Flow Is the Antidote for Ego

In today's world, we're always striving for more, more, more. More money, bigger companies, more market share, faster times, longer distances, heavier weights, etc. It's all testosterone, adrenaline, and a lot of ego. It's not all bad, as great things do come from it. But where does it end? How long can the effort be sustained? Often, it ends with injuries, burnout, broken relationships, or simply an aging body or mind that can't compete anymore.

Enough Is Enough

I am doing enough. I am enough. It doesn't matter whether others see and agree with that. I see it and know it, and that is enough. I meditated just now (Wednesday evening, July 26, 2017) and realized the anxiety that has vexed my health for so long comes largely from not feeling like I'm doing enough, that I could be doing more, that I'm personally not enough. So not true.

How Serendipity Works

SXSW is a serendipity accelerator.

Serendipity works in direct proportion to the clarity of your goals/plans/intentions, the force of the actions you've been taking recently, and the heat of your passion. If you aren't clear, aren't taking action, and aren't passionate about your goals, then serendipity doesn't work. In fact, neither does creation. This was the single most important lesson I came to SXSW to remember and get clear about. SXSW itself is a place to accelerate this whole process, though it works just as well in our regular lives.

Revisionist Me

In the 2000s, I built several businesses--all within the mortgage and real estate industries--and bought several commercial rental properties in Colorado. I was worth millions... on paper at least. In 2007-2008, the American mortgage and real estate markets tanked. In 2009, I filed a personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy, lost everything, and applied to grad school. Those are the basic facts of the story of my late-20s to mid-30s. How I've told this story has evolved quite a bit, becoming a story of its own.

Learning the Five Leverages

As a young man, I decided that if I were to make a difference in the world, and I don't mean a small difference, but put a real dent in the world in some positive way, then I'd need leverage. The world is too big and its momentum too strong for one person to create much lasting change without leverage.

I also realized that five kinds of leverage have much more power than any other in today's world: communication, technology, entrepreneurship, capital, and politics.

Opportunity Funnel for the Soul

Hope is a virtue... to have it, we must work at it.
- Mary Berry quoting her father, Wendell Berry

Entrepreneurship is hard. It sometimes destroys lives and livelihoods. This is precisely its greatest value, the best argument for doing it.

I'm not saying that failure builds character or any such trite nonsense, though it probably does do plenty of that. What I mean is a little more nuanced.

Superman Lives in Iowa

I just read an incredibly inspiring Des Moines Register article about my best friend John Craun's dad, also named John Craun. The man is 63 and, even though he only discovered the sport ten or twelve years ago, has literally become one of the world's best endurance kayakers, as well as possibly the world's finest custom kayak-maker.

You Load 16 Tons and What Do You Get?

Another day older and deeper in debt. "Tennessee" Earnie Ford would probably agree with an article I just read in the US News and World Report about a study of how losing your job, having your job security threatened, or even having a secure but bad job can increase your stress and consequently decrease your lifespan. Kind of ties in with my prior post. Here's the link:

Balls, Bones, and Bullets

Last night, I had two really disturbing dreams. In the first, I dreamt that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and leukemia. A double whammy. I had to make the decision as to whether I would start chemo right away or wait a month or two and give all my alternative health methodologies and theories a try. You know, walk the walk and all that. Then I woke up and had to pee.

False Idol

If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
-Buckminster Fuller

I had an interesting day. I lost one hero, got to chat with another, and rethought my whole life story.

Roots

I have a theory: most anyone who leaves their hometown eventually comes full circle and finds, creates, or, at minimum, yearns for the best parts of what they had growing up, often with a slight twist. City kids return to cities, but live in better neighborhoods. Suburban kids find a nice quiet suburb to live in, perhaps near the mountains or ocean or a more interesting city. Hippie kids from California move to Boulder. Hippie kids from Boulder move to California. Nomads buy a new camel. And small town kids return to small towns, but ones near their favorite cities to get their occasional urban culture fix. Apparently, I'm no different.

Damage Control

In the interest of unwinding any of the depression or despair my previous post may have caused, here's a quote from my hero:

We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe--I still believe that we can act when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.
Because that's who we are. That is our calling. That is our character.

-Barack Obama, Health Care Reform Speech to Congress, 9/9/09

Walden Lives

I just read a fantastic Jonathan Hiskes article in Grist.com on Henry David Thoreau and climate change and felt compelled to respond.

Like Hiskes, I too am just about to finish rereading Walden at the moment, first time in years. I noticed Thoreau's stunt aspect as well, but I'm reminded also of a bigger philosophy to his experiment that has less to do with environmentalism, economics, and book deals, and more to do with a personal philosophy on living.

Bee Wars: A New Hope

The bees were in trouble. I don't mean bees as a species, though that's also true. I mean my bees. Our bees. The bees in the beehive my roommate Jennie and I bought just three weeks ago. I heard Jennie shout from the yard. I ran outside to see what was wrong. About fifteen or twenty wasps were attacking the hive, stinging the bees to death, hauling them away for food, and trying to sneak inside the hive. I didn't know what to do about it.

My Bucolic Frolic: a Country Kid Goes Home

A couple weekends ago, I went back to my hometown in rural Iowa for my step-brother's wedding. Since I'd be in town for two or three days, I wanted to drive out and see the old house where I grew up. My dad, now deceased, built it himself. It's a pretty special place, really, at least to me. I only expected that I'd get to take a quick drive by, barely stopping a minute before I freaked out the current owners, but I lucked out.

From an Email to John

John,

Thanks for reading my blog post! It certainly describes where I've been at lately. Kinda dark, honestly. I'm trying to elevate things, but it's hard these days. Every time I turn around, I read about bees dying, bats dying, salmon dying, polar bears dying, pine forests dying, icecaps melting, worldwide food shortages, increasing food costs here at home, storm intensity increasing, jet streams shifting poleward, songbirds getting wiped out, and on and on. It really scares me. I'm really beginning to wonder if we're a lot closer to total environmental collapse than many people would like to admit. I mean, several of these species are keystone species. That means that we can't survive too well without them.