It is a strange balance, stay in motion forward and make decisions that change your direction, significantly. It is recognizing opportunities to Think Slow vs Think Fast, as discussed by Daniel Kahnman. When are we on automatic and do not have to think, time to let the dogs out; and when do we need to consider what our choices are, looking at their diets more intentionally and deciding between raw and kibble and dehydrated raw dog food. It seems easy with dogs.
What about our lives and our careers? Where we invest our time, thought and energy? Is this an obvious choice for you or me?
The current path has been reasonably straight with some precarious cliffs. I’m practicing and polishing old skills and learning new skills to remind myself how I learn and what I am interested in and experience what we can do with technology today. More on that coming, for now, I’m walking the path intentionally, ready for a fork in the road.
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra
As someone who has had a lot of hobbies and jobs, it is so important for me to remind myself that it is ok to be a quitter. Alcoholics? Right?
Somehow it became an American trait to “Never Quit,” something between endurance and stamina. It might be based in job security from generations past when there might only be 1 or 2 jobs in a Town. Maybe it is related to how long it takes to attain mastery and maximize the capitalist system based in that knowledge, experience and skills. The mind also wants to quit way to early, for all of us.
There is a difference between my Peloton ride or hike, where I never quit; and, continuing to do something we know is done. For some people it is a personal or business relationship and for others it is collecting a type of ceramics or an animal like birds. It is ok to stop, and start doing something new. Seriously, I tell myself this in my hobbies, my hikes and even my cycle rides. We need reminders!
On the way up Angel’s Landing, I stopped here!
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” Dolly Parton
Why is it so important to stop or clear out the old? We literally need space for the new. Maybe it is headspace or it might be actual workspace. We all need room to change our minds and grow.
The picture above is a short way up to Angels Landing, after navigating some chains we stopped and looked across the precarious ledge and steep cliff, dotted with people going up and coming down. I took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall, everything swayed and came in and out of depth perception, focus. I knew I did not want to go any further and I also didn’t want to disappoint my hiking mate, my daughter. As we sat there negotiating, I slowly caved in and admitted I’d prefer to take a different hike.
We went back down and took a different path, higher and further, with strangely treacherous hairpin turns up and down switchbacks. As we reached the bottom, the last switchback before the easy canyon walk, I saw a hiker waiting for help at the bottom of a ravine, busted up and bleeding, beyond my help. We hiked down, passing a ranger rescue team on the way up to help. Slow down, think through important decisions and know that it is ok to change your mind.
I took it as a sign to be careful everywhere in nature, I also knew the mountains were letting me know I got lucky.
Sunset in Zion
Also, sometimes when you change your mind and hike for another 7 hours you are rewarded with an epic sunset over Zion Canyon. In case I forget, remind me to change my mind!
I rarely get excited to take night photos, the challenge of holding still, o.k, being prepared with a tripod, timer and a dark sky, all take a lot of coordinating. My old iPhone is taking amazing sky photos at night.
Zion at night, was cold and dark, the sky was filled with stars. The canyon walls dark, rising and falling in their own natural space.
There are some many sensors working together on our devices, capturing more information than we know and creating opportunities for us to share what our imaginations experience.
This photo at Zion, shot in seconds, reminds me technology is evolving faster than the previously conceived limitations of hardware, and human intelligence. I have to believe, and dream while working with new technology and classic techniques, stay curious and in the experiment.
Part of this road trip was to gather some sparks of light and enjoy random creativity.
Journal
Take photos
Talk
Listen
Walk
There is always process involved in every project, and experimentation is too easily dismissed as a side track or a waste of time when we know what needs to happen. Adding experimentation into everything changes our end result, creates the possibility of new and previously unimaginable opportunities.
Believe.
We all have the tools to create what we see and hear, and I am totally upgrading my iPhone immediately!
This is one of my local Churches, a small grove of Redwood trees at the edge of the Town of San Anselmo.
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe
I get excited when we talk about imagination, anxious when we discuss organized religion and lost when we use poetry to communicate.
In a World controlled by GPS and Sattelite Technology, do your best to get lost. Even if that requires reading some poetry, listening to some songs. Most days, that is the only way to get lost, and find ourselves.
Today, everybody needs project management skills and the ability to work independently and in a group. This is obvious.
Generative A.I is enabling everyone to become a creator, to make content within the rules. If you aren’t a writer, definitely use a program to help you with your words. The tools make us stronger and able to do more.
And, you still have to have a religious experience for your self.
I mean, visiting the Redwoods and listening, looking, asking the questions gently; this is the poetry we know in our bodies and hearts to be true. It isn’t about ChatGPT writing a poem in the style of Emerson for us, it is about us getting out to the trees and feeling the poetry in motion, and stillness.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is – infinite.” William Blake
There are Redwood trees at my local park, Robson Harrington, it is easy to pass by them, indulging in their shade and resting on a picnic table while dogs chase balls and gardeners trim the moldy aftermath of Summer.
Slow Down, Breathe Deeply, Expand Your Perspective.
