets, gizmos, computers, and even phone-controlled 24-million color lights that I can set with a voice command. Yet, I’m ready to go off grid.

Why would a connected, progressive, change-oriented, academic technologist walk away from that which he loved? It’s simple: I now feel like it’s all going quickly in the wrong direction.

There’s a cold civil war in America.

For many it is already warm civil war, but I think many of us have been shielded from it due to the Huxley-an Soma of highly filtered media, like Fox or NBC or Food Network, where we look at rich chefs prepare all the food we never eat, but firmly believe that we have had the experience after watching it. It’s different from other civil wars in that it’s actually pretty civil. Mostly talk and monetary support, unless you are not adult, male or white, in which case it’s less civil towards you. The combatants have many lines drawn, but mostly around money, resources, agency, charisma, faith, and power. I’m trying to drop my sides and allegiances, but we are usually snow-blind to our biases until they are revealed to us.

I’m no longer a democrat or a republican, I’m not the 99% nor the 1%, I’m not Kanye or Anonymous. I’m not Muslim or Christian. I’m not poor or rich. Even John feels false now. I just am. Those designations (labels) are all potential factions though.

The labeled differences exist because at each line, there is money to be made, power to be gained, shirts and commemorative tchotchkes to be sold, flags to be waved, crosses to be burned in five collectible colors.

In this civil war, no one will actually get hurt in the debates between groups, (unless guns are involved, and sadly, they often are and likely will be). The conversations between warring groups help the rich get richer, and help the poor to stay in debt in crowded cities. We work ourselves to death, slaves to a system we do not enjoy, we worry about our health, and predict 1.3 heart attacks per person because our land-of-plenty produces mostly high fructose corn syrup and fatty meats on five dollar foot long rolls, with veggies deep-fried. We all tend to overeat without manufactured tools, like diets and pedometers, to save us. That is a key point:

The diseases we suffer from are contrived and put in place: We sell you the diseases in the form of food and other pollution, so that you can talk with your doctor, who allows you to see a specialist, so that you can get hooked on the cure, until the cure wears off because you kept eating pollution, because nothing was actually addressed in your thought processes or decision-making, so we tighten a ring around your stomach, so that you can live with monitors and buzzers, and then eventually be put in an expensive wooden box, surrounded by Alma-mater-team-colors-coordinated-24-hour-turnaround flowers.

Money (and most other things we long for) is a socially agreed-upon idea. Money does not actually exist. We handle representations of it. We allow it with our recognizance. It is only in the absence of money, the influence of money, the handcuffs of money, and the propagandist messages of money that these things can occur. As a result, I am opting out.

What does opting out mean?

Living simply, linked from http://highexistence.com

There’s a great post on the concept of opting out: http://highexistence.com/how-to-escape-the-rat-race-and-live-a-radically-free-life/

I understand that not everyone will recognize anything but money for goods and services and taxes, etc., but I am going to reduce and remove its influence wherever possible. I’m not going to try to pay my taxes with woven baskets. I’m just going to try to pay less taxes.

I am planning, designing, forming, and practicing an escape.

I am going to practice and try to understand universal human kindness.

This is key for me: I want to find universal truths, and not fractional truths. Those exist most clearly out of earshot of advertisements, arguments, and pitches. I plan to find them in the woods and other quiet places. I want to cement my understanding that I am just the elements of the universe looking at itself, and the universe is me looking back. We are one, and we are the rhythms, echoes, and other frequencies between. I want to focus on humans, rather than labels or groups, or types of humans. I want to be a practicing anthropologist that filters out the manufactured influences of false media. I want to focus on our kindness, meaning our kinship, what we all have in common. I do not mean to use kindness in terms of niceness or courtesy, but rather very deeply on what we all have in common — the bits we share, all of us. That means removing false groupings, labels or differences that are purely superficial or socially determined. I may even include gender in those, after having some insightful conversations with people who do not recognize, associate or promote differences in humans via the concept of gender.

Part of that has been the giving away of my superfluous belongings. Another is finding the right property. It looks like an acre or two of land in VA with a small fully owned dwelling on it. Rent is, by far, my largest cost in life. I am ending that. I have credit card debt that I am about to pay off and I will forbid debt from returning. The debt has hung over me for years, threatening me. I’m taking away its power. I have learned and practiced in recent years how to live without addictions, threats to my health, and sources of depression. We get to choose our life path, and this path is becoming clearer each day.

Humans do not need McDonald’s. They need to eat. Humans do not need casinos. They need to exchange acts of value with others and the world. Humans do not need mansions. They need shelter. I want to explore these ideas.

In general, my new personal branding keywords are universal, human, and kindness.

I will likely write about my new path once a week or once a month. I’ll share photos when appropriate, I think my work will change, but I still love to help people and teach. When people heard about my new adventure, they told me to capture and journal the adventure. This writing is for them as well as for me. Thanks to all of my friends for understanding and trusting that I have not lost my mind, I just let go of my stuff.