A NEW
LIFE
This is a big day for me. I feel like I’ve lived my whole life in
preparation for it.
I’ve been fighting something all my life. And I think I’ve finally learned
who I am and what I want to do and how I want to be. I’ve had an intuitive
sense about that my whole life, but things got in the way—a lot of which had to
do with my environment and the people I was around. So I developed a view of
the world where laws and obligations existed that one had to live by. And if
one strayed outside those bounds, all sorts of terrible things would happen.
It’s like a medieval village, where you never venture outside the walls.
But I’ve always had an inherent sense that living by those rules didn’t
work for me. I tried obeying the laws and executing the mechanics of what I had
been taught, but things never seemed to work out. And I was always, in my own
way, trying to find the door out of the village. It was hard to find, and
oftentimes when I did find it and set foot outside, it took a lot of courage to
keep going and walk into the forest. I could never do it, because a lot of fear
had been built up in me.
Now I feel like I have finally found the door and am ready to walk
through it. And I think all it really is, is waking up every day and doing
things that you want to do and that are meaningful to you and give you energy
and nourish you—like good food that you get energy from and can create more of.
You get on that kind of a journey, and that’s the process I’m trying to start today.
CREATING
A NEW WORLD
I have an idea that came from one of the people I’ll be talking about
shortly—a teacher of the best sort. She didn’t give me a lecture or tell me
anything. She showed me, through example, how she lives her life and creates
things that are original and exceptional, which nourish her and everyone who comes
into contact with her.
And she proved to me that it’s possible to walk in the forest. It’s not
easy, it’s not without its travails, but it’s a far better way of life. And all
sorts of beautiful things get created by the people who are living that way—who
are being true to themselves, being who they are, and doing what they love to
do, every day—without apology or exception.
Through a long series of experiences, I found that when I was doing
things I didn’t like to do or didn’t believe in, or was working for
organizations whose methods or goals I had doubts about or conflicts with, and
I didn’t perceive the outcomes of many of their efforts as positive (though
there were elements of good in what they were doing), I found the work boring
and very difficult to do. At times, there were elements of joy and learning in
those experiences, but, ultimately, I felt like I was wasting my time and wasn’t
doing what I had really been called to do.
I had another experience like that this week. It was an opportunity to
work for a large corporation, doing work that I have been trained to do, and it
was actually fairly exciting. It was in a product area I’d never worked in, and
it involved using skills and knowledge that some of my collaborators and I are
perhaps uniquely qualified for. We could have done a very good job and learned
some substantive things. We could have understood the mechanics of the
marketplace and elements of consumers’ products and how consumers think and how
companies try to influence consumers—all of these things.
But I couldn’t get myself to write the proposal. And I’ve always used
that as a bellwether of how much I like to do something. When I like something—whether
it’s a person or a project where I can learn something—it never takes any
effort. I just wake up wanting to do it and it feels effortless. And those are
the times I’m most productive and creative.
I’ve traveled a lot of places. I was a bicycle messenger, I worked for
political campaigns when I was a teenager, I spent a decade in the academic
citadel, and I spent another decade in a variety of corporate citadels in
commercial ventures.
At the end of the day, I’m a traveler and an explorer. And I find
myself drawn to, and wanting to help and energize projects and folks, when I’m
either trying to break through the door and create something new myself—some
new insight or a new way of doing things or a new world—or recreate something
out of existing elements. And I am inspired and energized by people who are
trying to do the same thing.
IT’S
HARD TO DO
It’s a very difficult thing to do, for a variety of internal and
external reasons. Just getting to the place where you feel like you’re in a
position to do something and do it with full force and passion is difficult. In
boxing, though this metaphor might offend some, they talk about “letting a
punch go.” What that really means is that you throw the punch without hesitation,
without any doubt or pulling back. And ultimately, it delivers the most
impact—it’s the most powerful way to box.
For many reasons, it’s difficult for people to get in a position where we
feel committed to the idea that we can be who we were meant to be, and create
and do what we were meant to, and feel good about it. And then, even if we get
to that place and we’re trying to create something new or better, we have the
whole external world to deal with. There’s an old world order of folks out
there who are pretty happy and content with the way it is—perhaps rightfully so,
because they have invested a lot of time and effort to ensure that the old
world stays the way it is, and that their survival is protected.
So anyone who tries to create something new or different, or tries to
bring something different to the world, will always be faced with these
internal and external challenges. This is not new—this has been facing folks
for thousands of years.
What might be novel in the early part of the 21st century,
though, is that we now live in a world where the ability of individuals to
create a new world or new things—on their own and with others—is altered by huge
technological and social advantages that present all of us with opportunities
we haven’t had before.
MY NEW
PURPOSE
That makes this a very exciting time. And I’ve found that, in the
process of creating the kind of new world that I would like to live in, I would
like to help both myself and others who are involved in this process, whether
it’s a new idea or a new product that would be useful to people or a new
experience or a new way of doing things. And I’d like to use all of my travels
and experiences, the things I’ve learned and the people I’ve had the privilege
of coming into contact with, to help myself and others pursue these endeavors.
That’s what I’m committed to doing. And part of the process involves talking
about the people I’ve met along the way, and how I came to know them and what
impressed me about them and why I believe in them.
In essence, my dream is to become a Johnny Appleseed who travels the
world and randomly bumps into people or seeks out these types of individuals and
tries to help them out in whatever way I can—helping others know about them and
helping them gain access to resources they need—whether that’s advice or smart
ideas or money or moral support or publicity or exposure or nothing at all.
That’s what I’d really like to do. And through the process of doing it
and creating myself and learning from these wonderful and courageous folks, I
want to help make a new world.
late spring, 2008.
story produced in collaboration with Corinna Fales.
late spring, 2008.
story produced in collaboration with Corinna Fales.
