I’m a vigorous worker. Problem is, I find myself thinking far too often that I’m not working and just wasting time. While I scramble to change course, I come to the conclusion that I simply enjoy what I do. Not a bad feeling actually. 

The whole notion of “changing the world” has become negatively torn out of context and makes many people feel as if they aren’t doing enough.

I think it goes without saying that, in some way, we all want to leave a mark. But the amazing thing is that every single one of us already has. If any one of us hadn’t been born, the world would be a different place, and with time, exponentially so. The chain of events resulting from someone coming into existence is nearly incalculable and defines the interwoven nature of society.

As difficult as it may be to objectively imagine the repercussions of any one person not having existed, the plain fact is that we have all changed the world just by being alive.

I find this fact to be incredibly liberating. Imagine what you can do if you let loose in life and choose to do more.

In many ways technology has created much of the clutter we have in our lives, both physically and mentally. But technology, on a whole, seems to be headed at an exponential pace toward becoming quieter, smaller, and even invisible.

The refinement of technology as we know it will actually have the power to remove clutter from our lives. As technologies are refined to their limits, more room will be made for new discoveries.

Some would argue this is a bad thing, as it opens the floodgates for more technology and more clutter. But technological discoveries come in waves, and with our current trajectory humanity may plateau in less than 200yrs. Don’t underestimate the potential of those 200yrs though. In that timeframe we could transform society as we know it unthinkably and dramatically. We could very well plateau at an amazing threshold of human capacity.

I’m also not so sure that this consumer-driven period in humanity that we’ve gone through (a looong period, I know) isn’t just a phase. The next technological revolution that’s around the bend has the ability to remove the desire to have more because a far more refined and simplified life will necessitate less. Ingenuity could essentially lead to no need for ingenuity.

The more that “less” is actually desired, the more we will apex as a civilization, finding less interest in “tech” and putting more focus in larger scope goals that do one (or all) of three things:

1. Bring us closer to a natural balance with nature, if not even drive technology to becoming seamlessly integrated with nature. Tech is becoming more and more discreet and it’s becoming a growing trend to experiment with tech/organic hybridization. The highest form of technology may circle back to being indistinguishable from nature. It may become nature. Surely we will create technologies that will self-duplicate, grow, self-repair, etc.

2. Artificial Intelligence could very well be the next step in human evolution. Stop thinking metal and wires and start thinking synthetic and biological. Hell, we’ve already stored data on DNA. We are reverse-engineering nature in order to engineer something new. It’ll lead to an entirely new paradigm in how evolution is perceived and ultimately defined. Evolution, quite possibly, be built.

AI, in its purest form, will simply be a new kind of intelligence and conscious that’ll be capable of comprehending ideas we wish we could understand but that are far too abstract for our limited brain structure.

This path could even lead to a much higher-level form of intelligence that lives more as a holistic system rather than based on the merits of individuality.

3. Space exploration. By far the most curious idea of them all. The idea that we may, and should, one day travel to the stars. This is probably the smartest thing we should invest our future knowledge into, because if the point of life is to maintain balance and survive, then the rest of the universe is our answer to a long human history. The Earth is a temporary island. What makes this such a fascinating subject to me is that the very idea hinges on the concept that this is a way of maintaining what we see as “human”, but as more and more people colonize into further reaches of space and fragment into new populations and cultures, the word human will mean very little. It will be a footnote in the history of future beings who might wonder, just as we do about our own ancestors, where did we really come from?

And there’s my random thought for the day.

Yeah, if I ever feel like fighting REEEEAALLLY slowly with pretend weapons, I’ll definitely get one. Owning one of these is - for a nerd - the equivalent of putting a 4ft thick slab of bullet-proof glass between someone with Willi Syndrome and a pallet of freshly-baked cakes.

My 7yr old daughter’s friend, who’s super quiet and shy, just said to me “So, I hear you have big muscles.”  Haha, priceless. And yes. Yes I do. 

If Carl Pilkington has a lost twin brother who is taller and in slightly better shape, then he’s at this Starbucks.

Greatness rarely comes from the absence of risk. And risk is just another way of saying a human doesn’t have the capacity to accurately predict an outcome due to too many variables for our perception. I’m all about breaking down systems and patterns, heck this is what I do in my physics and philosophy writing all of the time, but there is this certain point where – accurate as it may be – realities in life (like a 4th wall in film, as it were) are far less interesting than letting genius that is born from chaos make it’s way into the world and breathe originality into it. Eliminate these glimmers of greatness (a miraculous accumulation of human faults) by quantifying art literally removes the purest definition of what art should be. Art and science will one day converge, but ugh c’mon, not like this. I’m just not a fan of it. 

This is a beautiful piece with a powerful message behind it, for all (not just women). But it’s unfortunate that the artist went into this knowing he was suppose to sketch an uglier and a prettier version in order to get this final contrast. Still a NECESSARY idea and message that we should all remember.

Perception of one self is incredibly subjective, but more importantly, it’s this sense of self contrasted against others’ perspectives that create the whole. One cannot exist without the other, which is why image IS important. A person needs an environment in order to give themself context. The physical exterior we perceive is the only thing we have to base judgements and decisions off of.

Image is part of the entire universe, of all perceptions that might exist, no matter what the wavelength of energy… it’s when we let the outside world determine what our own perception of ourselves might be that we lose touch with happiness and confidence. And this, no matter how difficult it may seem at times, is entirely a matter of choice. Because one can choose, at any moment in their life, to embrace who they are entirely. It’s the worry of others’ perceptions that typically holds us back. Anything that holds us back can be overcome, whether it be the image of oneself or the loss of a job. We place unecessary mental obstacles in our lives constantly and IMAGE is the stupidist thing to do it on for the following reasons:

1. The image you perceive of yourself is who you become. Do you want to hang around with someone you don’t like? Then how do you feel when you don’t even want to be around you?! I bet if we all sat down and thought about it, we all think we’re pretty cool in some way. If you think you are, you are. Just don’t put it in context of society’s expectation of “cool”. 
2. Your image of yourself directly dictates the decisions you make. If you feel you can’t accomplish things, then you won’t. If you feel down, you don’t have the courage to believe in yourself and be proactive to find solutions. If you think you’re smile is crooked and ugly, then you’ll always be holding something back when you smile for others. If you feel your eyes are too big - and granted, perhaps they are HUGE - you really can only come to one conclusion “I can’t do diddly about it for the rest of my life and being sure of myself with bulbous eyes is better than looking sad with bulbous eyes.” And trust me on this… I have a few friends with big bulbous eyes. Two of these eyes are sad and two of them are always happy. I love you both. Don’t hate me.

These are all decisions we make. But when you’re feeling this, so are others around you. Everyone feels inadequate in comparison to others in some way, but we aren’t. It’s all relative. No one is perfect and no one ever will be. We appreciate beauty because nature seeks symmetry and thus so do we, as part of its many constituents. This is not by choice and so we shouldn’t question, fight it, nor exploit it. Everything and everyone on its most basic level has symmetry of some kind, its own beauty. 

This is why children are so happy AND so vulnerable. They feel who they are and don’t question it because they know no different, but the world around them makes them question it at all times. Adults are just big children who have been dealt far too many questions and have thus forgotten the basic answers that are the fundamental keys to happiness.

In the end, all anyone wants is to feel like they’re part of something - connected. The intrinsic law of everything in the universe is the balancing act of attraction and repulsion, with connectivity being the ultimate proof of existence. From the electron that spins around the core of an atom, to atoms that join to make molecules, to the earth orbiting the sun. Everything is connected and balanced perfectly; always hanging on and always letting go.

Perception and judgement is ingrained in us as creatures of the universe to enable this most basic law of connectivity on a human level. And sometimes it seems like we’ve lost sight of this and have turned it against ourselves.

All of this just because I saw a DOVE commercial. Sheesh! 

Super Constantine vs Robo Adonis! The epic battle unfolded between my kids this past weekend!