I’ve blogged before and like a lot of people it’s always been one of those things that I have found a hard time keeping up with. For instance I blogged at singularchange.com when I was in residence at Singularity University in 2011, and I used to keep a creative writing blog at brinkwar.com
I want to get back into it and I think one of the best strategies is to blog using my real name, and focus on producing a steady stream of micro-content. Really it’s a way for me to organize my thoughts and keep a record of my inspirations, lessons learned, theories, and life experiences. I hope it will also be a way to connect with the people in my life — my friends, colleagues, heros, fans and teammates.
I know that the so-called “blogging gurus” and “social media mavens” recommend that I should choose a niche topic and target my writing towards optimizing keywords and showcasing my expertise in one specific area, but anyone who knows me also knows that it’s quite hard to pin me down.
I’m post-disciplinary. In fact I’m almost anti-disciplinary, but unlike Joi Ito (the head of MIT’s Media Lab), I’m quite interested in transforming the world’s education apparatus instead of revolutionizing it, and this strategy derives from my having completed multiple postgraduate degrees and having experienced first-hand the realities of the Academy in action. I want higher education to be anti-disciplinary, but transformational change requires engagement with a whole spectrum of educators who are still weening themselves off of the sage-on-a-stage approach to education. We can’t expect these professionals to take the plunge all at once, we need to show them the way, and that means respecting their experience and disciplinary practices.
As a post-disciplinary leader, I’m a systems thinker, not afraid of what I don’t know. I seek interdisciplinary solutions because the World’s great challenges demand them. I think one of my greatest strengths is my breadth of experience — my horizontal positioning. I have a Masters degree in journalism and I used to work as a journalist, but my interests have grown much broader to include entrepreneurship, art, start-up strategy, creative leadership, transmedia storytelling, personalized wellness, and any number of exponentially advancing technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Perhaps more importantly, though, is my knowledge-quest. I read a lot of philosophy. Most recently….I’ve been digging into Axial sages and modern masters such as Ken Wilber, Sri Aurobindo, Paul Ricœur, and Guy DeBord. I’ve been re-watching the films of Fritz Lang and Robert Bresson. I’ve been taking online courses in game theory and political science and human genetics. If anything, my experience as a journalist has made me a great researcher and life-long learner.
I’m convinced that being a life-long learner is the most important ingredient to greatness of any kind. So I’m post-disciplinary. You won’t find a single topic here, and you might find topics squeezed together that you never thought had any connection with each other — but they do, and I hope to show you how.
What I can promise you in terms of blogging content is what I might call meta-themes. These are the overarching stories I’ll bring you.
Metanarratives include human freedom and human flourishing. I approach everything I do as an artist first and foremost — I consider myself a cultural software producer. Through any number of projects, events, speaking engagements, books, essays, software products, websites, and stories — I go about it as though I’m writing cultural software that is designed to run on the operating system of reality. I intend that these cultural patches might contribute to human flourishing, a world where we are in harmony with nature, with each other, and with ourselves — a world united in peace and creativity.
Welcome to the new blog. I look forward to creating interesting conversations and engaging with all of you out there. You can expect the blog to evolve in term of design, I’m not satisfied with this template. Any good template suggestions? Come on by and say hello, subscribe through email, leave comments, tell me why my writing stinks — open discourse is the best. Cheers!
