Fear not loss. Ruin rerises reformed.
Sleep in Xanadu’s Pleasure Dome - One Night Stay Includes Guided River Tour
Wander Kubla Khan’s Lush Gardens and Ancient Forests - Immersive 2-Day Escape
Enjoy an Exotic Concert by the Abyssinian Maid - Private Dulcimer Performance and Feast
Experience Kubla’s Erupting Fountain First-hand - Behind the Scenes Geological Tour
Sleep Under the River Alph - Overnight Stay in the Caverns Measureless to Man
Monthly Milk of Paradise Subscription - Get Xanadu’s Divine Nectar Shipped to Your Door
The insight scribbled hastily
On a scrap of paper in your pocket:
How will it reach others?
Like a single pebble cast into still waters,
Its ripples travel far.
Yet if shared in haste
It becomes just another rock
Lost in the cairn.
Lower the barrier
Smooth the way
Make space for the unspoken.
In the beginner’s mind
Scattered seeds become flowers
Frustration melts like morning frost
Immediate praise and blame
Are dancing shadows.
The one who shares, the one who hears-
Not two.
Like the moon in the lake
Insight reflects insight.
The interface is empty, yet fulfilled.
Let your insight fall like rain
Seep through cracks to sow its seed.
A quiet truth echoes loudest.
How long can you write if no one is reading?
How much can you work if no one is paying?
As much as we want to see ourselves as steering our own ship, following our own nose, forging our own path — most of us are not Van Gogh.
We need feedback and recognition to thrive. Just enough.
Too little = Van Gogh.
Too much = arrested development.
Enough to know we’re not alone. Not so much that we can’t hear our own voice.
The red sun rises in the rearview,
Blazing bright over the highway behind me.
The blue moon sets ahead over stagnant cars,
Sinking below the foggy ridgeline.
The Dumbarton smells like farts.
For a moment I’m transported, certain I’m there -
On the playa, breathing it all in.
In the morning twilight, farts and dust.
There is a fear of AI writing stories for us, as Harari says “because we don’t understand what’s behind it”. But I’m not sure we’ve ever understood where our stories come from.
I’ve written a handful of songs. I could probably tell you what they are about, but I would be lying if I said that I knew where they came from.
I met a C-level leader at a 3D printing startup that described his functional role as the “Chief No Officer”. His job was to say no to almost everything.
The promise of 3D printing is that it can it can (supposedly) make everything. The reality is that it can rarely make anything.
His version of this was “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it”. Hence the CNO’s job was to shut down most of the ideas, to keep the company focused.
Reflecting on this interaction, I am seeing how I have not been very good at saying no. The potentiality of yes is exciting. The possibilities. The novelty. The excitement.
Are you sending mixed messages?
The best things that have happened in my life were not planned, they were intended.
I did not plan to meet my wife. I did have an intention of being open to a romantic relationship.
I did not plan to join Cyclotron Road. I did have an intention to combine my interests in physical science & entrepreneurship, as well as an intention to live in the Bay Area.
Are you making a plan, or setting an intention?
Multiple Choice Monday.
In my in-between moments, I am most likely to:
- Scroll
- Text
- Tap
- Type
- Feel
- Breathe
- Ask
- Swipe
- Sense
- Sit
- Pee
- Wipe
- Worry
- Rest
- Rage
- Snipe
- (None of the above)