To stay together as a family.

After that maybe some more family holidays.

In physical space I'm 53 years young, in Kaikoura New Zealand.
In possibility space, I seem to be able to accept all that is, and choose joy in the moment, and maintain my commitments.
I seem to be in a space where choice allows me to transcend cultural notions of right/wrong, and allows me to see all things as part of infinite spectra.  I seem to be in a sea of probability distributions, with most of the action happening in memetic space.

It does seem possible to create conditions that will support universal peace and prosperity, and it will take transcending a lot of currently accepted cultural paradigms, including economic paradigms.

Not much chance of boredom - some danger of resignation.

Interesting question.
In my relationship with my wife is the certain answer, and that relationship has high variability, as she deals with anxiety attacks and depression.

I am being disciplined with the meme that happiness is a choice, and has nothing to do with circumstances.   I am possibly over 50% success with that.
In that meme is perhaps where I am happiest, as distinct from anything physical.

It is a very odd time - so many competing priorities.

It is so hard to distinguish between work and play these days.
Most of the time I have fun at my work, and sometimes play is pretty hard work (like playing golf in the sleet).
Today I was standing at the kitchen sink and looking out to the ocean and the snow covered mountains across the bay, and just marvelling at the beauty and the ever changing grandeur of the scene; standing there in the bright sunshine kinda overwhelmed making lunch.

I think I have a very effective ratio of work and play - seems to work for me.

Everywhere!!!
I want to be able to play a scratch round of golf, I want to understand why there are Planck limits, I want to know what the equations of quantum mechanics actually represent, I want to sail the oceans, I want to explore the grand canyon, to walk the coasts of the world, to fly like an eagle over the earth's surface, to meet and get to know and love millions of people, to gaze in awe at snowflakes, frost crystals, waves on the ocean, a child's laugh.
I want to learn how to extend lifespans indefinitely.
I want to learn how to give everyone access to space, while maintaining the ecological abundance and diversity of the earth.
I want to learn how to empower every individual to an awareness of their own infinite power and creativity.
I want to learn how to master the potentials available.
I want to learn how to experience joy and blis in every situation.
I want to learn how to ensure peace and fulfillment for every individual - no exceptions.
............................................

More than I ever dreamed possible.
As a small child I was tongue tied, and could not make an "R" sound.  My first teacher called my parents in and told them I was retarded, and needed special education.  Fortunately, her assessment was wrong, as I later proved when I joined Mensa, with a 160+ IQ.   Dad changed jobs a lot, and I was changing schools every year or so, and with the speech thing, was teased and didn't make friends easily - so I read a lot, and when not reading, went out hunting - observing nature.

In my late teens and early twenties I tested most of the rules, and was fortunate not to get caught.  I never did anyone any harm, but that was about the only rule I didn't break.
Drank far too much alcohol, played too much pool and darts.  Spent a lot of time skiing.  After getting a degree in marine ecology I settled into commercial fishing, and also into politics and fisheries management.

At Mensa we got into thinking about problems in the world (what the organisation was set up to do - solve problems at a global scale).   I joined JayCees, and was part of bringing Buckminster Fuller's world Game to New Zealanders.   I twice solved all problems in the game, with the strategy now in www.solnx.org

After standing for parliament the first time in 1984, I decided to settle down, and a friend told me that another friend from Mensa was free.  We got married the following year, had a son the year after, but she left me after 5 years.  I was too arrogant, and not nearly self aware enough for anyone other than family to live with.

We started a software company together, that I have continued since she left.  I've been running that now for 22 years, and it is basically just Ailsa and I these days, though we have had more employees in the past, I'm happiest being free to follow what I find most interesting.

I was a bit of a committee junkie, at one stage being on 32 of them, and chairman secretary or treasurer of 8 of them.

I was seriously depressed after Rae left, and took up flying - something I had always wanted to do.

On a business trip to the South Island I met Ailsa.  After a 3 year courtship we got married, and are married still.

So many things have happened along the way that if I was to write a soap opera script of them all, no one would believe it - it would be just too way out.

We now live in what Ailsa and I both consider one of the most beautiful places on the planet.   We know a fair percentage of the 4 thousand or so locals.  We are both active in the community, and have served and are serving on many committees in many roles, and maintaining many interests.

I don't do much flying now, nor as much boating as I would like, and we do a bit of driving, tramping, cycling, walking, and I do a bit of diving.

Mostly these days I am at the keyboard, writing software, writing stories, blogging, analysing fisheries data, developing policy documents, reading, searching, linking.

I've been to the USA a couple of times, met about 100,000 different people that I have been introduced to.  I've had so many paradigm shifts in understanding that I  sometimes wonder if anyone understands some of the ideas I am working with - yet at other times I can behave like a 5 year old.

I've been shot at, attacked with knives and bits of wood, jumped out of an aeroplane in flight, dived to 200ft on SCUBA, free dived to 100ft, been at sea in storms that create seas over 100ft high, caught so many weird and wonderful fish, seen so many amazing sights.

I have been exceptionally lucky, as well as being reasonably active, persistent, patient, and determined.
I get scared really easily, but I don't let the fear stop me doing anything.

I haven't yet found an effective way of removing the damage and deterioration that my body has suffered, and return it to how it functioned when I was about 20 (without losing any of my accumulated experience - either mentally or in muscle memory).

I haven't yet climbed Mt Kilimanjaro.

We don't have (I haven't discovered) a way of giving every person access to space, nor have I built my habitat that contains small sample ecologies containing most of the species from Earth.

We don't have (I haven't yet created) systems that ensure that no person is ever unwillingly hungry or wanting of information to educate themselves.

We don't have (I haven't yet created) technologies and system that that meet all our many needs while working with the ecologies that support us.

I don't yet have the level of freedom and security that I desire, and I acknowledge that the freedom and security I do have (and we all have) is unprecedented in human history.

I am looking forward to exploring the universe - to spending a few thousand years on this planet, then taking my habitat and travelling this galaxy, and perhaps a few others, and spending a few million years exploring the place - I think it very likely contains more than enough (of both people/intelligences and things unknown) to keep me interested and active.

None and all.
It is all of interest, all an experession of infinite possibility in the present.

Not many new ideas, mostly very old ones:
Individual rights;
Personal Power;
Democracy;
Love;
Active tolerance;
Peace;
Joy;
Diversity;
Abundance;


And perhaps a few that are not very common in history:

That there is no meaning outside of what we declare for ourselves;

That each of us as individuals is infinitely powerful, infinitely creative;

That ideas like right/wrong, good/bad, good/evil are ideas for children, that have no place in adult conversation - or phrased another way, that adults recognise that there is infinite possibility inherent in everything, that there are few, if any, two state systems in reality, and that it is not possible to dump all choices into one of two simple classes (good/bad, right/wrong, good/evil).  Life is much more complex than that.  To be powerful creative adults, we need to be ongoingly responsible for the consequences of our choices, knowing that our choices will mingle with the choices of others, and at times produce consequences that none of us foresaw, and we will need to deal powerfully with those consequences, with new powerful choices.   That is the nature of the existence of a creative being in a society of creative beings - there are no simple rules, no ultimate security in the sense that many seek in dogma;

That a life of true freedom has its costs, and its rewards, and the rewards are worth all the costs, and it behoves us all to make such a life available to all;

That the ecosystems of this planet need more of our attention than they have been getting, urgently.

Enough bubbles for one evening!

I believe that would be Integrity.

Like all serious concepts, I think it has infinite depth of meaning, and it just depends upon how far down one is willing to pursue it as to what it means to each of us.
For me, it definitely goes beyond simple notions like keeping my word, and even beyond notions like honouring my word.

For me it goes deeply into being in the equiry as to who and what I am; what am I commited to, what aspects of the actions I take in the world are a conscious expression of those commitments, and which are simply matters of habbit and pattern at some level.

It is a very interesting question as to what level of impact on my intention and commitment does the substructure of the universe that was essentially present since the big bang have; and as part of that, how much and at what level does the holograhpic experience of all that is currently within my perceptual realm impact upon me.

Choosing a balance point between such contemplations, and taking action that impacts in the realm of family, community, business, economics, politics, enquiry, spontenaety and joy is, to say the least, an interesting challenge.

To whom?

To my wife, love, support, inspiration.
Similar to my son & daughter, with a different focus on various qualities of the love.

To community, more of a focus on systems that solve problems and generally empowering people in their own development and their awareness of the interrelatedness of living and non-living systems, whatever it is that they choose.
Perhaps empowering perspectives that include greater focus on the power and responsibility of personal choice.

Sometimes I just like doing something physical.

No surprises to any regular readers here.
To choosing love, joy, and service, to family, community and life itself.
To doing what I can to create systems that support every person experiencing true freedom of choice, really experiencing their potential power and creativity.
To extending lifespans indefinitely.
To exploration and creativity.
To www.solnx.org

I like adventures and surprises.
I'm clear about what I need to be clear about - the importance of individuals, the power of love & compassion, the luck that comes from patience and persistence.

I find meaning in many ways and from many sources.
A lot of the meaning that I started with seems to have come from "culture" in the widest sense - things I was told by someone, or saw in someone, in childhood.

Then there is a lot of meaning that my mind came up with, using the rules that it learned during childhood - rules of logic, reality, morality, etc.

Then there are declaration that my mind has made, based upon the patterns it has learned, and the contexts of the moment.

Then there is choice - that strange, almost undefinable quality with which we get to determine the context that mind uses to make it's decisions and take it's actions.   Even the action of writing these words, of coming up with these words, is too complex for my conscious awareness, yet the words are written.  The thing that did the writing is my brain in connection to my body, modulated through the laptop on my lap.   I did not choose each of these words - the words just flowed.  What "I" did do, was choose a context of interpretation, and present that context to my mind, which then created these words based upon the given context.  Thus it is with meaning - I choose a context, and my mind supplies a meaning.  If I don't like the meaning it provides, I just give it a new context - there is often a lot of trial and error.

It appears that the normal state for most people is to collapse the "what happened" of a situation, with the "meaning" that they have added to it - so that their worlds are made up of meaning.
It takes a lot of discipline and intentionality to pull apart the what happened, and the meaning we add, and to take conscious choice over the meanings we assign.  It takes work to go back over all of the declarations of childhood, all the meaning of culture, and strip it bare to the "what happened" - acknowledging that everything we "know" is but a probability function, that may, or may not, be so in "reality" (whatever that is).

So these days I mostly find meaning in the contexts of Love, compassion, choice, contribution.

By running a couple of websites - www.solnx.org and www.fishnet.co.nz

By bloggin here, and elsewhere.

By getting involved in community, on school boards, local council, conservation groups, recreational groups.

By picking up hitch hikers and talking to them.

By being a stand for being straight with everyone I meet.

By getting involved in politics.

By attending conferences on subjects of interest.

By writing (but not yet enough nor well enough to get published).

Hard to answer.

I want to say in politics, in the expression of the truths that my brain has distilled from the patterns available in my experience - yet that is not quite accurate.

Life is a complex series of choices and consequences - of trial and error, of re-evaluate probabilities, of choosing new strategies.

Right now I am giving most of my energy to family, as that seems to be where it is most needed, and most valuable.

The belief that I haven't worked hard enough for miracles to occur in our favour.

To me freedom means being responsible for all my actions and all their consequences.

Freedom means claiming ultimate power, ultimate choice, ultimate responsibility.

Freedom is a state of being that one claims, independent of circumstances.

Freedom is a power that one claims for oneself, in the face of any and all circumstances.

Freedom is ultimately all we have - the power to make a difference - anything else is simple causality.

This does, lead to the next question - to what purpose do we choose to use our freedom?

Far more interesting than the question of freedom itself - much more of an existential test of character.

Judgements, expectations, lack of acceptance.

Anything that has me expect or want reality ot be anything other than what it is - that includes the reality of who I am being.

When I can accept everything, including who I am being (which is often less than my lofty ideals), then I can become present.
In becoming present, I gain the ability to choose.

It seems that the most powerful thing I can choose is the context of my being.

I'd like to be an inspiration for others to see enough in who I be, to make the effort to study all that is available, to follow their own passions, and to make the contribution to life that lights them up.

I'd like to inspire people to stop "tuning out" with drugs and games and other distractions, and to tune in, get present, give up the resignation (the easy way out) that you cannot make a difference, and start making a difference, one thing at a time.

Stand up for what you believe.
Take the hits, and get up prepared to take them again - pain passes.

Take a stand for that which you most deeply believe in, whatever it is - you tell me.
You have infinite potential - explore it, use it - your way - not mine, nor anyone else's.

Modern science has a lot to teach us, a lot of powerful models, and ways of interpreting things.   It is powerful to reinterpret the wisdom of the ages into the modern schema available.

Don't get too attached to any one schema.  I try to discipline myself to try on at least three before making any significant decisions, and to keep on switching at random, just in case some other schema has a different view on what is significant from the one I am using now.

Define childhood.
Far too many to choose from.

Watching a big eel suck in a rabbit carcas.

Standing terrified in the dark, while out hunting just after dusk (about age 8), by a really strange noise.  Eventually mustering the courage to go and see what was making the noise, only to find two hedgehogs mating.

Sitting on the sofa (about age 6) watching an episode of Doctor Who (BBC Sci Fi program from early 60s) and being too terrified of what might be hiding under the sofa to put my feet to the floor.

Standing outside in the sun (about age 5) watching it rain on half the house - half of the house and section in heavy rain, yet the other half dry and sunny - me being in the dry half.

Thousands of them..............

Tough call.

Mother did all the early work, and a lot thereafter.

For the last 15 years my wife Ailsa has been the greatest supporter in my growth.

Ultimately, it has to come down to me, whether I grow, stay the same, or shrink, comes down to the choices I make, not the circumstance.  Sure, some circumstances make growth easier, the really weird thing is that often those are the circumstances that few if any of us would voluntarily choose - ie what appear at first glance to be the greatest adversity.

Talk to them and tell them I love them.
Give them hugs.
Spend time doing things they love to do.
Buy them gifts that they want.
Try to find a balance bewteen creating security and encouraging them to test their boundaries.
Love them whatever happens.

That really got me thinking.

There is a very real sense in which nothing is troubling me.

There are a lot of things happening, a lot of circumstances, and they just are what they are - opportunities in a sense - as everything is.

It is not the circumstance, it is who I create myself to be in the face of the circumstance.

It is a time of deep enquiry for me, a time of contemplation and question.

I'm with those guys!!!
I'm above ground.
I'm breathing.
I have choice.
I have possibility - unlimited infinite possibility.

I really have no idea.
I know how my parents met, they were stitched up by their siblings at a race meeting (dads brother was going out with mums sister) - both couples ended up marrying (two of dads other brothers married two other sisters).

Define good?
Like all things, I translate them into the schema I am currently using.
Sometimes that schema allows me to evaluate my own effectiveness at communication; sometimes the schema is more ego based and just gets a warm fuzzy.
The more awake and aware I am, the more I appreciate the relatedness to all others, and the more I appreciate acknowledgement of others, without actively seeking it ir relying on it in any significant fashion.

I love the variability of it.
Here in Kaikoura it can be very changeable.
This time of year we can go from around 4deg C in a Southerly to about 26 C in a NW in about 4 hours.
We frequently get Southerlies over 60 knots, and occasionally over 90 knots.

As a pilot I oneday flew a Cesna 172 up to the base of a very small funnel cloud (only about 20ft across) and was amazed by the force of its winds as it flipped the aircraft on its side.

Another day I was traveling north over the Waikato and came close to a large CB (black thunderhead cloud).  It was the most awesome cloud I have seen in my 53 year, and as I got within about 10 miles of it I saw it's base start to spread, and noticed that I was being drawn towards it.   I ended up diving away from the cloud, and decending from 4,500 ft to about 800ft at full throttle to get out of its influence.   The power of that thing was awe inspiring.

Another time about 30 years ago I was looking South from my home on the Hauraki plains and saw an awesome front rolling up the plains towards us.  It was taking about 15 seconds for a feature in the cloud to appear at about 1000 ft and roll up to about 4,000 ft and disappear.   I got the inverter and gas cooker out of the shed, and had dinner cooking on gas and the TV on the car battery when the power went off.  It stayed off for almost a full day.

I've been at sea in excess of 80 knots 3 times, and once in 60 knots in a 12 ft tin boat - that was exciting (read terrifying) for the 15 minutes or so it took for the sqall to blow through.  It was a clear air sqall line - no cloud indicating it coming.  It just came off the land towards me as a black line - I was about 2 miles out to sea when it hit, and about 5 miles out by the time it passed, and I could turn back for home.  All I could do was to tray and quarter the seas and stay in the throughs.

I was out hunting in the Uraweras one winters day when a SW front came through, and it got very cold very quick, freezing rain.  Even though I ran back to the hut, my hand was frozen to the rifle barrel when I got there.  Had to start a fire left handed to thaw my right hand free,

Right now it is mid winter, there is hail on the roof, and the fire is going, the dogs curled up near it on the floor, and my wife playing guitar.

Certainty, and a little of my arrogance - both good things.

I used to be so certain of so much, now I just have probability functions, and always a shadow of doubt.  I guess that's what keeps me open to possibility.

I feel most safe at home, with my wife and family, in my community.
Just got home from our Lions Club changeover meeting - good fellowship, and a strong feeling of community, and joint service.
I know th people here, I know the geography - I feel safe at most levels.