I am a scientist of the future. I observe technology and its impact on transactions, money, economies, relationships, intimacy and personal identity.
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. ― Richard P. Feynman
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The second snow of the season is coming down, I made a big pot of chicken barley veggie soup and I'm listening to Sheila Chandra's excellent drone album while I work on some projects. Over the past month or so, I've returned to several projects that went on the back burner in Q1 2020.
I had reminded myself of my 2020 plan -- I had a war chest and some new entrepreneurial offers. But after a few months of the pandemic, and all those dreams (along with the lack of return phone calls) were shuttered. Two years of pandemic later and the entrepreneurial spirit in me was squeezed out. I wanted more structure, stability and to get paid for all the hidden things I do that is part of the job of being your own boss. So I got some clients. And my entrepreneurial projects ended went on the back burner.
You know what is interesting? These projects are coming off the back burner. It helps to have the space on the front burners too.
It's like I might be recovering from the pandemic interrupt. When I revisit these projects, they are still so fresh and relevant. And look at all this work I previously did on them. This gives me fresh energy for new projects too. For example, I banged out a first draft of a book proposal over the course of a few days. I don't know where these will go. For now, I am keeping myself busy, trying things out and paying it forward sharing what I know.
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It's a cool morning and I sneak a peek at the tall ponderosa pines in the backyard between instagram posts. Finally, the trees catch my attention and I put my phone down to give them my full attention. The pines are bright and green in the morning light. The snow from a few weekends ago has all but melted.
It was beautiful, the snow on the pines, reverse outlining the thick bark, catching in clumps in the clusters of pine needles. It looked like something out of a photo or piece of art, but there I was naturally surrounded. Then the wind blew, and the needles and snow shimmered in the golden light. I remembered an observation of similar pines at a rest stop near June Lake off 395. The glimmering snow blown by the wind described something profound, difficult to communicate in words.
The mornings here are crisp, with the underlying dryness. Not that warm cool of Los Angeles with the hint of moisture. Not the cool mornings of the Mojave, with dryness, yes a delicate moistness that will evaporate in the next 20 minutes. This is a coolness, that you know will get cooler as the winter season progresses. The warmth comes from midday sun, that if I am lucky will warm the trees enough for their scent - their vanilla, cedar, spice aroma - to release.
On those first hot days in Fox Run, when I took Pebbles for walks, deep in the forest I would smell it. I presses my face against the bark to try to get a stronger whiff of the intoxicating smell, but it was no stronger. Elusive, yet surrounded.
Cool mornings here mean, fleece lined sweat shirts, flannel pants and slippers. Coffee - a latte - which I have learned to froth at 7000 feet. It's no small feat to get perfectly foamed foam here. Cool mornings mean letting the dogs out. Cool mornings mean the herd of deer relaxing in the back yard. Cool mornings are a moment for reflection before starting the day.
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It's strange to think that this blog so far has only included the adventures of one of my dogs. Mr Dog was around for most of this blog, and even still kicking around strong when I paused my writing in 2018. But in the subsequent time between that last 2018 post and my restarting in 2023, I have had so much adventures with new dogs.
Mr Dog helped transition me to living full time at the dome in fall is 2018. While I sold it to myself as a temporary writing sabbatical between paid contracts, I found the quietude and solitude helpful for my writing. For the first few months, I co-wrote with a well known name in the crypto space. It fizzled out, when I got tired of keeping us accountable. The work we did write together is pretty fantastic - if out of date. Maybe I will find a way to publish some of it.
Anyway Mr. Dog kept me company during this Los Angeles exit, and almost immediately fell ill and went on his definitive journey off into infinity or emptiness. There were some pretty magical moment there with the Golden Goddess and a red dog with white paws. That would have been classic writing material for this blog, maybe I'll revisit those stories, those desert roads, that golden light.
Life was interesting with no dog to ground me. I barely lasted a few months before I took on fostering for the same rescue org that Mr Dog came from. Fostering was a practice in detachment, care, compassion. I had three fosters - the last one failed. These fosters were so raw when they came to me. Shell shocked and traumatized. Often from the streets or a shelter or a bad situation. I took these fragile pups in, gave them love and structure before taking them to their forever homes. My last foster, Archibald, a blind dog with a real sob story, became a failure when I fell in love with him one night snuggling down while watching Game of Thrones over the holidays.
A year later, I wanted a friend for Archibald, so Shoogs came into our life, a month just after the pandemic lockdown happened. Pandemic lockdown was me, and these dogs on my small acreage on the Mojave-Colorado desert borders. It was great, being a hermit lady with two dogs, my best friends the planets that rose in the night sky. I had a war chest I had planned to use to launch my latest entrepreneurial endeavor, which ended up keeping me safe and secure through 2+ years of the pandemic. My pups barely lasted through the pandemic as well. They were both well in their prime when they came into my care, and Arch left me suddenly one morning.
Shoogs stayed on for another year or so, traveling cross country to the East Coast, and then up and down the West Coast, eventually succumbing to her ills in the desert. Like all three my dogs. Mr. Dog. Archibald. Shoogs. Their collars, their ashes, photos, drawings and paintings by my dear friend Liz, who even put the golden light around Mr. Dog.
Fast forward to today. Two more dogs! Pebbles came into our lives in June, after a break of a year or so. And right before all the puzzle pieces fell into place for our Colorado place. And I found Joey in the first week were were in our new home. He was being fostered in the weird, small, obscure town where I went to college. Believe me, you've never heard of it. It's not the first time I've had two dogs, but it's the first time I've had two younger, energetic dogs.
One thing about all these dogs, they are Boston Terriers. Mr. Dog was my first Boston Terrier. I didn't know the breed prior. It was a requirement of my partner at the time. Turns out, he wasn't wrong. The Boston Terrier is a perfect dog for me. I love their formal wear of a black and white tuxedo. They can be extremely intelligent. (I think Pebbles is the most intelligent one I've had), silly, loyal, energetic, snuggly, and chompy in the right ways IMO. They are strong, have strong jaws, have such personality, and a distinctive face. I've enjoyed the 7 bostons that I've fostered and rescued.
So now, I'm writing on the ole blog again. With different dogs.
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I want the world to know what happened. Not that it would care. I want their reputations tarnished. I want people to know what kind of small minded, egotistical people they are. Their fake concern for the benefit of a larger group, when it was about their own bruised egos, their lack of experience. And to not let those people hold roles in well known companies, or leadership roles, or board positions or even x-board positions.
You see, I was stabbed in the back. Betrayed. It wasn't the first time. And it won't take me 10 years to get over it this time.
For some reason, I was thinking of a European colleague who confused me when ignoring the fresh California artichokes, that I knew were her favorite, that I had just brought across the Atlantic for her. I didn't recognize her hate then. Her older sidekick, who couldn't be fired due to European law, so they parked her in this division I had just joined, when she point blank said to my face, "I didn't set out to sabotage you." 10 years later I recognize their jealousy, masked as hate. Things were stacked against me from the start, even more when I was taken to meet the CEO. No one else had been asked to meet him. It's not like I asked to meet him, either. I was being shown off. I would have preferred to be at Burning Man like I had planned to be, but I wanted to make an impact and I thought I might have a better chance if the CEO knew my name and face. It ended up not mattering. I should have declined and gone to Burning Man.
I know life isn't fair. But damn, do I wish the world knew what these people are really like. That they can't be trusted to do anything that won't benefit themselves. And they do not have the capacity to think outside their own self centered desires. And why do these self centered people, rise to such levels of leadership and power? I know, I know - capitalism. Luck being misinterpreted as having skills. As much as I love the power of capitalism, too much of it destroys the world. Because Adam Smith was wrong with his aspirational invisible hand.
(My bodhichitta course, hits me over and over the head from this perspective. The self cherishing, self centered, person, who is unable to think about others, consider others, or even see that they are connected and exist due to others. I am so over it. I was so over it years ago when I moved to my Mojave lair. But when I came back out into the world, it is it's exact same shitty self - worse in some ways.)
Recently, someone said to me, to IDK, guide me in understanding my latest back stabbing, that I had to expect that all my actions would be interpreted as self-serving, egotistical. This really disturbs me. Because it's not the way I work, or my motivation - at least not these past 10-15 years. I would rather not live than not live authentically. When you are willing to put your life in the line in that way, the world shifts. The motivation of everyday people falls away.
I am reminded of a strange question in a board call, asking how something I wanted to do impacted my bonus. I was so taken aback. It impacted my bonus 0%. In fact, by focusing on it, I took effort/time away from actions I would need to do to achieve my bonus. I should have realized then, that was the way that person saw the world. And she was incredulous that my actions had 0% - until others chimed in and we showed her evidence. What a poor pitiful person to be limited to such a small worldview. But I was focused on improving our bottom line, and solving problems I had inherited.
Yet, I resent being crammed into such a limited and incorrect world view.
But what can I do? Something like 99% of humanity has this worldview, so maybe my friend was correct in advising me to make these undeveloped, immature assumptions, assumptions. Does that mean I now have to think through how every action or word will be interpreted through these selfish colored glasses? Assuming that I will be judged incorrectly? Should I change to adapt to the incorrect judgement?
But that would be a step back. A shrinking of who I am. Of all the work I have done to become the person I am today. A key thing I learned from Cacophony, was to do what you wanted to do, create the world you wanted to experience, because that is the world you wanted to live in. Not because it would be successful. Not because anyone else wants to live in that world. Not because it is the world the last board I worked for wanted to live in. (No, they live in the world of corporate handcuffs, lacking real world leadership and whole lotta imposter syndrome, not to mention a lack of experience - which results in not knowing how to solve their problems and not listening/empowering anyone to solve them either.) Oh well, whatever, they will probably fail up, like those people always do.
I look for soothing in my systems thinking books and spiral dynamics tiers. It was my exposure to these concepts that facilitated my transcendence to Tier 2 thinking. Tier 2 being the second tier of spiral dynamics, of which systems thinking, integral thinking, tolerance and acceptance become the baseline for operating. I remember the feeling of coming home I had when I learned about these concepts. There were words, explanations of things that were so inherent, core to me, that I had never been able to express -- and everyone looked at me funny when I would try. According various numbers (which I think would be hard to actually calculate) there is like 1% of the population in Tier 2. I consider myself as being in that tier for at least some of the time.
So what's a Tier 2 leader like me, doing in Tier 1 organizations? Being fucking frustrated, I'll tell you.
Can a tier 2 leader even be successful with tier 1 bosses? (It's a struggle. And at some point, some Tier 1 leader with power will ax it.)
As I figure out what I want to do next, I wonder, what is even possible. I want to lead people out of Tier 1 thinking and into Tier 2 leadership. Ideally, practically applied. Maybe I just need to invoke Vaclav Havel again and dream of impossibilities.
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I'm sitting here, this morning, looking at the sun dawn across the front range of the Rocky Mountains. The air is crisp, and outside my window is a ponderosa forest, which will be fragrant in warming afternoon. I have been all consumed with houses, construction, handy people, dogs, furniture, moving and packing boxes since spring.
Priorities feel they are shifting. My desire to be at tech conferences is fizzling. Part of this is the string of backstabbers I've held leadership roles with the past couple years. Who can I trust? After almost 30 years in the business, it finally dawned on me that I suck at politics. That is my fatal work flaw. But why do people accept such toxic behavior? Just last week I was talking to someone about a situation where a company bought another company and as soon as it legally went through fired the CEO who lead the org up to that point. No notice. Out the same day. Elon Musk style. I mean, what is it that makes someone think this kind of ruthless inhuman behavior is acceptable. That's not the world I want to live in. I'm definitely happy to not have to deal with some of the people in my previous situations - but what disappoints me, is there was so much more I could have done to help those orgs. And the people who stayed - let's just say they are not (IMO) delivering.
Which is the rub. People, companies, don't want excellence. They don't want to be efficient, or think things through or make the best decision for them to get what they want. They want to make their own decision, others perspective be damned. Toxic individualism. It's a thing I've been watching for some time now. This is one concept Asia has the benefit over the US - a collective world view.
So what is next? What do I want to do next?
I want to work with nice people, who have some level of self-awareness, want to make a positive impact, can consider and are not threatened by other potentially conflicting viewpoints, who are not full of themselves, whose motivation includes curiosity, openness, hard work, transparency, emotional maturity. It probably doesn't exist, but maybe I can dream it into.
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It has been a long dry spell of no blog posts on the old blog. How the internet has changed since 2018. Maybe I will dusty off my morning coffee-writing ritual and write about whatever I feel like it. It did feel a bit constraining to turn this blog into my professional expression.
I've done a lot in cybersecurity the past 5 years. Written some books. Writing some more. Done some good work. Worked with some nice (and not so nice) people. You know, the older I get, the more I want to work with nice people, who are self-aware. I know it's a hard ask. Most everyone is figuring out how to get all the things they want in life - and many have no qualms about stepping on whomever they need to to get those things.
To make money with integrity and ethics is just adding another level of difficulty to surviving - because it seems near impossible to make a living in a way that doesn't impoverish others. So what to do? I tried the hermit life for a few years, but you know what, the "real world" with all its very human problems was exactly the same when I re-visited it.
Anyway, where do I go from here? The net is vast and infinite.
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