[music]
Welcome.
This is, I guess, the first episode of a podcast, which I believe I'm going to call "Imagination."
I'm here in front of this camera and with time travel of the internet in front of you,
I'd just like to share some things I like imagining in the world.
And as I do so, I'm going to fill in little tidbits about my past.
I'll share the wildest imaginations, and then I'll also deep dive into the specifics of
how I see this as actually possible.
And it's, I'd say first I'm here to share my imagination because I have all these ideas.
Some of them might be really great, some of them might be really terrible, but what I'm
sure about them is I haven't shared many of them with many people, and like spiritually
from my heart I'm being called to share them just with the idea, like it's selfish to hold
on to all these ideas and not share them, and then they're weighing me down and I need
to get out there, and I couldn't even fully explain why, but it's a feeling and I'm drawn
to share.
And I'll probably unpack and try to, I don't know, rationalize or explain why I think I'm
doing this, but really I'm being called to share.
And if you're listening, I guess you're being called to listen and I'd love to hear from
you too.
I could start this whole discussion or share in so many different ways.
I could start with my childhood, where I grew up, I could start I guess the external story,
the series of events and chapters, the so-called plot of my life, how I got here.
I could also talk about the inner world and my thoughts and feelings about how I got to
be to this moment today, and I could also talk in a bunch of, well, talk from a bunch
of other perspectives and try to weave those all together, and I guess I'd like to share
both how I arrived to imagining some of the things I'm going to share, and also just share
them because I like them and I want to share.
So I think I'll start with that because that's the light inside of me that helps me get up
in the morning, and it's the light that I'm increasingly connected to that I'm hoping
to share, and it's we live in a world, whatever this realm is, the earth, the world, whatever
this reality is, and it's interesting that you look around and there are a lot of people
that appear to be suffering, and there's a lot of people that appears to be a lot of
inequality across any spectrum, whether it be financial wealth or power, the traditional
ones, or there's a lot of disparity in emotional wealth or well-being, like these intangible
qualities like are you in flow with life, are you loving it, are you hating it, are
you trying to do good, are you trying to do evil, or perhaps you're just ignorant, like
there's so much disparity in the different perspectives of the world where you look around
and I've seen a lot of people that are a little bit concerned, to put it lightly, that maybe
things aren't so great, maybe because of political or environmental reasons, like things are
bad, should be scared of, I don't know, big storms because we as humans maybe messed up
the planet with our pollution and maybe that's changing the climate, and I think it's pretty
established scientifically that humans have affected the climate, and that's the thing
to worry about, like who knows though, I don't really want to talk about climate change,
but more specifically, maybe the earth has been damaged because of some unenlightened,
selfish reasons where people take certain actions out of self-interest, and economics
call this externalities, however what they do maybe hurts other parts of the greater
system, although within the world that they're considering, it's all profit, it's all good,
it's all positive, so there's a lot of concern about just the overall health of the planet
as a biosphere, as a living organism. Similarly on the political and technological, geopolitical
front, I've noticed a lot of discomfort around elections and wars, and there are people killing
each other for various reasons around the planet, and a lot of people think this is
even good, and some people think this is bad, there's a lot of debate about it, but it's
hard to look at that and not wonder, like something doesn't feel quite right, I don't
think there are too many people, maybe I'm wrong, but they would say like murdering other
people in the name of war is good, but there may be a lot of people that say well, not
doing that is worse, but either way, like is war something that we'd like we as people
to have on this planet, like what if, like imagine a world without war, or listen to
the Jonathan song, Imagine, really listen to it, that one touches my heart, or imagine
a world where we live, where all people live, or most people at least live in harmony with
the systems, with nature, with the weather, with the planet, and where all people are,
or maybe most people, people that say choose to, are happy, they feel and flow with life,
they don't resist anything, and every moment is delightful, let's say, maybe not necessarily
positive in the traditional sense, maybe not overflowing joy, but there is a beauty and
acceptance of the ever-changing nature of this world, I could get a little bit spiritual
here and quote some, reference some Buddhist ideas, or Indian ideas, or New Age ideas where
nothing is permanent, talk about quantum physics, and nothing is even real, maybe, maybe there's
no actual physical matter, and depending on what consciousness is, and how consciousness
observes matter, that creates reality, there's a lot of fun rabbit holes there in terms of
the intersection of science and spirituality that I'll probably walk down a little bit
with you guys, or with you guys and gals, with all of you people, whoever's listening,
no offense to a few, I don't mean any offense by using any particular titles, to me it's
all people are beautiful and equal, and should express themselves as authentically as possible
with whatever language feels appropriate and whatever, so I love all of you, so no offense
if I use a language that is, no offense is intended if I use any language that offends
you, it's just would be out of my lack of awareness of how to speak authentically and
lovingly to you, so please don't take anything as offensive, at least if I'm intending to
be offensive I'll let you know I'm intending to be offensive, so let's talk about some
ideas that we could, that I imagine, so I imagine a world where every being, let's say
human being, every member of, type of animal that we call man or human, is self-sufficient
and feels safe and protected or safe and secure and comfortable and not afraid of anyone else
coming to hurt them, let's imagine that for a second, imagine what it would feel like
to not worry about your next meal, not worry about having to do something you hate because
your boss asked you to and you need to get that money in order to survive, imagine a
world where it's not about survival, it's about each and every one of us feeling held,
feeling good from this place of stability and groundness and calm, each and every one
of us is able to express ourselves authentically in, from the heart, whatever that means to
you, to me that means something that's beyond just intellectual thinking, it's a spiritual
concept, and yeah in this world every being can express themselves authentically and interact
with other beings peacefully and harmoniously and share each of their authentic and unique
perspective on the world through stories, through art, well really I think it's all
art, I'll get to that, through technology, through music, through dance, through any
expression, through architecture, through religion, through computer programming, something
I like through electronics, another thing that I've spent a lot of time doing or perhaps
through plumbing or making fires or putting out fires or you know just stretching our
bodies and learning how they work, these are some crazy technology, I don't know how
this thing works but learning how to use this body that even that's a form of expression
and of what it means to be human, yeah so imagine that, I imagine this world where people
are just in flow with life and they just enjoy it, it's fun and it's flow, or it's fun
and it's flowing, I like describing things with verbs and adjectives and avoiding nouns
because well my world view is that there are no nouns, it's all just a flowing illusion
that somehow is yet fully real and tangible, I don't know how long I've been going here,
let me check my video recording over here, yeah that does not have a, does that have
a time stamp, 12 minutes, 15 seconds, maybe about 30 minutes is a good first episode here,
so I've just asked you to imagine a world where the baseline at least is at peace, where
each individual being feels at peace, feels comfortable, grounded, safe, in flow, whatever
words you wish to describe this, this sense of okay, of beingness, of oneness with self
and the world and from these strong individual points of consciousness, so I'm conscious,
you're conscious, my mom is conscious, all of these people are conscious, whatever that
means to you, each as an individual is pretty self-sufficient, at least to the point where
there isn't as much dependence on the external world or structures that may fail for happiness,
for joy, so like let's get a little bit crazy, let's really imagine, let's imagine that you
didn't have to eat, you never got cold, you didn't have to sleep, you couldn't die, maybe
you could never be embarrassed because you know people are pretty afraid of being judged
by others, like what does that look like, what is a world where everyone has no fear
of others, no fear of injury, death, pain, embarrassment, anything, no fear at all, what
do people like that do, like what world would you build if you had no fear, what would you
like to see, and kind of like that's the basis of all imagination is you start with, let's
remove all, this is what I do, like remove all the constraints, what are the things that
I'm worrying about, I'm fearful of, that bother me, and from this point, like what could be
different, what do I imagine differently, so first I'm imagining this, it's almost like
a mental state of no fear of joy of flow of connectedness, and that's beautiful, and I
think a lot of people would enjoy imagining that, but very quickly there are these little
voices and these pesky things like, well that's not practical, that's just a dream, people
aren't like that, people are bad, people are greedy, people are selfish, there's not enough
resources for everyone, how people would never work together that well, and all of these
rationalizing little worms will come through and eat apart that imagination, and I'm sick
and tired of that, I don't want to let the worms eat away at my imagination anymore,
so I'm just sharing it, and maybe some other people will do the same, and maybe together
we can imagine and then build a better world. I like building, I like creating, and I think
there's some people in the world that they just like existing and enjoying, there's other
people that like creating, there's other people that like destroying, and I want to be careful
here saying that destroying isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's making getting rid of the
old and ready for the new, and if this can be done without harming, without violence,
it's perhaps actually a very noble thing to do. If you can introduce an idea that destroys
an old paradigm that was holding people back, let's say you destroy a superstition or a
false belief about how the world works that makes room for a new one, like we all hear
that people used to know that the earth was the center of the universe, or it was, and
the sun revolves around the earth, and now we know that in fact the earth revolves around
the sun, and you can make a lot of precise scientific measurements using equipment, I've
not done this myself, but it seems pretty likely that this is true, and a new paradigm
here of this rational scientific thinking came along, and now the destruction of the
old, let's say incorrect worldview made room for a new worldview which has enabled so many
new human experiences and levels of thriving, and perhaps some harm as well, but it's getting
rid of that old way of thinking that made way for a new one. I think some wars in the
world are perhaps, this is going to be controversial almost certainly, but some wars were fought
not necessarily to kill people, although that's what happened, and that is wrong, but they
were done to destroy ideas that people were afraid of or threatened by, and I think I'm
probably going to have to back up that claim before I go to it, but what's interesting
is that when wars happen, culture is destroyed and ideas are destroyed with it, because when
you kill a lot of people and you destroy their culture, it's gone. And I don't think, I'm
not saying this is good, what I'm saying is that however, this is true, this culture is
destroyed and in the absence of the destroyed culture, a new culture comes about. And I
think what I'm imagining is, what if we could do this, keep the old culture, preserve it,
not kill any people, but still make room for the new. So there's a little tangent there,
like there are people that like creating this, people like destroying, and perhaps, perhaps
there's a way of seeing the good side of destruction, like go to a forest after it burned, it's
a little depressing, but there are some trees that will never sprout seeds without burning
first. And all the old trees die, their nutrients return to the soil, and that old makes way
for the new, and it is very beautiful, I recommend it. So a few more ideas of imagination. So
imagine if you could live anywhere in the world, and imagine that you could bring your
whole home with you. Whatever amenities are important to you, you can bring them with
you. Let's say, let's really imagine here some technology that currently does not exist,
but let's say you could fly or teleport an entire modular home, or you could say today
I want to go and experience a beach in South America, but I'd really like to bring my gas
stove, and my shower, and my laundry with me, but I want to bring my whole home because
that feels excessive, more of a small home cabin experience. You have this technology,
you snap your fingers, the couple of rooms of your house are rearranged, you've got your
kitchen and your bathroom, bedroom, living room, this is enough for this trip, they all
clip together, the other rooms stay behind, and you fly your entire home to some beach
in South America, and you enjoy it. That sounds fun. I'd like to build that, maybe we need
some better technology to get there, but interesting idea. What else do I imagine? So another thing
that's really near and dear to my heart is connecting, communicating, same route as communion,
connecting with other people to hear their stories, and just admire the infinite beauty
that is humanity, that is life itself. So I love meeting people, I love going to events
and talking and hearing stories, I love reading for the same reason, I love movies, podcasts,
and I love all of these because there are different ways of, at least on some level,
getting a taste of the art and of what it's like to be someone else. And with the advent
of the internet, one of the main beautiful things of the internet now is that the shape
of the communication, like mathematically, the topology has changed very drastically
from one where most people, I have an interesting diagram, maybe I'll add it into the edit into
the video, where there was a time where people lived in tribes, and a lot of the storytelling
came from an elder, there's this small little cluster of people and they would communicate
together. And throughout history, this has changed a little bit, there have been eras
where everyone looks up and the communication flows down from a king-like character. A lot
of times there are people that I'll say are in positions of power, I may break down what
that even means in a later episode, or what that means to me, I should say. And in a lot
of cases, there's like this top-down pyramid structure where the getting to know happens,
you might only get to know your couple close friends, and also what the people at the top
of this communication hierarchy think. And I won't go through all the different shapes
of how communing your communication or information flows, but what's interesting now is the internet,
the net, the web has this shape where you can potentially connect and communicate with
anyone, hear anyone's story, and anyone's voice can be the inspiration that changes
the world. And already so much good has come from this connectivity, I'd say also some
bad as well, maybe even so much bad, although what good and bad mean that maybe I'll explore
later, but some destruction, some pain, some suffering, but also great innovation, connection,
people can live in new places, and it's the fact that the shape of communication has changed,
there's this more connectivity between individual people, which in a spiritual sense is just
a physical mirroring of what the sages and mystics of ages have said, that all consciousness
is one and we're all connected and it's all love. And perhaps that is true, I'm pretty
woo and hippie, so I think that I've seen some evidence that maybe this is true, I'm
not sure, but I certainly am open to that being true. But what is definitely objectively
true is well, we all are connected, just a lot of that connection happens through the
physical real world, like we receive sustenance from shipping materials, food across the world,
across oceans, and even a pencil, the amount of people involved in creating a pencil, and
the intelligence, distributed intelligence of all the different people and buildings
and cars and trains and machines that go together, it's like an enormous organism, and it's,
if you squint your eyes even if you don't consider yourself a spiritual type, that does
look a little bit like a giant organism, even if it's not, but maybe it is. So now that
we have the internet, this communication and flow is happening at a point where, again,
each individual being can share a story that could potentially touch anyone else on this
planet, and that is beautiful to me. It's very threatening to the existing structure
of the world, because now, let's say there's a very hateful idea, this one's kind of like
a classic point a lot of people bring up, let's say that everyone who eats avocados
is actually the manifestation of evil on the planet, and all the problems in the world
can be blamed on people that eat avocados. I love avocados, so I thought this would be
a good example, it hopefully isn't triggering anyone. And if this idea is communicated well
enough, and a story spreads well enough over the internet, and there are people without
the awareness to realize the absurdity of such a claim, then perhaps because of the
internet, something as absurd as people who eat avocados or evil could spread, and a lot
of harm and violence could be done because people are attached to this idea that spread
in this unconstrained network-like flow. And I'd say there probably is a real danger to
that. However, unlike I think what a lot of people in power today are doing, I don't think
the way to stop this or to sort of mitigate the risk here is to try to stop the flow of
information and fact check and moderate what ideas are okay and safe, because when you
do that you're really constraining this flow of consciousness and interactions to the point
where even if you maybe manage to avoid the spreading of certain ideas that could cause
harm, you also stop the spread of so many ideas that could cause good. So I imagine
a world again where the so-called antidote to the bad ideas is more ideas, better stories,
better imagination, because I believe, I think, I maybe even know in my soul, whatever that
even means, what my soul is, just words coming out of me now, that people can be good and
coexist peacefully. And probably the main thing preventing that is the widespread belief
that this is not true. And I think that belief and probably the lack of imagination that
it could be different is probably resulting in it becoming true, because if people don't
believe that anyone can be good, they will act as if other people could be bad, and perhaps
defensively start acting bad themselves, and little by little, people create that reality
they were trying to avoid by being afraid of it. And then it does become true. And in
fact, the solution here is not to try to ban badness from the world, but in fact, just
imagine goodness, and start building it. And maybe that's a good place to wrap up this
intro here is that I'm going to keep sharing the world that I imagined we could have, and
I'm going to get increasingly technical and specific at times. And I'll talk about, you
know, distributed social networks and peer to peer, cryptographically secure fact checking
systems and personal AI assistants and flying homes and interesting electrical plugs to
share power with people when you're camping and how to keep your digital life safe and
avoid people exploiting your personal information to make money. Well, meanwhile, you get a
couple of measly scraps. And, again, I will just share what I imagined because, well,
what good is any or any of these ideas going to do if they're trapped in here or in here?
Will they change the world? Will they change you? I don't know. I believe that maybe by
sharing my vision for a more fun and flowing world, you, whoever you are, will share yours
and together we will communicate, we will flow together, and then we'll build that world
that we've co-created by sharing our imagination and dreams. And that's the world I want to
live in. That's the world I want to build. And I think that's really the world we already
live in. It just we're not doing it yet. We're where we as all the people that live here.
So I'm starting to do it. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'm, but I'm not the only one. I think
I got the John Lennon quote right. I think I had one more thought I wanted to share before
closing. So I'm just gonna pause for a minute and see if it comes to me. I would say maybe
to, if, if anyone watches this, which I sure hope at least one other, other human being
watches and listens to this, I anticipate a certain skepticism or, or doubt. And I'm,
I love it. I welcome it because well, skepticism and doubt are these sharp instruments that
can help refine an idea and carve it to the point where it has fewer and fewer weaknesses.
But what I want to address right now is if I propose something like flying swarms of
mobile homes that don't harm the earth and maybe we move all the factories and polluting
things underground and we build them with materials that don't pollute the earth. I'm
saying we a lot. I hate it when people do that and yet I'm doing it. So apologies. But
if a lot of people come together and build all of this and talk about, imagine this future,
a lot of times what I've heard from people that I share this to privately is that sounds
like a lot of money or, and I might say, Oh, well money is just a technology that people
use to represent human value or whatever theory is of what money is. Let me go into that in
an episode. Or like, that's just a lot of work. Like, why would so many people put in
that much work to build that particular city? And my answer to that is, well, it's a lot
of work. And this is true. And I hope if enough people see that it's fun, and also find meaning
and fun in the work, it will happen. Like do people, maybe a question for this hypothetical
doubting person I'm admitting is like, do you like working? If so, I invite you to question
what about it you don't like? Is it that you're working for someone else? Is it that your
work feels meaningless? I'll create a caricature, an imaginary person here, which is someone
that's working in what's described as a bullshit job. It's a bureaucratic job, moving papers
and creating reports. It doesn't seem to really do anything. So let's say that you this hypothetical
person is in this job, and you feel like it's meaningless and stupid, and you hate it. We
still put a lot of work in any way because you need to take care of yourself pay the
bills, so to speak. But what if instead, you were working on building the purest and most
joyful expression of your inner dreams? Would that feel different? And the invitation I
have for for anyone is saying, well, what's how many people really need to be insane like
this and start building their dreams in order for little by little, that new world to start
taking form, and the need for a bullshit job that doesn't matter to pay the bills will
disappear because the technology, the communication, the open heartedness, and the goodness of
people will actually create a world where you don't have to be afraid. You don't have
to do a stupid thing to pay the bills and to maybe think about your dreams on the weekend.
But actually, no, you're you're literally building and living your dreams every day.
And that work that you're doing no longer feels like work. It feels like a play. And
I don't, although I believe and I feel very aligned with Christian values, I don't know
a lot of the specifics, but like ponder this, like what if the the curse of after falling
from the Garden of Eden and being cursed to work? Maybe that curse wasn't like being thrown
in some physical or energetic slave camp, but it was more the curse that no matter what
you do, you feel like it's work and are unable to connect with your heart and with your dreams
and the kingdom of heaven within. And maybe we're entering a new era where the divine
light starts coming through not out of one particular man who is God who comes to earth
and and shares this the wisdom of God with the world. I'm talking about Christ here.
Maybe instead this wisdom comes through all of us or enough people here and that kingdom
of heaven within starts revealing itself. And the return to the Garden of Eden isn't
some sort of portal opens in space and you're forgiven and you walk into the garden, but
it's actually you recognize that this earth already is beautiful and the work actually
is play or can be play and the only thing that really shifts is this divine light flows
through you so you can recognize this beauty that is within us already. So for some of
you I probably lost you now because it suddenly got religious or spiritual. And if that's
the case, I'm sorry, but for me this is not just a technological utopia fake place I'm
imagining, but I'm imagining a world where people are good where this place is heaven,
it is a Garden of Eden, it is a world of fun and flowing love and communication, communion
with all beings. And to imagine that it requires a bit more than just some new iPhones, it
requires a fundamental shift in how many, maybe not a majority, but how many people actually relate
to their world. And that's an internal spiritual, it happens within our brains or within our
hearts. And it's something that the shift isn't that there's some technology out there
that saves us, it's that we realize we can build that technology from our hearts and
that shift happens and that's why it's an inner shift or a spiritual shift. So with
that, I will leave you for today and I will reflect about and contemplate what I will
share next time. If you have any thoughts or questions or curious or suggestions on
what you'd like to hear me talk about next, please let me know, I will consider them.
I get a lot of internet is full of mean people, so if you're just going to trash me, I'll
ignore you. But if you want to connect in a genuine way, please do. I'd love to connect.
I realize I didn't know how I would end this thing, but I'll end here with just a
prayer or a meditation where I will really imagine this world of full of love and connection
and flow and creativity and authenticity and I will... imagining I'm sending whatever love
and light I have in my heart out to the world with the hope that whatever amount I have,
whether it's a crumb or an ocean or a drop, some of that reaches you and the people that
need it and that we take as people one step closer towards paradise on earth. Until next
time.
Amen.