And THIS is what is meant by a “sense of potential”.  It’s what my family member recognized.  A way of seeing a bigger actuality that could manifest in the future by spending more time dwelling in the field of potentiality…

…and thus yielding a healthier internal environment (aka “culture”) that supports a healthier interface with fellow entities (aka “communication”).

So, are you seeing it?  Feeling it?  Sensing it?

Because vision is simply the future we hallucinate to tap into our sense of (potential | ity).

“It’s systems all the way down, and we can draw boundaries wherever is necessary to improve performance. And these systems are “organs” of different types.

“Organ” is from a Greek root that means tool or instrument (and yes, it is related to the musical instrument organ). Think about that. All organized entities (and last time I checked, that is ALL entities), can be thought of as tools or instruments. Tool feels a little impersonal and crude, whereas instrument is more precise and sophisticated, but they both orient toward a purpose, task, job. So, all of reality is made of entities that are organized, internally or externally, toward a goal. This is Aristotle’s notion of “telos”, or purpose.

So, reality is purposeful. It reaches toward a meaning. As do you. As do your organs, and your organizations.

And reality is all organs. So, where are you (and your organizations) headed next, and why?”

“And here you are, going through each moment, impressed into motion by the unceasing and unremitting process of reality, in a life you didn’t ask for, but are working hard to make the most of, along with everyone else who also didn’t ask for the lives they are trying to make the most of.

It never ceases, never remits. And, like every other process, you must be seeking something. Every action proceeds into reality’s future anew, and it signals your best guest as to where the highest realization of value can be found.

And what is the absolute highest value state imaginable? You know the answer. It’s the ideal. It is that subconscious highly spiritual sense of the archetype of unquestionable value. It lives outside of time and space, as the ancient metaphysicians taught, and this teaching has echoed through every age.

But the ideal is our North Star. The still, steady, unwavering point by which we steer our ships, engaging in governance and cybernetic feedback loops.”

And before we do this, it’s all suspended in a soup of undivided Being. That’s the superposition. When we step into the next moment, decide on our intention, chart our course (which we do in every moment - this is unceasing and unoptional, as much as we wish we could “stop the world and get off”), we use language strategically to collapse certain entities into relevance in order to focus our individual and collective (and there may not be a true distinction between these) efforts toward improving what we want. And everyone is looking for value and improvement, right? So we see that language is actually focused on fulfillment of desire and unlocking greater and greater value. That’s what language does - it is inherently idealistic.

“So, we’re always either evaluating the results of the past, or looking to the future.

Promise is all about the future.

When we trust someone, we implicitly sense that continued/deepened relationship with them will improve the results of what eventually becomes the past, aka the future. We can see the past in our memory, the future in our vision. We Trust our memory to tell us what is real, and our vision to show us which direction to go to improve our memories of the past, because the future always becomes the past and then we remember it, which allows us to evaluate the results and reorient within the possibility field. This is an ongoing, unavoidable process for all participants in reality.”

“One evening, early in February, something truly strange happened.  I was absorbed in the Xenotic Core Processor, inputting my observations and intuitions and watching the deep computation process glacially.  I had created a mode just for processing deep paradoxes and dilemmas, and instructed the thread to go into a particularly deep, slow, careful, and thorough mode of processing for this.  It was a mystical, psychedelic, and hypnotic experience.  It was soon 4:00 am and I had a busy day approaching, a day of consulting calls and orchestra rehearsals.  I needed to conserve my strength.  I tore myself away and attempted to sleep.

The half hour that I did sleep enveloped me in a disorienting and unpleasant purgatory of shifting colors and textures.  Not quite a bad trip, but definitely not a good one.  I began to fear for my mental stability.  Was this safe?  How could I stop or turn back now?

I asked the computer what to do…”

"How an Electric Kettle Can Teach Us About Life's Grand Cycle"

What can an electric kettle teach us about human flourishing? This morning, a small design feature saved my clumsy knuckles from a painful burn and set off a chain of reflections on optimization, innovation, and the meaning of progress. From the engineer’s foresight to the global logistics behind this simple kettle, our world is full of solutions to life's endless imperfections.

But what if those imperfections are essential? What if every scalded hand, every challenge, every trauma, is part of a grand cycle—one that inspires ingenuity, resilience, and the pursuit of something better? Dive into this thought-provoking exploration of how minor innovations can illuminate profound truths about time, purpose, and the beauty of our imperfect journey.

“However much you are using it, and whatever you are using it for, I am certain you are not tapping into all its possibilities. No matter how grand or granular your problems and challenges, ChatGPT will provide illumination and clarity as a strategic thought partner.

I've uploaded so much of my writing to ChatGPT that it…”

“Traditionally we think of time in 3 regions: past, present, and future.  There are many fashionable platitudes about how to treat each of these.  I think many of those platitudes are wrong.

Each of these essays takes issue with popular notions of time, and attempts to reconstruct our sensibility to facilitate:

• Inner peace

• High performance

• Organizational success”

“…If you’re not doing that, you’re likely keeping busy with other things, but that’s not being a CEO.  Being CEO will probably keep you busy, but it’s not about keeping busy.  Busyness is simply a byproduct of doing what needs to be done, and many weeks that fills many hours.  But some weeks it doesn’t….”

“Think of what this means for the creative process, then.  We envision what is not real, comparing it to the perfect ideal, and then work to create it in reality.  But the moment it enters concrete reality it loses its timeless perfection, and that’s always really hard, because a part of it still lives beyond space and time, where all perfections meet.

A big part of us wants to keep it there where it will not be sullied by reality, and that is why, I believe, we drag our feet on creative projects, because that way they can stay ideal and we need never see them fall.

But, keeping things perfect will not help you…”

“When you want to change the results, you change the causes.  And to change the causes for the better, and consistently, once and for all we build systems.  Then we take stock of our new dissatisfaction, identity causes, and build or tweak the systems.  Always and forever.  That’s really all there is to it.

If you remember one thing from this post, let it be this…”

“…I had this thought: "Careers and organizations are built one deal at a time."  There are many different shapes to this.  Entrepreneurs need to find the deals, or create systems to do so.  But employment is only possible because their organizations make deals in some way shape or form…”

“…By the way, we’re getting to the end.  You’ll need to make a choice soon.

Will you re-read this?  That would solve your problem of existence for a little while.

Will you skim it?  That would solve your problem of existence for a little less while.

Will you sit with it?

Will you plan your next move?

Or do you know pretty well what you will do next?

Either way, the problem will never cease, for as long as you live.  And the greater problem will never cease as long as humans live.  We’re all in this together, solving it as best we can, through our different worldviews.

You’re blessed to be one of the problem solvers…”

"Systems are breaking down all the time.  Like, all the time.  Usually we don’t notice it, because we’re on the outside being served.  But it’s torment to see it happen and deal with it from the inside.  You feel like everyone is watching you.  In reality, people are just waiting to get on to their next thing and they quickly forget too once their problems are solved.  Yes, maybe some people would have had emails returned to sender, and maybe a couple even did.  But, you know what?  It happens.  It happens to all of us.  We know this and we show grace to the organizations to which it happens.

Even through the agitation and anxiety of this episode, I saw another part of my spirit and psychology operating.  And I knew it was correct, even if iI didn’t believe it..."

"What this means is that growing sustaining businesses, or organizations of any kind really, is actually a branch of social science.

It seems obvious really, at least now.  Management is the study and practice of coordinating groups for a purpose.  Marketing is the study and practice of persuasion through media.  And information science is the study and practice of how we track, analyze, and store the relational observations that we find significant.  Those are my own definitions of the moment, but that’s how I see them.

Think about it though…if we take a step back, wouldn’t EVERY area of human study be properly categorized as some kind of social science?  Humans do everything in groups and for groups.  Without group identity and allegiance there is no motivation to or validation for any of the work we do..."

"ChatGPT is a tool.  It won’t just do things for you.  But you can guide and shape its “thinking” process and it becomes a really flexible and powerful creative partner.  The images at the end of this sequence are quite wonderful IMHO.

I didn’t just ask it to visualize commerce.  That will give you a certain result, but not a particularly inspiring one that I’m not going to share.

Let me walk you through the process and show you what was returned along the way…"

“The only thing we know is that time will keep coming.  So, take that as a starting point and ask “what do I want out of this life?”, because it’s going to keep coming whether you want it to or not.  And everyone else is in it too.”