 This is the OGM weekly call on Thursday, February 2, 2023. Mark, I don't know what your camera is doing, but it is behaving interestingly. Greetings, and let me turn on transcript. There we go. I was just describing the McMenamin family, which are a Oregon Pacific Northwest kind of phenomenon. And they're one of the reasons why April and I kind of moved to Portland. And in 2015, we had an engagement with Nike to come here and do some work. And then we stated Airbnb's in the Northwest part of Portland and on our way out on one of the early trips, we stopped at a place we'd heard of called the Kennedy School like what's that. And it turns out that there's this Kennedy grade school a mile south of PDX a mile south of the airport so sort of in the Northeast part of town, not John F Kennedy this is actually a different Kennedy who was a teacher at that school. And this McMenamin family which has been picking up a like abandoned properties and refurbishing them and making them beautiful had turned a grade school into a hotel, a restaurant, two or three bars, a bowling alley. A little movie theater, and I'm missing something I think a little spa. And this was just a grade school, and you walk around and they have an aesthetic that is basically too many chandeliers all pretty dim so it's not really bright that everything is kind of got a low aesthetic. They have a, if you took the best of 60 psychedelic art and married it to some other kind of aesthetic I'm not exactly sure what it is that's their aesthetic and the sisters to brothers and their sister the McMenamins I'll put a link in the chat and And it's just like one of my beliefs now is that every region every city or state should have a McMenamins sort of family, because they, they make whatever they touch, revives the neighborhood. And we have Australian friends who will do Seattle just pre pandemic and then in fact Australia because pandemic, but they became addicted to McMenamins properties so we met them at the Anderson School up up toward Seattle. And, and the Anderson School apparently revived the neighborhood like where it stands now there's a whole bunch of buildings that weren't there when they went in, and they really caused the change. So, anyway, little pay into to rehabbing older properties. So the McMenamins will take over old churches. There's a Masonic temple. There's a walking distance from us which is now a dinner movie theater that's that shows odd movies. All different kinds of things, and their biggest property their signature property is called Edgefield, which is about 20 minutes east of pdx of the airport here, and used to be the poor farm in Portland. So when they when people fell into poverty they sent them out to the poor farm to sort of work for sustenance in some sense. And then that got closed down I don't know when that or the story behind it so it was the property was idle for a while. It might have been an asylum for a while don't know. And then the McMenamins went and bought it and turned Edgefield into a large outdoor performance venue with a beautiful sloping field and a big stage. There's a hotel, several restaurants, a vineyard, and multiple other things you can go look at their website and see what's up. So it's impressive. Like, like the whole little agglomeration really brings joy to our hearts and, and there's a little selfie week that April and I took as we left the Kennedy School. In 2015, and we took a selfie in front of the sign outside of the school we just like smiling and look at each other going. Any city that has a lot of these has got something interesting going for it. We are in check in mode, this is the alternating week for check ins. We tested Doug's check in process. I don't think Doug's going to make this call I'm not sure and Mark has his hand up before I go any further. So please, on your you managed to lower your hand but not unmute yourself. And if we can modify the protocol a little bit, keep your hand up when you're speaking so that you stay in the upper left hand corner of our zoom gallery views. As you float off into some other place in there in our view and we have to hunt for you so thank you go ahead. Yeah, sure. It was recently pointed out to me that I was treating the Internet archive, like family. And as my friend said, acting a little too mergey. And it was kind of pointed out that yeah, it's not a family. I'm kind of inappropriate to kind of look at that but having lost both parents and distant with my siblings. I'm kind of thinking, huh, what kind of family like the family you mentioned, makes sense in terms of, you know, maybe creating an organized crime family. And I joke at crime but basically, you know something like the group in the book. Cryptonomicon that basically says okay we're going to have descendants. You know we know where there's buried Nazi gold. Let's, let's get it. And I'm kind of wondering, you know, do I try to, you know, so I'm starting a group called team best friends. There's, you know, various levels of trust boundaries and, you know, smart sexy people having open home office hours every Saturday with a party with a campfire every Saturday to kind of get people together and kind of throw this idea out. But, you know, I'm thinking, you know, OGM is developing into kind of sort of, you know, different brother, kind of sister types of possible relationships anyway, I'm throwing that out, because you brought up the family. And certainly I don't, you know, property or, or, you know, feel particularly, you know, part of this wealthy stream that people build in heritage and ancestry and descendants anyway. So that's the thoughts. And, yeah, I don't exactly know where to go with some of these things but don't want to act appropriately like OGM is my family if that certainly is the case. Thanks. Mark, thank you. It's a lovely, lovely way to open our conversation I really appreciate that. Well, well thoughts. One is this notion of family of choice which I have always loved, and sometimes you're just born into the your birth lotto ends you up in a place that's not hospitable to who your soul is somehow. And finding your way to the people who you care about as if they were family, and to a more or less explicit extent connecting with them in those roles and in those ways is really cool. I know a lot of people to know that they have a family of choice, and extending on that at some point I thought of the idea of a nation of choice. And I think we might be moving into a world where national boundaries are superseded. This is actually my sort of idealized thinking, and we can we sort of affiliate with nations of choice that have regimes and you can think of burning man as a nation of choice or the rainbow coalition. What else there's probably some really negative ones you can think of as well as nations of choice that are people's primary philosophical affiliation in some sense. And then last quick thing there was a magazine I used to subscribe to called grant, which was kind of a literary journal came out I think quarterly, my favorite episode of grant on the cover it said family colon, they fuck you up. And the first essay was, I'm forgetting. Oh God, Gary Mark Gilmore, the assassin, his brother wrote the first essay in that issue of Granda, and it was about how they grew up. And it's like, wow. There we go. The thing I was going to ask was, I don't know how many of us were on this call two weeks ago I wanted to debrief a little bit on what was different or better or worse for you from the way we ran it in Doug Carmichael's serious conversations process so raise your hand if you were here two weeks ago. So, so most of us I guess. Hi class, and any thoughts, any feedback. Better worse, slower faster try it again, tune a tweak it. I enjoyed it I thought it was a nice break nice change. I appreciated Doug's interventions, you know, stick to a point what's on your mind and hearing what was going on for people I liked it a lot. Pete than heck. I appreciated. I appreciated the difference. And I have a, I have a reaction which I don't mean to overweight by saying it, but I ended up feeling like it was not fast enough like we usually we can do super fast calls which is fun and bad and in ways. It felt like it wasn't slow enough, either. I didn't feel enough contrast between our regular calls. I really did appreciate Doug's. And a big part of it was just when people started watering off too much, maybe like I'm doing right now. Doug kind of pulling back. But anyway, it was, it was a good experiment. And I would like to see it go even further. Interestingly enough. Thank you. And Scott for those of you who weren't on the call two weeks ago. He used to run a salon series in Palo Alto somebody and I think a couple of us used to actually attend I think John Kelly used to attend now and then so he's not on this call but he could report back on what it was like, but he's doing a salon series called conversations. And his approach was at the beginning we want to hear from everybody in the room but you need to be brief, and you're answering the prompt. What, and I'm going to get the prompt wrong I'll look it up, or somebody can look it up faster than me. But what is the topic seriously enough that we should talk about it together. And then at the end of the check in where everybody was heard from and the idea was on purpose to quickly hear from everybody. Then you would sort out what topic to go into and keep talking from there. And no interruptions, no, you know, no tangents off of whatever came up as people were busy doing their check ins, and the thing he added to it which is something that's often used is when you're done with your check in, you pick the next person to check in. That's the process. Thank you. Yeah, I also think it's a good way to experiment with these calls. I mentioned on a lot of previous calls I'm working with a concept with Leif Edwinson David Gurdien and some others called oracy labs we're struggling with turn taking and people going off on tensions before everyone checks in. We don't have a good answer to it except that there should be a host, which is just the word that we call someone who's taking responsibility who tries to wear two hats at the same time, both as a participant and an observer what's going on. I think for group like OGM. It's extremely important to allow people to go off on tangents but at least have some structure in it so that everyone can be heard, and that people who are waiting to contribute can contribute at the point at the moment when they are what they have to say is relevant. So I think it's worth experimenting with as much as people on the call can take. I think it's, if you want to this structure conversations you do need a little structure to begin with. Thanks Hank, and I like very much the idea of us playing with format experimenting with the different kinds of things we do as well. So happy to do that. If you have any other comments or thoughts on the serious conversations format and I put the proper prompt in the chat which is what's on your mind that's worthy of serious conversation is what he says. Yeah. So the issue of granta was not that one. Ken the one that you put in his ground to 158 this is actually granted 37 it turns out because I was googling while we're talking. I only found a good reads version of it but I will paste that here. So it's exactly this one. Scott, go ahead. I was not here for this. And this question just jumped out at me so what's on your mind that's worthy of serious conversation. I don't think I know anyone that I could sit down with. And that would be my opening line. Because I would get the eye roll, and I just want to hang out but just have a copy together we're just whatever it is it's good to see you let's just talk, talk about whatever and my as you know me well enough. My interest would be in. If someone asked me that I would light up, you would see me just, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, let's let's go deep on something. So, for me that's something that I, I mean I'll, I'll, I'll be honest I do think of this group is sometimes like wow I can't follow you guys because you're just, you're going deep on everything. You know, every topic, we're just, we're just going going going. And so, but it's the only group that I know of that that actually does that. Or one of the very, very few, and definitely not in person. So, it's something I definitely do appreciate about this group is that that seems to be a similar mindset. Someone says, hey, what's, what's worthy of having a deeper conversation about most of us per cup, as opposed to say, it sounds hard tired. I don't want to think. So, that's my thought. Thank you anybody else have a similar reaction. I do but I won't repeat what Scott said he did it well. Thank you. Thanks Judy. Cool. So, shall we proceed in our usual normative traditional. Oh, gee fashion, or shall we go back to a check in with no comments at all. And what is your path. I'm happy to go with what's, what everybody would like to try, or shall we try experimenting with something different. Nobody has strong feelings there being no I do. Maybe something to try. If somebody were to go and instead of calling on the next person or instead of having a person in the queue. We just have a little bit of silence and see if somebody feels called to directly follow that person, because what they have to say is actually somewhat connected. The modified quicker meeting sort of sort of and if nobody, if nobody within, you know, a few seconds you know we're all looking at each other. Then somebody could just. Okay, well, I'll go then you know that type of thing. I like this a lot and I think that we valued silence between expressions very highly so I think that automatically brings silence in in a really nice way. So I'm good with that Pete. I wanted to ask Jay you said modified quicker meeting, and I just wanted to kind of check in with what you saw as modification of that. How it's how it's modified. Sure. So for everybody who hasn't been to a Quaker meeting Quakers meet for an hour on Sundays, they come in and there's no iconography nobody in most meetings nobody reads anything from the Bible there's no sermon. It just comes in and sits down and centers themselves. And then for the hour it's like an hour of silent meditation except it's punctuated now and then randomly by members of the meeting normal everyday attendees who stand up and have a message for the meeting. And they didn't prepare the message they don't read it they don't memorize it it's something that wells up. It's it's called speaking from the light if I remember. There's a few little protocols about about it, one of which is if somebody has just spoken, go quiet and soak with it so the majority of meaningful worship is silence, it wouldn't be like the call that we're planning to do that's one way that this would be different. And then the one one of the other kind of ground rules is you don't respond to other messages. So as opposed to what Stacy just proposed which is like, if we go into silence whoever's moved to join in from what was just said which sounds like a great protocol. It's different from Quaker meeting in that sense, in the sense that you're not really the messages during meeting are not meant to be a conversation around a topic or anything like that they're just supposed to, you know, come spring forth in some sense. So those are the two ways I can think of that that this would be different. You're welcome Pete. Mr cronzo. Again, good morning. Basically, one of the things that as a software development team and stand up meetings we found to be incredibly useful and time saving is there is no order. You know, once you go first and then we popcorn is the term and the person who speaking can choose some silence after there's talk and then they say, next class, and then class would say next and he would pick somebody after he speaks and so here's that video thing again. There's no order. Except, you know, the person speaking chooses the next person, etc, etc, and everybody has to pay attention to whether they're going to be picked next, and who hasn't been already picked. So it really has a focus on listening and remembering who's spoken and who's not, and it goes really fast because there's no, because we know to go to the next person immediately. Thanks. Funny enough, in my experience, asking people to choose the next person and to try to remember who has already gone, especially as the group gets a wee bit larger than this winds up being confusing the people or people miss that mark a lot. It's people, it's sort of it's sort of difficult I think for people to be centered and to report from themselves, and then to sort of snap back to Oh, who's in the group and who's next and whatever. But I've used that protocol a bunch before myself. So, I agree with the difficulties and, you know, it's always been everybody chips in and says, Oh, I've already gone or, you know, these people haven't gone. It's, it seems like a group kind of care thing. Anyway, thanks. Totally agree and the valuable cheat is everyone who hasn't spoken yet please hold up your hand or some other signals. Thank you. Yeah, I'm sort of reflecting listening in here. Does everybody else feel the same way that that information is just coming at you in a firehose and you just don't know where to put it anymore. I'm comparing for this webinar in less than two weeks and the just just to digest and narrow down the conversation or condense the conversation down to where you can actually really make sense and move the needle into a different place. It is absolutely amazing to see the energy with so many people, I think, being alerted or feeling a sense of alert, wanting to do something wanting to engage wanting to change but don't quite know where to go. Maybe it's just me but the, the pace of learning know the pace of information that is that is that is evolving around us is extremely difficult to keep up with. And it's, I mean for for whatever field you're working in I'm in the food sector, the economy, but that is enormous I mean the complexity of going but we're calling like farm to fork right and all the stations in between you're getting into culture you're getting into history you're getting into emotions but it is absolutely overwhelming so yeah I don't know where I'm going with this I'm just a little bit like Mark here wondering around, but I just I just see the need to to find a moment you know of rest and and and to to to perspective to gain perspective I think that's what we're really searching for right is perspective. So, yeah. We're making it more complicated that it has to be right so if you can just, if you can just share, you know, not so much this technical stuff but what is what is perspective where do where where are we at this moment in time because the world is going pretty crazy around us. I mean, the, the, the and when you stay in a global context right when you watch the observe know in a global context what's happening around us and the aggressive and aggressiveness and the, you know, the panic that is that is gripping in in several regions which is starting to impact us here. It's so so maintaining perspective is incredibly difficult at this time and so yeah so I have this moment of wow where am I I'm so overwhelmed, you know, with so much stuff going on. So I'm going to treat what class just said as the first entry in the process that Stacy described for us and ask us to go silent for a moment after it. Then I will go to Stacy and Ken who are currently in my queue but after each one let's go a little quiet, and then I think the way to sort of step in will be to raise your hands that you automatically get into the queue that should work okay. And despite the request for silence. I think I'm going to say, use the chat as openly and freely during this whole session as you wish. Use that to comment in ways you might have had I've been taking us into digressions or whatever else that'll work fine and that will also exhaust a few of the people who want to jump in and comment the way Stacy was describing so then we'll sort of slow the wordy down a little bit, because I think in particular the thing you're pointing to class that we're drowning in the info torrent is the silence is one nice way to manage a piece of that. So with that, let me go into a little silence and Stacy you bring us up please. It's actually perfect because I was going to modify what I said and said, maybe if we want to follow we should raise our hands and then the facilitator can choose so that's perfect but I want to go back to that because what I see is part of the really great things about all these calls not just in our groups but in other groups is human beings are getting a chance to practice sensing. We, I mean I've seen the listening skills increase the way people listen on calls is not the way we were listening to three years ago. So if you look at the calls and you watch the conversations they're different. And part of that is many of us are learning ourselves, when to speak, when not to speak. And that's why I think that it would be better for somebody to sense into themselves if they want to go next, and then raise their hands, I think this should be a practice ground for us to getting used, you know, to get used to ourselves, why we're speaking. I'm very happy this topic of attention has come up. It's been on my mind a lot lately. I had. In my misspent youth I went to a lot of rock concerts and I used to work in a blues club and stand in front of a stack of speakers all night long and I listened to music on headphones way loud and I'm paying for it now. And my audiologist said, the kind of hearing loss you have is very similar to sun damage you get it when you're young and then it shows up when you're older. And so I went to, I went to Kaiser I went and had some hearing tests and I was told that I have severe to profound hearing loss in my left ear in certain ranges. And I carried that around for about six weeks. Like, oh, this is, you know, also, there's really big difference to my left ear on my right ear. So, actually, I had an MRI to see if there was a problem was like, you know, maybe heading for Menair's disease and I just like really under like, Oh, God, you know, this is heavy duty stuff. And then I went to Costco to get hearing aids because they have really good quality hearing aids at very good prices and the person there ran more tests, the same tests that caused you to plus some more. She said, I have no idea why they told you you have severe to profound loss you have moderate to severe in a certain range in your left ear but you have 100% on rewrecking word recognition, your hearing is not nearly as bad as they told you it is. And I felt like this weight had been lifted off of me because no longer was I carrying around a narrative of I'm losing my hearing. I was like, I've got average hearing loss for someone of my age who had my background. And so that's a very personal kind of what am I listening to what am I attending to what am I, what am I focusing on. And then I was reading an article I think I posted to the gem list that there's no indication that authoritarianism is on the rise and democracy is failing. In fact, there's very little empirical evidence for that it's a common media narrative. But when you look at the empirical evidence it does not show up. So, there reminds me of this story which may be apocryphal but I think it's a useful story that, you know, in the Tour de France. There's still these old bridges that have the timbers that run lengthwise, you know, with the road, and there's spaces between them and bicyclists were you know going off the off the wood into and crashing and having all kinds of problems. And so the, the sports psychologist said the key to crossing the bridge is to aim high don't look down, don't look, if you look you're going to go into the hole, don't look down. So what are we looking at are we looking at where we want to go at. Yes, there's a tremendous increase in information it's doubling I don't know what the rate of information doubling is but it's, it's, you know, kind of like Moore's law it keeps speeding up. But there's still the same relational roles, the same way of relating to people that has been around for as long as people have been around. And that's where I think if we focus our attention of how do I relate to people in the midst of this overwhelm in the midst of this huge influx of information. How am I going to talk to the person in the store and what am I going to do to negotiate with my wife in order to, you know, have a good relationship here and how do I relate to my friends when they're feeling overwhelmed. Those things have not changed. And I don't think we spend enough time attending to that and I have a suggestion for those who feel overwhelmed by information to immerse yourself in the emotional stream of your life and the way in which you feel the the resonance or with your friends and you might find that that's a way out of feeling overwhelmed by information and moving into a better way of how can I focus on aiming high getting across that bridge without going into the hole and helping people to, to not look at all the negatives because we're surrounded by so much negative press and that to me is worse than the load information is just how much of it is negatively focused when we need to be focused on what we can build on what's working, but what's going to actually allow us to get through the eye of this needle. Thank you. I wanted to mention that a concept that helped me a lot with information overload or feeling overloaded by information. Maybe it's a better way to say it is the concept of self care. This is something that I learned about from oddly enough from Twitter back in probably 2020 with the pandemic raging. And it's tempting to try to know everything or learn everything or tell other people all the things that you know. And the idea of self care is you can't do that very well if you're depleting all of your energy in the effort to keep up with everything and tell everybody else all the important things that you know. The idea of self care is that you center yourself and you make sure that you get enough sleep and you eat well and you attend to your personal needs and you tend to your family needs and and the friends and family around you. And then with the leftover of that, that's when you go out into the world and try to make things better or try to understand what's going on or try to help people. But if you don't start with yourself. You're, you're going to run yourself ragged and not help anybody. So you really need to center and take care of yourself first. Thanks. Yeah, I think I had my hand up next. Going into the information fire hose and being overwhelmed with information. I would just like to emphasize what I put in the chat that I think it serves sometimes serves a very important purpose. For me, I'm an information junkie and I'm in all kinds of filter bubbles with online feeds that repeat repeat repeat. This is the blueprint for change this is the only way we can change how can we ever change etc etc etc, and what it does to me, it forces me to stop. And think what do I really think about this. Why is this even important to me. Do I have my own ideas, sometimes fed by what I read but often just fed by the frequency of the headline of a certain item. So I do think there is something to be said for sometimes being in the overwhelmed by information fire hose frame of mind. Judy is your hand up. Yes, it is. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get recognized. I think he Jerry's muted. I think you can go. Yes, I apologize. I was just trying to explain Judy I will not recognize people just add in however much silence you feel is needed at the time and then just jump in. Thank you. I wanted to share an experience I had a long time ago that may be a decade ish, but I had a serious illness that could have been threatening, and, and I made it through and somebody said in the hospital to a colleague. You know, don't worry about her she's a fighter. And I wasn't aware of what it was that was fighting. It was something not under conscious control for sure. So it caused me to do some reflection and simply put where I ended up was, I'm going to spend my time doing things that give me joy, or bring good to the world or bring other people joy. And it wasn't an intellectual evaluation it was a feeling of valuation. But it's been a helpful reminder in the decorator so since then. Because we are overloaded with situations. I love puzzles so I read all the news and try to discern from competing sources which is more accurate, which is maybe not the best use of my time, but it gives me a sense of, at least I tried to figure it out. I think we're all in an interesting space and time because the world is providing us far more information that it ever has in the past at a very fast pace. It's hard to determine the quality of the information. And then there's the whole dynamic of how does it affect me, or you and how are we going to do something about it or do we want to learn more about it to know if there's something that could be done, and so on. So this is not much of a statement but it's sort of an endorsement of process that we're engaging in. Thank you. I'm appreciating the silence like many of us are I'm also appreciating the rhythm of the conversation the pace that the silence is bringing to the conversation. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's shining a light for me on Klaus's comments earlier of the fire hose. And Hans what you said about, you know, actively selecting where to pay your attention I had this image earlier on in the conversation of, you know, I'm, I'm navigating a ship on stormy seas. I need to know everything. I don't even need to know everything about the seas I need to know what I need to know. And we seem to have I include me in the we can discipline me to always be careful when I say we. So the, the way that includes me fascinated it. Why, why do I think I need to pay attention to everything. What is that. It seems to be a cultural addiction that's been, you know, it's been developed in us and maybe I don't. And so that's the beauty we're sort of modeling in this process and answer to Klaus's question of how to deal with the overload is to slow it down. It's much more selective than where we pay attention to map the whole thing. And, you know, put our own, put our own option mask on first before assisting others. That's a funny back back to Ken the tour de France the funny metaphor of like doing what's right in front of us step at a time but also not looking down at our feet. Thank you, Gil as a independent consultant and a few times I paid consultant. Basically being sent to places that would not pay, you know, $300 an hour for someone to come in unless there was a horse five fuck up involved. Come in and do the things that the other software consultants couldn't do. Look people in the eye. Drink information from a firehouse. Prioritize it. Make sure that all the stakeholders from the people with no power to the people who basically saying, we're going to make the people of no power do this I'm kind of saying well the people of no power basically say that you're going to destroy the company if you make this choice. Because they know how things work, and you know how things want to happen, but we've got to take it slowly so we don't cause a chaotic disruption. So drinking information from a fire hose is something that I learned early on, and I find it to be a incredible skill and my, and I just take notes in real time and be able to go back to them and extend them. And then, you know, share what I think in terms of what the specification should be and then, you know, go through the incremental refinement to make sure that all the stakeholders agree and can understand that specification. Anyway, as to what Judy was saying yes I've been through many mortality moments. Illnesses, etc, and just heard about two months ago that you know there's got great wonderful. Number of books about people who are survivors, who survived this sinking or the airplane crash and who didn't. In terms of fighting and surviving from illness. The insight I got a couple months ago was people who took agency for their own healing, as opposed to, I'm going to let the doctor do everything were the people who were most likely to survive. Thank you. Thanks everybody for the silence, it really is a very nice pace. I was a little late so I'm not sure where we started and if there's a definition to the, you know, frame around what we're talking about, but a number of times the two concepts of one, the info flood, the fire haze, the tsunami that we're faced with has come up and that personally and professionally is somewhat of an obsession of mine. Just thinking about how one faces that mindfully, and the importance of creating, creating filters, and, and this is, you know, both, both metaphorically speaking and practically, you know, technologically speaking. Not subjecting oneself to the flood as, as chosen by others, not you. You know, if there's so many of us who I think are at least at times faced with this, this binary choice this on off for the flood, you know, this, the, I'm the sense that okay I'm going to take a digital Sabbath and, you know, put my devices in the box or I'm not going to do these things at this time, as if they're resigned to their, their time and the digital or the information accessible space being being a flooding, as opposed to being as focused as they want it to be focused, not as somebody else does. And the other phrase that relates to this that's come up a few times and passing is paying attention, and what you pay attention to you. And I am so glad that that is a normal term of phrase that, you know, if we, that we, everybody says without thinking but if we really parse it to think of, you know, our attention as as many of us do I think, as a limited and valuable commodity of hours, as part of our capital as, as humans, and the ways in which we pay it are are very powerful, not just for our own sanity but also, you know, their, their votes. You know, allowing ourselves to pay an attention for clickbait that comes to us in the info flood is is transferring capital to the corporations that sell advertising against that clickbait. And, you know, we're just making a free contribution to that model. And working on ways, as I am to filter the info flood and and focus selectively in different ways it's not just like an overall filter I mean now I want to filter this. I want to filter for that. Now I want to focus here now I want to turn it off completely is a right, a human right that that people should have and not this forced taxation of their attention that the attention that they pay that we're going through right and I'm eager to talk to anybody who wants to talk about this anytime because it's a passion. So I know a lot of you are steeped in technology and technology is a wonderful extraordinary thing for sharing information. But I think that technology, and this is just stimulating you talk about being in conversation and dialogue. This is just stimulated by what Michael said, at the end of that you know human right not to be flooded with information. The idea that technology is taking us away from our humanity. You know, it's, it's a great tool in certain ways but it's also, it also kind of has moved us away from our human connection to others. I think the idea of input of information flood. It's a function of one's own ecology and emotional intelligence, and self managing the amount of data and information that you can actually take in. When I'm working at home turn and turn the news on it's usually MSNBC or CNN, you know, during lunchtime I turned it on yesterday, and both of those stations were broadcasting the funeral for Memphis, which was my initial reaction was, No, I can't take any more of this but I listen to for a while. And it was very powerful at a very, very human level and including Nicole Wallace who was practically in tears as she was trying to facilitate a panel. And then I just decided to wonder what was what was Fox doing. And they were talking about Tom Brady's retirement. I just, it's just, it's incredulous and absolutely incredulous and that's happened kind of a few times so I think we each have to kind of manage our own information flow depending upon our own, our own personal ecology. It's kind of like what Mark said about, you know, the people who survived are the ones who took care of themselves. And I see that in so many situations. And Gil thanks for reminding me of Richard Moss is great book the I did as we. Oh, and I'm receiving poetry books today. I have 25 poetry books so I'm kind of excited about that that's my, that's my, my piece of checking and I've gotten about 15 pre publication endorsements that I'm really excited and I actually learned a bunch in terms of what people's commentary was. May shift direction for a moment I was in a quirky conversation in the Washington Post for the other day, and it was about the protests now in Britain in the United Kingdom, you know, pretty significant, massive protests social unrest. And the comments came back to Brexit how much damage Brexit has done to the British economy, and in particular to the working class in Britain. I was making a comment that Brexit the core reason for Brexit was really the changes in the European Union banking regulations which force transparency into international money transactions and then you think that the British economy, over 30% of their GDP is derived from these finance and financial markets around London, and the British absolutely didn't want to engage couldn't afford really to to submit to these banking regulations. I mentioned, you know that I remember something reading about this so I went to chat GBT, and asked GBT the question, how do you, how did the changes in European banking regulations impact Brexit, you know, have they been a cause to Brexit. And what I got back was invalid question. And so I modified the question, and I said what what are the, the, how does the European banking regulation force transparency into into international money transfers that an amazing report back about very specifically how the European Union has introduced banking with code names, articles referenced and everything. How the European banking regulations are forcing basically applying blockchain technology to to track financial transactions from start to finish. So total transparency. And what it, what it told me is that chat GBT will not make will not give you an opinion, but my first question was really wanting to get an opinion, and the response was invalid question. But then when I came back with with wanting to have a piece of knowledge that supported my theory, then that turned out fine so the end of the connections by the systemic connections we have to make ourselves but the information to get to these connections chat GBT is an amazing tool to take a deep dive in what you're looking for. Yeah. So I don't know every year we kind of start out with all these things we want to try to get done. I've just been incredibly discouraged because I feel like I've got a lot of ideas that are that should be good enough to gain some traction but I'm just not. And one of the things I'm doing and going back to basics is looking at some of the time strategies and I can get to some of the conversations like that Michael is saying that there's a 9091 rule, which for the first 90 minutes of the 90 days you spend the first 90 minutes of your day focusing on the one huge idea, you've got literally shut off everything no distractions, just focus on that. The second is the idea of getting things done I've been trying to implement it for many years but I things are not well defined enough so it's very, it's very difficult to. There's the two minute rule so if it's two minutes or less you should just do it. And when I was doing a search actually found a found a video that talks of the explains the 9091 rule in two minutes, it's kind of combining the two. And then the third technique I've been looking at is the Pomodoro technique which a lot of people might have heard of it's basically time blocking for 25 minutes at a time but what I've been doing is I've also kind of come up with the concept of the making it an unproject so I just I set my set my timer for 25 minutes and just even if I get when it goes off then I just hit the re. And if I do it again you're supposed to take like a five minute break but I just started either I continue for another 25 or if I take a break it can't be more than 25 minutes kind of thing but I'm calling that an unproject and my thought is that you kind of will should be developing almost an innate sense of what 25 minutes is if I, if I ever do really want to try to implement the Commodore technique, it should be pretty easy for me so I'll send a cup post a couple of things and I'll look to write something up for the for the chat and stuff. No, I'd say, I've got way too many projects. If anything, so that's part of it to is finding out. I said that Carl was that it's what you said was that none of them seem to be taking off none of them seem to be. So for me it felt like. Okay, if you had a list of all the things you still aren't feeling drawn to me but that's why I, why I said that is it's a comment that you have made at the beginning. Is it a matter of you don't have enough time or is. Well, it's. Well, it's also trying to. Well, what I'm doing for my 90 minutes is really trying to seek out those, like the strategic leverage points and what is, you know what if you can. I, I hate that about killing two birds with one stone but I like knocking, knocking down multiple bowling pins or whatever it's not quite as but what are the, what are the things I mean I come up with things but I mean, I said it's, I guess a part of it's finding the right, like a small group of people that are also on that particular, that one thing is important enough for them to. I mean, for, for work I've been in the strategic planning and process improvement. So it's basically and I'm trying to develop a contributions impact framework is my dissertation so I'm like, I guess I'm fighting the battle of the law, the law of irony. But, but so it's every, so much of what I'm trying to do it's either trying to get something new to get done and even I work in the federal government but it's, you know, like it's, you know, it's not funded it's like you want to process improvement you want to try to change the way we're doing it you want to hear that either, or that we should stop doing something we've been doing so it's kind of, as I said it just kind of a, kind of a very, as I said it just kind of a really discouraging time but I'm trying to see how I can try to change strategies and stuff. Well, I'm been doing is not working to kind of figure out what will or get some traction. Wanted to share something that that I happened to bump into today. Interesting little thread of knowledge that I knew parallel things about but I didn't happen to know this, this vein, probably some of you do maybe that you learned it before me. It started with a thread on master on from from somebody who happens to be black that I happen to follow for no reason other than he seems like an interesting, interesting person. And, and he told a story that I know already but in ways that I didn't. It starts off, you know, I'm still not ready. Happy black history month, still not ready to talk about black history, I want to talk about white us history, and he's, he gives a question why don't black people build any generational wealth. The immigrant groups seem to be doing this fine must be lazy and shiftless people. And of course, the story of the US is that over and over and over and over. White people come and destroy generational wealth of black people over and over and over and really cruel and difficult and mean ways. And then white wash over it and pretend it didn't happen and never talk about it again. There's a lot of structural stuff to that. And I know a fair bit of this story. I mean, I haven't experienced the story of my in my personal life it would frustrate the hell out of me. But I know a little bit I know that that white people have been doing this to black people for hundreds of years and one of the people I've learned that from is Kevin Jones who's working to kind of restore some of the balance there. Anyway, in the course of Mecca's thread. Somebody else posted a link to. Hey, there's a cool thing about the land of the blacks in what is now Manhattan back in the 1600s and early 1700s. And so that was an interesting thing to read about that there were black and safe people in the 1616 hundreds in New York. And that there was a fair amount of general well generational wealth that got created right after that as the Dutch were fighting and the English were fighting. Black people got a little bit of, you know, not justice, but at least relief from being under the thumb of people. And then that brought me to the link about half free, which is a mind blowing concept in and of itself. And that I ended up on the page history of slavery in New York, which, you know, it goes. I mean, I, I have thought generally I mean I've I've known that there were slaves in the north. But I kind of think of slave history as a southern thing. And so it's interesting reading about the history of slavery in New York to. Thanks. Mike you've just joined the conversation I'll just explain our process for a sec because it'll be confusing. I just suggested it start and we're basically raising our hands to step in the queue if we think we have something to say that follows what was being said, each speaker is starting with some silence, which is what you stepped into right now. As long as they feel as appropriate. And then that's how we're going through the call and originally this was a check in format, but then we just kind of munched it into the call format so I think we'll keep going this way. Thank you. That does explain more. Greetings from Palm Springs. Awesome. Thanks Mike. Thanks Pete. You reminded me. Oh geez 2004 when I saw the incomplete film I believe it's since been completed called. Was it traces of the trade, which was about the families in Bristol, Connecticut, Bristol made its for it was one of the most prosperous cities in the United States during the slave trade and it was every single person in the city was involved in the slave trade from the guys who made the stays for the barrels you know that would hold the rum and whatnot and just everybody and one group of people decide that they were going to actually face this and they were going to you know look at the family history of slavery and own it and do a deep dive and it caused huge division, because people like no don't touch that that's in the past we don't want to deal with that. And there's a scene where they actually go to Ghana, and they ask some Africans there, you know we're here from where we're the descendants of slave traders and we're trying to make amends and we came to talk to you and you know. And the woman very wisely said, you're not ready to talk to us, you need to go back and talk among yourselves and decide, what is it you want to ask us, what is it you want to know. Because right now you're just coming to say, we recognize that we're descendants of slave traders and we want to feel better about ourselves but you haven't done the inner work to actually figure out why. And I think for black history month, one of the best things we could do as, and I hate to say white people because white and black from a biological standpoint don't exist but culturally where white people is to say what, what do I want to own about whatever my ancestors have done and how do I want to engage in a conversation with other white people about that and then how might we have a really productive and useful conversation with black people who are the descendants of slaves. So I think that would be much better than simply just you know saying oh I read a biography of you know, James Baldwin or Harriet Tubman whatever be a little bit more challenging. Thanks Ken. A lot. I found it ironic yesterday on the first day of black history month that the news was about DeSantis making sure that the AP curriculum no longer includes African American studies blah blah blah blah blah he's basically on a culture war. That's exactly the opposite of this. Ados is adult descendants of slavery in the chat. And I wanted to read Nicky Giovanni's poem titled BLK or black history month. And it's shorter than it goes as follows. If the earth is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain. And as good as anybody else. You've got a place here to and I'll close by mentioning. Here's the link to the poem. I'll close by mentioning my favorite book on the topic that Ken was bringing up about how everybody north and south was complicit in slavery in the run up to the Civil War, which is the American slave coast, written by a couple. It's interesting. And it has a bunch of really fascinating assertions up at a link to my brain notes about the book in the chat. I don't want to take us into that territory right now, further but I learned a lot. I thought I thought I was reasonably informed and read on the topic and learned a whole bunch from that book. Thank you Jerry. Saturday, February, or January 21. On the morning from Iris saying, I was in the hospital in Santa Fe. And the doctors, the nurses, Googled to find that he had been married to her and called her. And so she was calling me if I knew anybody who could allow the hospital poll plug. After, again, Saturday party, we're out at a restaurant around 11 at night and got the message that he died that afternoon. Elliott lived in Berkeley a lot was a man's researcher, very difficult person. He discarded friends. You somebody who deeply loved things and people but he could not accept himself being deeply loved, or any form of tough love and so I was discarded as a friend for over two, two and a half decades. You know, I had a restaurant conversation four years ago, and you know, apart from the course didn't didn't really bother me but his death is something that is tragic in terms of losing so much potential. I could go into the books that he was writing and researching. But you know, I find myself as one of the only people who can, or is willing to protect his legacy. Let me turn this video off again. Sorry. I'm looking for the mouse. I can't find it. Oh, because I'm not moving the mouse pad and moving fingers on the table. Um, so if anybody knows what to do. Somebody who died in Santa Fe with no will. How not to, you know how to find next to Kim. We're very, very distant from him. You know all that mess, if anybody's gone through kind of handling someone else's death is, you know, boy. He's been making phone calls to county clerks and and Ted Nelson was a good friend of Alex as well. And told me, you know, the names of his book projects and he's offered to pay for a lawyer, which is incredibly kind. But I'm looking for help. Anybody of you knew Elliot, you know, I'm sorry. It's a stretch. Thank you. I can't add a lot, but I've just been executor for two of my uncles who passed away. In one case we didn't find the will for nine months. But there is help. The state lawyers by state law can only take so much money out of the estate. And there is a wonderful book. I mean, it's, I think it's called executive ship for dummies. Or just how to be an executor. And it's part of the dummies series and it's actually very good to go step by step, you know, how do you find people how do you find if there's any debt that needs to be paid off. I mean, there's a lot of things there. Unfortunately, we don't have this other question answered very well, you know, how do you preserve the legacy and how do you winnow out all the paper and all the floppy drives and everything else that's the digital detritus. So I sympathize with what you're going through, but get a good estate lawyer and ask around. Everybody's had a relative who's died and they probably can point you to people to avoid and people to find but I've just spent three years with this hanging over my head and I'm almost done. You don't get paid much for being executor, but you do have the satisfaction of making sure all the loose ends are tied up. The worst part is often the IRS, because you have to fill out paperwork, you know, fill out the final tax form and often you have no idea where to find the right financial information bank accounts and things like that. But thanks for stepping up in this case. That's that's noble. May this cup be passed from me. Yeah, looking for someone willing to willing to take point. Thank you very much, Mike. Yeah, just to pick up on that theme in my in my walk through the legal profession and in my personal life. You know, I've done some estate work in my quest to find an area of the law that would keep me satisfied. I haven't quite found it. But anyway, the folks within the county probate office are often great help. And when someone dies without a will slash intestate is the technical legal term. I'm an administrator and not an executor. And there are certain people who are entitled to apply for that. Usually, you know, blood relatives but then there's a, you know, a list of where it goes from there. But the folks at the at the county probate office are often extremely helpful. And then there are a lot of pro say people who go in without a lawyer. So, you know, those are just some some things to think about Mark. Thank you, Stuart. Yeah, mother, I don't know how to will, and my sister was the administrator, and it was a harrowing family trauma process, but doesn't have to be. Thank you. So, so I wanted to go back to the to the African American theme that we were talking about. And a really meaningful book was published about, I don't know, two or three years ago, called Black Fatigue by Mary Francis Winters. And he pointed to the fact that, you know, people often turn to black people, and they're just tired of trying to inform white people of this whole milieu of kind of moving beyond racism. It's just exhausting. And it's not their problem in some ways. It's their problem. And so the whole idea of being vigilant anti racists, I think is up to all of the Caucasian people in the world, so that we can kind of get beyond that way of thinking. And as a curiosity, I happen to watch the brand new Jonah Hill, any Murphy movie, which, you know, is very stereotypical, but yet, you know, it pointed, ultimately, I think pointed to the fact that we, we all have more similarities even though we're in, you know, different pitch camps and that people tend to step in. Yeah, it was something else I wanted to say but it's just maybe maybe it'll maybe it'll come back. But I think it's important to just for all of us to take responsibility. You know, it's a it's a conversation we thought that we were over in some ways but all of a sudden, it has just raised this ugly head in the world, and in ways that are almost unbelievable, almost unbelievable. You know, I think it's kind of the last, the last gasp of a segment of the population that wants to maintain its superiority by thinking less of others. Thank you, Stuart. When I'm done I want to pass to Kim so he can read the poem because before he has to leave the room. But two things, one, as you were talking about the last gasp, Stuart, I'm just pondering how many times there have been efforts to get rid of racism and so forth in society, ours and others and how. On the, on the one hand, there has been a whole bunch of progress. I mean, the pill is 1961 women wearing pants in the US is right around that era of 72 78 somewhere in there that it was okay for women to wear pants to work. But this shit is within our lifetimes. It's amazing and and I'm sometimes just boggle just boggle at how persistent all this crap is, and the cynical perspective on this is that this is just human nature that people will always seek difference and denigrate the other. Another point of view is that this is in fact are resolvable in some way and I don't know exactly what. But I was troubled by this recently. And so I have a tab in my browser open at the site that I use for buying domains. And I'm seeking opinions in this room on whether I should purchase. This is probably a very stupid idea. But I was going to purchase yo white men.com. I mean, two different thoughts I have black lives matter is white people's problem and me to is men's problem that the me to the women are the victims as not up to them to fix it it's up to the people who victimize them to fix it. And the same thing goes for black lives matter and other movements to recognize people of color and figure all this stuff out. And so I don't know if it's a stupid idea but I'd love to figure out the idea of buying the domain, which of course is not a way to solve world problems, merely an outlet for frustration and creativity. The idea was to just create resources to actually talk to white men who might be convinced that their bias doesn't really work. And one of my heroes on this is Daryl Davis, a black jazz pianist who has a garage full of KKK robes and I've talked about him before I interviewed him I haven't finished transcribing the interview, Stacy I still need to get back to that. But I did a lovely hour long recording with him. I think it was even an hour and a half about about this and what he says is. How, how can you hate me if you don't even know me, which is the simplest simplest of questions and it's really a beautiful question. I'm very interested in doing more around this topic. And from what I'm seeing in the chat maybe I should buy your white men calm and see what we can do and anybody who feels like jumping in on this with me. So this LMK send me email, let's chat, see if this turns into anything but I'm extremely interested in this topic because I feel like it's not up to the victims to solve this, these different systemic societal issues it's up to the and modern perps who may not have physically done something are as responsible for the ancestry as anybody around and nobody else is going to sort of pick up that role. Thank you Jerry. It's interesting I had a poem I wanted to read last week that I didn't have time for because I now have a call starts it. I've asked him to start at 935 several break due calls that will go on for the next 18 months. Today, but now that we've been talking about this I have decided to switch I'm going to read a different poem. This is called the idea of ancestry by Etheridge night. I don't know if anyone knows Etheridge night he was a very powerful poet he used to be the poet in residence for Robert Bly's men's gatherings. And with myself are 47 pictures. 47 black faces. My father, mother, grandmother's one dead, grandfather's both dead, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, first and second, nieces and nephews. They crossed the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know their dark eyes. They know mine. I know their style. They know mine. I am all of them. They are all of me. They are farmers. I'm a thief. I am me. They are the. I have at one time or another been in love with my mother, one grandmother, two sisters, two aunts, one went to the asylum and five cousins. I am now in love with a seven year old niece. She sends me letters in large Brock block print and her picture is the only one that smiles at me. I have the same name as one grandfather, three cousins, three nephews and one uncle. The uncle disappeared when he was 15. Just took off and caught a freight. They say he's discussed each year when family has reunion. He causes uneasiness in the clan. He is an empty space. My father's mother, who is 93 and who keeps the family Bible with everybody's birth dates and death dates in it always mentions him. There is no place in her Bible for whereabouts unknown. Each fall the graves of my grandfathers call me. The brown hills and red gullies of Mississippi send out their electric messages galvanizing my genes. Last year, like a salmon quitting the cold ocean, leaping and bucking up his birthstream, I hitch-typed my way from LA with 16 caps in my pocket and a monkey on my back. And I almost kicked it with the kin folks. I walked barefooted in my grandmother's backyard. I smelled the old land and the woods. I sipped corn whiskey from fruit jars with the men. I floored it with the women. And I had a ball until the caps ran out and my habit came down. That night I looked at my grandmother and split. My guts were screaming for junk. But I was almost contented. I had almost caught up with me. The next day in Memphis, I cracked a croaker's crib for a fix. Last year, there's a gray stone wall damming my stream. And when the falling leaves stir my genes, I paste my cell or flop on my bunk and stare at the 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them. They are all of me. I am them. They are the, and I have no children to float in this space between. Mike, are you jumping in? And feel free to and you and Michael can sort of take us out of the call if you want to stay in the queue. Mike Nelson, I mean, if not, Michael, it's yours. I have nothing to say. I'm not sure he's hearing me. I was stuffed to follow that. But I will say that I was going to say in relation to something that Stuart mentioned about the, I don't remember how he put it, but just the raising of awareness of the lack of an end of racism and the resistance to you know, particularly by white people and particularly by white men. It's just, I feel like what's new is the idea that ending racism and sexism includes, hey, it's not just don't use this word and don't, you know, engage in this behavior. From now on, but you know, recognize residual benefits and privileges of what's what's happened before you, you know, be willing to engage with the idea of restorative justice. You know, corporations, you know, whatever case and, and also, I feel like racism is kind of a misnomer in that the difference between, you know, discrimination against just anybody, and differentiation of just anybody based on the shade of racism is one thing and is racism, and then talking about the injustices and, and, you know, the enslavement the genocide the cultural erasure the cross generational theft visited on the specific group of you know, abducted black Americans and and indigenous people here and other places. It's, there's, there's, that's more than racism and that's more, that's more than, you know, I mean this is something for your, your page Jerry. That's something that I don't think people, you know, I'm sure most people in this room have an understanding of that. But I think the, you know, the we had a, we've had a black president crowd. Some of whom are very well meaning and don't have any, you know, racist practices now are, are not are just now being confronted with that, that longer view and are, you know, lumping it as critical race theory and what Ron DeSantis thinks shouldn't be taught and, you know, it's reverse racism or something. And it's just not. Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir probably about that was what I wanted to say the stewards expression of newness. Thank you, Michael. We're at our time. I think a nice way to end this call would be to go into silence and then just drop off as we, as we wish to, as we find your move to. So, Stacy, thank you for recommending this process. It's worked really well. And he's going to find its way into our check and calls a lot. Bill's note taker is a hearty companion. No, no taker. Yeah. Ask him about that. Well, first on and I guess it's almost last off. Thank you, great. Thanks. And there you are. Yeah, I'll be, I've got a lot of ideas about the using brain. And stuff to I've got, I've got team brain licenses that I'm not leveraging the way it's possible. So figure out how to do that. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that was interesting was I was looking at that. The talk you did with the Shelly and Matt and Mark about COVID and stuff. So I think one of the things we could do is almost have. There could maybe we could come up with a template that would be spokes to your hub kind of thing and that where people can be to to various parts of your, your brain and then he was showing it as the notes page with what they're doing now. Right. And stuff. And I think they're shortly going to release something that might make that a lot easier. I think it's better. Ireland's fine. Farland's fat. Passionate about like addressing the web interface. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the, the number one thing I have is I want them to have an option to like if with getting things done is to just do a brain box to zero one click. I think that's in my brain box, make it a child thought of like my and I use an inbox tag and stuff. So it's pretty cool because then you click on anything and it's a thought by itself on the screen so he can kind of focus on just that one. So, cool. Okay, well great, great talking with you and yeah as I said, it felt good to kind of vent a little. Yeah, thank you same here. Okay. Hope you find your pace. Thanks.