One of These Things is Not Like the Other

At the TED Conference last year, I shared many meals and met many interesting people. One of the dinners I attended was organized by Susan Bratton who I met through Adam Gilad (I was interviewed for his podcast last year - http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/220-fearless-lover#ep9). Susan founded and operates the site with her husband. At the dinner, I ended up sitting across from Jamis MacNiven who runs a breakfast place in Silicon Valley named Bucks. Jamis is a rather interesting guy who, besides making a killer pancake, travels the world learning new things (remember what the doormouse says - feed your head). When I spoke with him at TED, he was about to go hang out in Italy for a few weeks to study architecture. His son shot a movie about wrestling in Mongolia and also won the Amazing Race. Needless to say, you can learn a lot from TED just by talking to the people there and listening in on conversations.

A friend of mine recently sent a shot that had me in it from Jamis' blog about his TED experience (http://bucksstories.blogspot.com/2008/04/ted-2008_18.html). It was of a group of us talking between sessions about the future of media. I was surprised to see the shot on his blog and it brought back some memories of the discussion. It is quite fascinating how media shapes our world-view today and how technology is changing the ways in which we both consume media and how the production of media is financed. From recent discussions I've had with others, television revenues are down and bit torrent is on the rise. Hard drives continue to increase in size and home media networks are also exploding, especially with consoles and receivers that are wi-fi'd. Media is ephemeral, though the stories and themes are transcendent. As the pace of media and communications (connecting minds) continues to accelerate, it will be exciting to see its impact on collective consciousness.

These are certainly exciting times we live in. Events like TED and The EG are great places to get a preview and to meet some of the people behind the changes.

Baraka on Blue Ray

I recently upgraded my amp and media player (got a PS3). With the conclusion of the format was, I finally caved in and got a Bluray player. The film that I've been longing for is now available in Hong Kong on Bluray and looks fantastic. The picture and sound are absolutely amazing! They also produced a new documentary that covers the production of the film and another on the restoration process. The film was scanned at 8K resolution (and down-sampled to HD) and looks stunning. Many of the technical effects (changes in focus, etc.) and subtle details (background faces, etc.) are now clearly discernible. The music and sound design are also recorded in DTS-HD and serve to reinforce the imagry. This film is really what media is about (facilitating introspection, examining the "bigger picture" of life).

I have personally purchased and given away nearly a hundred copies of this film (for a while, I would buy copies that I came across that were at a low-price, knowing that I would give it away later). In my teaching career since my days at USC, I've also made many a student watch this film and reflect on it. In the first few years, students were also required to write an essay. I also make it a habit to watch the film all the way through a couple times a year. I've got the book by Mark Magidson as well as his concert film with Dead Can Dance (who also wrote a few of the songs on Baraka). There are shots from Baraka in the second Matrix film (when Neo is talking to the Architect).

How fanatical am I? When I visited Santa Fe for a conference, I tried to look up Ron Fricke who directed the film. I found out that he moved to Berkeley and met the people that now live in the house that he lived in while in Santa Fe. My friend Peter Russell (http://www.peterrussell.com) was also an advisor to the film. There is a whole site around the fans of Baraka (http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/) and who are also looking forward to his new film, Samsara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsara_(2007_film)).

I plan to watch / hear / experience this film more over the next few weeks. For those of you that haven't seen it, be sure to pick it up on Bluray!

Happy Travels

Back from another trip to the United States. I visited the Institute of Noetic Sciences (http://www.ions.org) near San Francisco, attended the Creative Leadership Summit (http://www.creativeleadershipsummit.org) in New York, participated in the International Conference on Entertainment Computing (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/icec2008/) in Pittsburgh, and visited friends and family in Los Angeles. It was a great trip overall and I made a lot of new friends and reconnected with many that I have not seen in a long time.

The highlight of the trip was attending the Creative Leadership Summit for the second time. I participated in two of the panels and in one panel, "came out of the closet" as a "dualist." For the last few years, I've been investigating the mind, the relationship between mind and body, and how experience is communicated (language, empathy, etc.). While many, especially in the consciousness community, try to push the physical "implementation" of mind into the brain (neuron structures), or down into the level of quantum effects, I am more interested in how the mind develops a world-view and how mental activities translate into physical action (perspective, emotions, and intentions). I am especially interested in how media experiences influence the mind and emotions. For this, it is easier to examine the mental world and its relationship to the physical world. The physical world and the body, in a sense, grounds the mental. Emotional expressions, body language, eye movements (NLP), and how we breath are intimately connected to the mental world. Eastern knowledge of the body and health also play a role. These processes are based upon physical phenomenon that are independent of culture and beliefs (for example, an angry American Christian breaths and carries similar body language and facial expressions to an angry Muslim from Iran).

I've been busy lately planning for the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference we are hosting here in Hong Kong next June (http://www.asiaconsciousness.org/TSC). In addition to the conference, we are developing a whole festival around Consciousness which will be a lot of fun. If you are working in the area of consciousness, media psychology, or entertainment computing, please submit an abstract!

A Moment In Time

It’s been a while since my last post. The summer flew by fairly quickly. My wife, kids, and I had a great trip to Banff and the Banff New Media Institute (http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/). For those that have not been there, Banff is a small town situated in the middle of a national park in the midst of the Canadian Rockies. Surrounded by nature, the Banff Center is a cultural hub that includes musical performance, theater, writers and artists in residence, and scientists (Banff International Research Station). Surrounded by nature and with so much creative people to connect with, one cannot help but become inspired. The Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) provides excellent facilities for new media including a CAVE, TV studio, computer labs, etc. They also have a wireless research laboratory as well. What a fun place! Relaxing, yet so full of activity! The Banff Center provides a conflux of diverse activity, an ideal environment for synchronicity to happen. During our stay there, I was able to meet many interesting people including renown pianist Anton Kuerti, author Jeff Warren (http://www.headtrip.ca), Richard Miller (http://www.nondual.com), and Bill Mckibben (http://www.350.org).

The kids loved the animals that we were able to see (elk, coyote, and even saw a bear), the dinosaur remains (Drumheller made a great day trip), and the glaciers (Columbian Ice Flow). Lake Louise was quite spectacular, though it was raining on the day we were there and wasn’t able to take the kids canoeing (though we later went on a raft ride down the Bow river). On our drive up to the Columbian Ice Flow, I took a wrong turn and we ended up driving through Yoho National Park, home of the Burgess Shale. For those of you unfamiliar with the Burgess Shale, they are fossils of creatures (Trilobites) that date back 500 MILLION years ago. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the idea of 500 million years. Lets see… college was 20 years ago… The Declaration of Independence was 200 years ago… Jesus was 2000 years ago… early man was 20,000 years ago… Dinosaurs were maybe 65-230 million years ago (big jump there)… to the trilobites of 500 million years ago. Kind of boggles the mind to look across that vast span of time and the accelerated technology driven by the mind that has led us to where we are today.

And what better way to spend today than with family? School starts again next week. It has been a great summer spending time with our children. Our trip reminded me a lot of the camping trips that my parents took me on to Yosemite and Disneyworld when I was trowing up. After we returned home from Banff, the two older ones went to Japan as part of a trip with their Japanese School, leaving me with our youngest, Orson. We had a great time spending one day at Disneyland and another at Ocean Park. We also watched a lot of the Olympics together as well. These trips have been an absolute treasure, bonding with our kids. In the vastness of time, each day can be such a joy to savor with the ones you love.

More Great Online Content

I find myself watching more and more media online these days in my free time. It’s been a while since I saw a movie in the theaters and I rarely turn on the television. There are some really great sites online for those that want to expand their interests. It is also reassuring to see so much meaningful content as well. Some recent discoveries include http://www.fora.tv, http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief2, and http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/.

I was particularly excited about finding a site with video by Tony De Mello, especially since my wife is Catholic http://tonydemello.wordpress.com/. My personal view is that all religions are languages for communicating inner experience and its great to find a Catholic perspective that is less dogmatic to provide a common semantic reference for my wife and me.

Summer!

My wife and I finished our Master Cleanse after eight days. It definitely went by easier the second time around. I noticed getting dizzy after standing up quickly after lying in bed or sitting for a long period of time, but other than that things went pretty smoothly. Coming off the Cleanse wasn’t so easy as we had two banquets over the weekend rather than easing back into food (which I would not advise).

I spent yesterday watching the NBA finals with my son who had just finished his exams. He turns eight years old today, but enjoys basketball. I remember watching the earlier Celtics / Lakers competitions with my own dad some twenty or so years ago. This time around, the Celtics blew out the Lakers (my parents are in LA) and to my surprise, they showed a video called “Gino” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JPA_L7bRSo).

I’ve been planning a trip to Banff where I will be speaking in July. Although I’ve given talks before at conferences, this will be the first talk that I give where the tickets are available from Ticketmaster (http://www.ticketmaster.ca/event/1100409EE286ACA6). My wife and kids will also be joining and we will be doing some hiking there. I also plan on bringing the kids to see the glaciers (while they still exist) and dinosaur museum in Drumheller.

I’ve started teaching Recovering Creativity again during the weekend. Am trying some new things with the course (7 weeks, 4 hours per week vs. 14 weeks, 2 hours per week). I’ve got a great group this term!

Cleanse and Friend Passing

My wife and I are on day 5 of a Master Cleanse (I blogged about our first experience with it last year). Things are going fairly well with a minor bout of headaches and a sore neck (twisted tendons). I get dizzy if I stand up too fast. The Master Cleanse second time around is going fairly easily without hunger pangs on days 3 or 4. We decided to do the cleanse after all the food we ate traveling throughout Israel and Jordan. The food there was quite healthy and tasty, freshly grown from on the Kubutzes there. I miss the humus and beets already. We will most likely stop our cleanse after eight or nine days as my wife has dinners she is hosting on Friday and Saturday.

I received e-mail over the weekend announcing that my friend Erick Wujcik (http://www.47rpg.com) had passed away from Pancreatic Cancer, the same disease that took Richard Newton’s life (which I’ve blogged about). Erick was a good friend who came to Hong Kong and taught in our program for a year before moving to Shanghai to become Head Game Designer for Ubisoft’s studio in Shanghai. In addition to designing video games, he also created over 70 pen and paper role-playing games. We had many good conversations together and his friendship will be missed. Randy Pausch who I’ve met at Carnegie Mellon University when I visited the Entertainment Technology Center there is also suffering from Pancreatic Cancer. He recently gave another inspiring speech which is available online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcYv5x6gZTA).

The Holy Land

I spent the last two weeks with my wife traveling through the “Holy Land” on a Christian tour. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law have recently become Christian and asked us to join. I had always wanted to see Jerusalem and, after I found out that we would also be visiting Jordan and Petra, jumped at the chance. Being in a busload of praying, “experience sharing,” and singing Christians for hours at a time was a new experience for me (brought me back to summer camp in my youth). I read the book Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus by Karl Jaspers on the trip which provided a great perspective on the lives of these four remarkable individuals and the legacy that they left behind.

Some highlights included Jerusalem and the old city (especially the Holy Sepulchre, Wailing Wall, and Dome on the Mount), swimming in the Dead Sea, the view at Makhtesh Ramon, walking through Petra and Jerash, a boat-ride in Galilee, and learning about the formation of Israel. Needless to say, we also saw a lot of churches. The food was good, but fairly repetitive (humus, chicken, salad, etc.).

We also saw the wall surrounding the Palestinian areas. Luckily, there was little violence while we were there. Another very special highlight was climbing Mount Sinai and watching the sunrise. Mount Sinai, of course, was where it is claimed that Moses saw the “burning bush” and received the Ten Commandments. This has special meaning for me because, earlier in my life, “God” had also handed me words to live by. The first time was when I was skiing in Austria (Solden) in 1991 when I was given the words “Art, Love, Tea” which still puzzles me to this day, but has had influence in my life (when “God” hands you words, its best to just take them). The second time was in 1993 in Nepal. I was on a bus driving down the top of Mount Nagarkot and this time I was handed (on an Apple Newton Tablet even!) four sentences that became a life philosophy for a period. They were:
1) All I bring is what I know
2) All I take is what I leave
3) All I leave is what I do (or achieve)
4) All I do, I do from love

The nice thing about this philosophy is that it works on the micro (e.g., meeting someone), and also the macro (e.g., life). Although I was not handed anything on my climb (camel ride) and descent (hiking) from Mount Sinai (though I did pick up a few rocks), it did bring back memories. The camel ride up was fun as I had my headphones and looped the soundtrack to Lawrence of Arabia. Although we did not visit, I did get the chance to see Aqaba from Eilat (big flag over Aqaba supposed to be the largest in the world). Didn’t get to dive the Red Sea either. All the more excuse for another visit in the future.

Pangea Day

If you haven't seen it yet, check out http://www.pangeaday.org. The highlight video is quite remarkable. I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the role of media and its ability to bring people together into community. Media creates a common reference for dialogue and discussion. Many of the films on the Pangea Day site are quite touching. Held as an international event, the films brought people around the world together and truly inspire. It was also great to see so many members of the TED community coming together to make it happen! Can we build communities as such on the Internet with a shared viewing experience?

Back from My Blog Hiatus

I’m back from my self-imposed hiatus. As I have been on a mini-sabbatical from teaching this semester, the past few months have been a whirlwind of travel and activity. I attended the TED conference (http://www.ted.com), the Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson (http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/tucson2008.htm) where I gave a talk and demo’d some new work. We are hosting the conference in Hong Kong next year (http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hongkong.htm). I was also invited to give a talk at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness Conference held at the Yale Divinity School (http://www.sacaaa.org/). The trip to the East Coast was particularly special because my wife and kids came along and we spent a few days in New York together beforehand. During the travels, I met many new friends as well as reacquainting myself with many old ones as well.

TED was an amazing event where I got to meet many inspiring freethinkers including Karen Armstrong. It was her book, A Short History of Myth that I first encountered the term “Phusikoi.” I was privileged to have attended a breakfast and sat at the same table with her (religion is essential to humanity), Dan Dennett, and my friend Sue Blackmore (both Dan and Sue are from the atheist/skeptics camp). I was able to spend time with all of them which helped me build my case regarding inner experience that I presented at the Yale conference. There were some really inspiring talks this year at TED including one by Jill Bolte Taylor that has been making the rounds on the Internet (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229). My wife and I will be attending together next year.

Continuing my thoughts on entertainment for a thinking person, among the many new friends that I made during my travels was singer-songwriter Nellie McKay (http://www.nelliemckay.com/) who I met at TED where she performed. The combination of satire and musical talent was really refreshing. It’s really exciting to see messages delivered in a fresh new way and there is nothing like humor to get ideas across in a non-threatening way. I’ve also recently discovered the work of Bill Hicks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q95kX_EP2Nk) and Doug Stanhope (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_yaifPIEU&feature=related) that encourage people to question the status quo... with humor.

Entertainment for the Thinking Person

I’ve always been a promoter of education and how technology enables the dissemination of information and media (anything that affects the mind should be free). There is also a growing movement for open source, Creative Commons, and Copyleft (opposite of Copyright). A movie has recently been released available for download titled “Steal This Film” which also addresses the trend towards P2P and digital download (and makes a positive case for it) and worth a download http://www.stealthisfilm.com/. While it may be hard at times to sift through the meaningful stuff from the crud, there are more and more sites that are hosting consciousness-raising and thought provoking content. I have previously mentioned a few such as TED and the Creative Leadership Summit (which are also great networking events). Here are a few more:

http://www.guba.com/watch/3000053112 (important for better understanding the world situation today)
http://freedocumentaries.org (may be showing a bit of my Berkeley roots)
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php (definitely showing my Berkeley roots)
http://www.edge.org (thought provoking articles and discussions)

With sites like these, why waste time with TV? If you know any other great sites, feel free to send them to me!

Another Year and One Step Closer

I got a call before Christmas from a friend and former colleague, Erick Wujcik (http://www.47rpg.com/blog/, http://www.erickwujick.com), who informed me that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was a year ago a former professor, Richard Newton, who was the Dean of the Engineering School passed away (from pancreatic cancer). I was able to see Erick twice last year (2007) before he got the news and also saw him this week when he visited Hong Kong. After reading Chasing Daylight and Not Fade Away (which I've blogged about earlier), it was an eye opening experience being a part of someone else's "coming to terms with the possibility of death." Erick has lived a full life and is in very good spirits. He has also influenced many people, myself included.

Perhaps it is a sign of middle age (I turn 44 this year). Up until now, I've been fairly fortunate in that my friends and family are still around. I've only lost a few people that I've known well. My grandfather, a handful of friends (Garrett Omata, Kenny Cheung, Linda Mabalot). I expect that it will become more of a regular occurrence as I grow older. With age, time seems to be going by a lot quicker as well. The days, weeks, and months seem to be flying by. I've been alive 15,900 or so days so another day is just 1/15,900 of my time alive vs. the first day which represented the whole of my existence outside the womb. Perhaps or experience of time is related to the harmonic series.

This New Years had me reflecting again about mortality. The New Years Eve party bordered on surreal with fireworks going off, my kids dancing on stage with a live band, and me wondering how I would feel if this were the last New Years Party that I would ever attend. Like birth, death is a process that we will all experience and must reconcile. Who are you. Why are you here. The comfort of loved ones. The miracle of life. Music. Love. Perspective. Presence.

Right here, right now, it is good to be alive.

Inspired by Ideas

Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to attend a truly inspiring event, The Entertainment Gathering (http://www.the-eg.com). What made the event so amazing was not only the incredible speakers and live performances, but also the fellow-attendees, each of whom were working on projects driven by their passion to make the world a better place. The EG is hosted by Michael Hawley of the MIT Media Laboratory and also an accomplished pianist and founded by Richard Saul Wurman who also founded the TED Conference in Monterrey (which I will be attending in a few months). There is a blog of the event (http://blog.the-eg.com/).

Some of the chance meetings bordered on the surreal. For example, a chance meeting and discussion with Max Palevsky who as introduced to computers by John von Neumann and later went on to help fund Intel and his wife, Jodie Evans who is also accomplished in her own right and co-foundered Code Pink a peace and social activist movement. Being invited to Danny and Pattie Hillis’ “ranch” home in Encino (they have a parrot, mules, and lamas). Pattie does a lot of work on environmental and sustainability issues while Danny is a legend in computers, entertainment technology (former CTO of Disney), and attacking hard engineering problems (http://www.longnow.org) for the sheer fun of it. The photographers Peter Menzel and Faith d’Aluisio were another inspiring husband-wife pair.

One of my personal favorite moments was bumping into jazz legend Herbie Hancock in the bathroom and nearly dropping to my hands and knees in a “we’re not worthy” moment.

What also made the event particularly meaningful were the live performances (including a finale piece by Leon Fleisher) and visuals (not to mention the Getty where the event was held). Being hit with ideas, raw emotion, multimedia, and the interactive networking. Reflections by Comedy legend Jonathan Winters was deeply moving. Events such as The EG, TED (http://www.ted.com), The Creative Leadership Summit (http://www.creativeleadershipsummit.org), and Gadgetoff (http://www.gadgetoff.com/home.html) bring the mystery, wonder, joy, and camaraderie in life. Hong Kong could really use an event like this.

While in LA, I also visited MARC (http://www.marc.ucla.edu/) and got to spend time with Dan Siegel (http://drdansiegel.com/) as well as attending the anniversary party at AGAPE (http://www.agapelive.com/) and meeting Michael Beckwith. A lot of good going on in LA.

What Would You Say to the World?

With the Internet, one can create a website and communicate to the whole world (provided everyone finds your site). However, if you had the chance to speak directly to the whole world, what would you say? I recently switched computers and came across a video I hadn’t seen before, but had tucked away in a directory. A few years ago (I think it was around 2002 or 2003), I went to Los Angeles for the annual E3 Expo (which ended last year). A friend of mine at CNN asked me if I would show up in their “Hollywood Studio” to answer some questions, to which I replied “Sure!”

On the day of the interview, I stopped by their studio on Sunset Boulevard and they had me wait in a tiny studio room barely enough to fit me sitting in a chair, a camera, and a simple 3 point lighting rig. I sat and waited for a while pretty calm and relaxed until the camera person came in and apologized for the delay “This happens a lot when we go live international.” It suddenly dawned on me that in a few minutes, the interview would be broadcast instantly around the world. I immediately became quite self-conscious. The whole world…. Live… What should I say? Thoughts of “Hi mom!” and “World Peace!!” came to mind. It is times like this that learning to breath and staying present helps.

You can kind of tell from the interview that I’m a bit nervous (you can see it here: http://www.merecl.com/~gino//Video/cv.wmv. It was an interesting experience and still kind of boggles my mind.

Living Simplicity

Last week, I spent some time in Japan, but before leaving, I had one of those wonderful mornings with my wife and kids. The kind that are simple, yet magical. It started with my wife and I lying in bed talking about life and planning our upcoming vacations, and ended with playing with the kids. My son, Chinat, beat me at the game Battleship. After the game, my younger son, Orson, helped clean up by picking out the red pegs from the white ones (seeing that there were fewer red pegs, it was a lot quicker to do so which was great insight for a four-year-old). Just the feeling of being in the same room as my wife and kids and seing what happens as it emerges fills me with such wonder and gratitude.

Here’s a fun talk about simplicity in design and life: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/172

Why and how is it that life can become so complicated? What are the sources of complexity? Inner turmoil? What are the “forces” that push fun and passion to become anger and frustration? What are the physical changes? There are chemical changes (neurotransmitters) and different parts of the brain get activated, but what are the inner forces that trigger these?

Complexity seems to arise from conflict, either between people or within one’s self. Conflicting ideas and emotional attachments to these ideas (desires) that, from a singular perspective, appear to contradict each other. These impede action and/or creates stress which contribute to “inner turmoil” and a “cloudy” mind. The very nature of complexity seems rooted in the mind and thought. In this sense, simplicity is also associated with “pure” action or intention. What kind of knowledge is needed to act in harmony? Is there a form of knowledge not rooted in mind and thought? If so, how is it to be accessed?

Amazing People, Inspiring Work

It has been a while since my last entry. I spent three weeks traveling in the United States including Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. I visited many friends and family (met my nephew for the first time) and also visited some MERECL clients. The main draw for the trip was to attend the Creative Leadership Summit (http://www.creativeleadershipsummit.org). The event brought together neuroscientists and other academics, NGOs, leading business and media figures, and government officials working to make a difference in the world in a round-table style setting. The sessions were recorded and available online in addition to being streamed live.

For me, it was a really amazing event as I got to meet a lot of people that I find really inspiring. I also made a lot of new friends and discussed several new projects opportunities. I find it incredible that creative and intelligent people all around are coming to the same conclusions and working towards similar goals. I find it really validating and empowering. Throughout my trip, it seemed that everyone was working on or towards something related to consciousness, the environment, education, or poverty. I hope that they continue to run the event next year (and invite me again!). I wrote a paper for the event which can be downloaded at http://www.merecl.com/~gino/Docsntalks/CreativeLeadership.pdf.

In Washington DC, I visited with my friend Chuck Hillig (http://www.chuckhillig.com/). He has a house near a lake and a boat which we cruised around in. We had a great time hanging out. Chuck’s friend, Tom Kubat was also there. Tom’s company (http://www.sunyatastudios.com) produces spiritually oriented media.
In Philadelphia, I visited with Michael Highland (who came to Hong Kong for 6 months earlier in the year) and was able to meet Andrew Newberg (http://www.andrewnewberg.com/) who is also working on the science of spiritual experience. I also visited briefly with cultural psychologist Paul Rozin (http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~rozin/) and Martin Seligman’s Center of Positive Psychology (http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/).

Montreal was a quick client visit (http://www.a2m.com). I also saw a friend (had an amazing Italian dinner), and went to the party for ADAPT (http://www.adaptmontreal.com/).

I spent some time visiting friends in San Francisco and was able to hang out in Berkeley for a bit. I popped down to San Diego for a day to see my sister and a good friend, Bill Lin. The following day, my sister, brother-in-law, and I drove up to Los Angeles to see my mother and brother for lunch before flying back to the Bay Area. I got to see Frank Echenhofer (http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/echenhofer.html) for dinner (we roomed together in Budapest), visited Maurizio and Alex Black who I’ve known since he was six (http://www.turingstudio.com/).

Overall, it was a really refreshing trip. Tomorrow, I head for a week in Japan.

Harmony

Recently, I've been reading up on Pythagoras, one of my favorite Phusikoi (for more information about him, check out (http://www.completepythagoras.net/mainframeset.html). I remember first encountering Pythagoras in elementary school, with the Disney movie Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land (why don't they make cartoons like that anymore?). Of course, most people know him for his theorem on right triangles. He is also developed the first scales for western music by correlating pitches by moving a fixed point along the length of stretched string. Certain relationships were found to be more "pleasing" to the ear than others (chords). This is extremely applying rational inquiry and mathematics to the physical world (stretched strings) to influence inner experience (pleasing vs. dissonant). Pythagoras applied mathematics to his observations of nearly everything from visuals (golden ratio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) to the heavens (Music of the Spheres) and natural order (harmony).

How to apply interactive media to cultivate and enrich "inner experience" from a similarly rational and experiential basis? What is the science of living in harmony? Is that not what time and space are motivating consciousness towards? If not, why not? What are the factors that inhibit harmony?

Trip and tripping

I was in Budapest last week attending the Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference where I presented a poster and caught up with friends and made many new ones. Hong Kong is scheduled to host the 2009 event. I spent time with Stuart Hameroff who gave an excellent talk, and Sam, his girlfriend. We had several great dinners together, including a wonderful boat-trip down the Danube, and visited “Statue Park” which was a park that contained many of the communist-era statues just outside of town. It was great getting reacquainted with Budapest. I met some chess-players at a park and spent some time with them playing speed chess. I haven’t played in over 10 years and it felt great getting back into it, like riding a bicycle.

I shared a room in Budapest with Frank Echenhofer. Frank teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies (http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/echenhofer.html) where he teaches developmental psychology and researches altered states of consciousness. Frank hooks experienced Ayahuasca users up to EEG and measures their brainwaves while they have an experience. He’s identified high gamma coherence for those tripping on Ayahuasca. Similar gamma coherence findings have been observed during compassion meditation practitioners by Tibetan monks. We had a lot of great discussions related to sacred art, mythology, personal transformation, and ancient knowledge. There is a great talk about ancient knowledge which also touches upon Ayahuasca here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/69. There were a lot of great discussions and interesting people which makes the Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference such a great event. While in Budapest, I also visited Budapest Kitchen, a media arts lab in Budapest (http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/) which was a lot of fun.

On my way back to Hong Kong, I visited my friend Pieter in Holland who was one of the Best Men at my wedding. We’ve known each other for almost 20 years. He is married and also with three children, though without any nannies. We had a great time re-connecting and reminiscing. I learned a lot seeing he and his wife (they both work) manage their children and their lives. I also visited V2 (http://www.v2.nl/) and attended the Rotterdam Carnival while I was there. The Dutch know how to party!
Going on a trip right after a “personal retreat” was very interesting. During the conference in Budapest, I lost my wallet in Budapest. I was quite surprised at how easily I was able to just “let it go” and not stress too much over it (which I traditionally have done when I’ve lost items in the past). Luckily, I still had my passport. Having returned to Hong Kong a few days now, I’ve been standing in a lot of lines replacing all of the cards that I had lost. I am literally re-building my identity.

Personal Retreat

It has been a while since my last post. The topic of the past few posts, coupled with a long absence, may have drawn some concern. I’ve been OK. The past few months has seen some transitions and a move in consciousness towards stillness (e.g., less activity). In fact, this post is made in reaction to a comment by a close friend that I will be traveling with later this summer in the US who reminded me that it has been over a month since my last posting.

I am excited to be on a personal retreat that started today. My wife and kids are traveling in China to visit a school that we helped to establish. Our maids are on holiday. I am home alone for the next four days. The situation has provided me with a great opportunity for reflection, introspection, and meditation. I am headed out to Europe next week for the Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference in Budapest (http://www.tsc2007.org/). I will be presenting a poster there. We are also scheduled to host the Conference in Hong Kong in 2009.

The "agenda" for my personal retreat is to deepen my understanding of action. What is it that moves me to do what I do – what are the impulses and their source. Watching so many people, myself included, life seems to be about working hard (busy, busy, busy), and relaxing (time with family, watching a movie, etc.). In life and with time, things seem to come up (s**t happens!). Some seem coincidental and syncrhonistic while others can seem distracting. With media and information technology, more and more things come up seemingly round the clock. We react and call that living. Even when we don’t have stuff to do, we make stuff up like watching a movie, talking to friends, going to the gym, etc. Seeing something or hearing a story in passing may trigger desires (e.g., good advertising) either consciously or sub-consciously which perpetuates further action and activity. If we fill all the hours and minutes up with activity, we call it an active life.

It is easy to react to everything and, given the things that are coming at you, make sense of them all and combine them in what seem to be the best possible ways. Its kind of like seeing the world as sockets and plugs. You hook connected things together and make bigger sense and projects from the things that “just show up.” Feeling your way, things emerge that you work towards developing further. Some pieces fit what you seem to be working towards, while others don’t. For those that fit, you try to incorporate. For those that don’t, you try to match them with other initiatives that you know about. With openness and awareness, life becomes very easy and effortless, but can very easily consume you with so many opportunities and things to do.

The other route is to bring one idea deep within and devote your full resource towards that. This requires either the discipline to say “no” to other things which emerge, or a deeper understanding and appreciation of how and why things happen exactly when they do. While it's good to let yourself just be yourself, every action has an intention and every intention has a source. What are the sources influencing your life? Needs? Desires? Joy?

Not Having

I finished Not Fade Away while I was in Taiwan. There are some great excerpts from the book that stuck with me. One in particular is “A problem that can be fixd by money… is not a problem.” Although the quote is used to relate to the importance of one’s health, I think that it also relates to many of the world’s problems. Many are of the view that money will solve problems such as African debt, malaria, global warming, etc. but without systemic changes in attitude and behavior, the problems will eventually return (I guess money = time in this equation). I have a lot of friends that have great plans that they are working towards, but just lack the funding…. And fall into dispair when things don’t work out (despite the best intentions). When it comes to finances, it seems that a lot of times there is a fear of lacking or a fear of loss. Many seemingly “problems” that we carry around in our minds are self inflicted. I’ve found it always good to raise inner awareness when such problems arise, separate the thoughts that triggered the feelings and to examine the feelings.

Another one excerpt from the book is “… I love to work. As long, that is, as work was fun; as long as it had some content I enjoyed, rather than being just a grudging exchange of time for money. I realized something basic then. If you work for fun, money will come. If you set out working for money alone, enjoyment is not likely to be part of the equation. If excitement isn’t there at the start, why imagine it will come along later? A dreary job can only get drearier.” Many today work at jobs that they do not enjoy, but do so because of the “security” that the job provides or the image that they find so important to maintain.

My recent trip to Vietnam took me to a large factory (10,000 people) working on making small toys. I was humbled watching the workers toil away at repetitive work for less than 100 USD/month (10,000 people organized around making trinkets that lure kids into a life of fast food). Yet, they had the presence to flash a warm smile when we made eye contact. It doesn't take much to keep us alive. So many of us living in the first world are so fortunate, yet we don’t seem to realize how fortunate we are.