One of my intentions for 2024 is to publish a blog post every week for a year to see what happens. That means even when I don’t feel like it, like today.
That said, this post is an excerpt from my journal archives. It’s a true account of events that took place in 2018.
2018
While this year has been transformative, it started out with a whimper and a grey flu that lasted the full month of January. I spent the month coughing and mourning a startup that I’d been working on that never made it off the ground. To keep myself occupied, I joined a membership site on exponential technologies. There, I accessed the library of CEO presentations from promising startups in a range of technologies poised to transform how we live and interact including blockchain, 3D printing, space settlements, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
While the presenters were bullishly optimistic about our technological future, my enthusiasm was tempered by the specter of AI and robotics in the hands of the military.
Exponential growth curves seem like a gentle slope at first until they reach a tipping point. An example of a tipping point is the difference between 32 degrees and 33 degrees that leads to a total state change. With AI, learning seems clumsy, almost cute initially. Then the rate of growth spikes like a hockey stick, leaping to an unfathomable scale in a few hops. This exponential growth in computing power has transformed society in a generation and we’re just now reaching an inflection point, the elbow of the hockey stick.
On one hand, AI and robotics and other exponential technologies have the potential to usher in a new era of security and prosperity. On the other hand, AI is only as good as the purity of its training data and the models on which it’s based. I wondered if we are destined to create AI overlords in our own image, an image based on cultural paradigms steeped in hierarchy, scarcity, competition, and acquisition. In short—Fear.
Seeking Truth? Honor Your Inner Nudges
Things really started to happen after I attended the Vegan BBQ in early spring. I moved to Santa Cruz years ago and can’t count the number of times I’d flaked on the Vegan Meetup. For some inexplicable reason, I chose not to flake that day in March even though a light rain was falling, and I was an hour late and still needed to find a dish to share. I debated about turning back after the second cafe I checked didn’t have a good portable vegan option. Something nudged me forward. I opted for dessert and picked up a vegan pie at the community market. I’m grateful I honored the inner nudge to attend the event despite plenty of reasons to turnaround.
It was about that time that I’d started to hear more and more speculation about life being a simulation. I got the idea for writing a kid’s story about characters caught in a war game and how they break free by committing guerrilla acts of kindness. Part of me wondered, if we really are in a simulation caught in a war loop, wouldn’t we want to get out? I figured if anything, it would make novel party talk at the vegan BBQ.
I introduced myself to a woman who I learned came from India to attend Georgetown and now worked as an analyst in Silicon Valley. We speculated about how long it would be until AIs could do her job. To my surprise, when I brought up the simulation theory, she, and another man both shrugged and said, “I’m okay with the simulation.”
It was old news to them!
“Yes,” I said, “but if we’re caught in a loop, wouldn’t we want to get out.” That’s when the woman from Georgetown introduced me to the name Anita Moorjani, a woman who’d written two books on the aftermath of her near death experience (NDE). I made a note of the author’s name and knew it was the real reason I talked myself into attending a picnic in the rain.
I’d read Raymond Moody’s pioneering books on Life After Life in my twenties, along with any other book on near death experiences that I could find. The key takeaways from the people who died and came back were, the purpose of life is to love and to learn. The message had resonated deeply with me then and still does.
After learning about Anita Moorjani, I listened and re-listened to both of her books on audio. She returned from meeting her magnificent higher self with a message to live life fearlessly, love herself without condition, and express herself freely. Her clear-headed intellect shone through in her beautiful writing style.
She notes that society somehow seems to be set up opposite of the true reality of the other realm, one of pure love and interconnection. She asks us to imagine how making a single change like restructuring our schools based on cooperation instead of competition could change the world.
If I lived in a small tribal society, I would have been one of the people who kept guard in the middle of the night. Ever since my early twenties, I wake up around 3AM for a couple of hours. The God hours, someone recently told me. Over the years I have turned that time into learning hours, listening to podcasts or audio books. I’m thankful ITunes changed the GUI earlier in the year. I could no longer access my podcast library and listen to my regular diet of Sam Harris, Tim Ferriss and TED Talks. The bump in routine led me to YouTube. There, I binge watched the conference presentations from IANDS, the International Association of Near Death Studies often falling asleep to grisly accounts of car accidents, cancer or in one instance, death by dental implants!
One story particularly moved me for its depth and purity. Amy Call spoke of her NDE and how it gave her a sense of pristine order in a seemingly chaotic universe. Like Anita, Amy’s sensitivity and intellect shone through in her presentation.
The common theme among all these teachings was to live life fearlessly. The theme spoke to my inner knowing. After listening and re-listening to account after account of the profound love and growth associated with near death and after death experiences, I felt my own fear of death diminish.
It was through the algorithmic magic of YouTube that I discovered Paul Selig and the transformational teachings of the Guides. Paul’s unique background piqued my interest. A Yale graduate and accomplished NYU academic, for many years he’d been quietly working with “The Thursday Night Energy Group” a small collective who gathered in his apartment to witness the lectures of a group of non-physical teachers, a lineage who say the truest way to refer to them is Malkezedeck.
Nicknamed the Guides, they also teach to live life fearlessly. When we choose in fear, doors open in the spirit of that choice. When we choose in love, way leads onto way.
When I discovered these teachings, my life changed. Prior to that, thoughts of spinning aimlessly in a simulation made me wonder about my true mission. I’d literally been asking for an operating manual. I’d started to try to discern orienting principles from the NDE accounts. The Guide's teachings were the operating manual for life that I'd asked for.
(note: the Guides admonish students not to proselytize. I'm trying not to. I'm just sharing. Take what you need and leave the rest)
One afternoon, I thought to write my central orienting principle on a sticky note so I could place it where I’d see it so it would be top of mind. Up until then, I’d distilled my core orienting principle into the question…Is it helpful?
I use my patio as an art studio over the summer and the sliding glass door makes a good bulletin board. I scrawled Orienting Principle over a magenta sticky note followed by a 1. To my surprise instead of writing, Is it Helpful? I wrote, Is it True?
It was a much better orienting principle than I’d intended to write! In fact, a perfect orienting principle for the times we live in.
There's a lot more to this story. For now, I'll leave you with the takeaways, Live life fearlessly, love yourself unconditionally, express yourself freely. You are a valiant and courageous being living in interesting times.
That is true.