To choose that which honours both me and all others.

To find my bliss, and live it.

To live from integrity - to the deepest levels of truth available to me.

To bring joy, celebration, humour, love and respect into being.

To make my own choices powerfully and encourage and empower others to make their own choices.

To honour my word and my life.

Do I know why I am here?

Yes - roughly.  It seem that about 14 billion years ago a bubble of possibility started expanding rapidly - we call it the Big Bang.  From that was born all the matter and energy of our universe.  Over time matter condensed, large stars formed, then exploded creating all the elements heavier than helium.   Several generations of stars ensued, until about 5 billion years ago a cloud of stella debris started to condense, forming our sun and the planets surrounding it.

About 3 billion years ago very simple life started on earth.  This formed from ribo neucleic acids and lipids.  Evolution took over, and through a process of selective survival of variants in diffferent conditions in different places, life started changing and getting more complex.  These were single celled organisms.   Some of them developed the knack of using sunlight to split water to give them the hydrogen they needed, and released oxygen as a by-product.   Over a very long period this oxygen changed the world, first as it settled the iron out of the oceans (as rust), then it changed the atmosphere (which previously had no oxygen in it).

Enventually organisms developed which could use this oxygen as fuel.  To do this trick, they had to incorporate bacteria like organisms within them, that today we know as mitochondria.   As a side effect of that, the mitchondrial DNA disturbed the host DNA, by inserting "introns".  To counter this "attack", the organisms developed sex, as a mechanism of defending their genes from intron attack.

Once sexual selection developed, organisms could develop much more rapidly, as gene variants from one line could be shared with variants from other lines - natural selection shifted up a gear.  In the last 700 million years we have gone from only single celled organisms to the phenominal complexity of life we see today - through a process of evolution by natural selection.

About 7 million years ago one form of tool using ape started to squat to feed, and from that developed into free standing bipeds.   For a raft of reasons those of our ancestors with ever larger brains were selected for.   About 100,000 years ago culture and language got a major boost, and started evolving very rapidly - evolution shifted into 3rd gear.

As our ancestors developed complex language, they started to ask more complex questions, and developed stories and explanations that made sense to them, and seemed in most circumstances to work.   Many of these stories used "God(s)" to explain why things are as they are.   From these god stories we get the notion that there is some "intention" behind our being.

To me, having studied many different sciences, and many different historical texts and stories, it seems highly unlikely that there is any intention "out there" for us.

It does seem that we are happiest when we believe that there is some greater purpose to our lives.

To me, the purpose to my life is the one I choose for myself - to experience great love and joy and be a contribution to others and to life itself.

This purpose is not given to me by any external agent, it is chosen by me, after (but not depending upon) careful consideration of all the alternatives.

It is a free choice - ie for no reason.

That is what I am here for.

I am most comfortable at home with my family.

I don't find groups comfortable, I have to get outside my comfort zone to work with groups and do politics.

I am not comfortable with conflict.

I like working with machines, because they are predictable, and don't get upset with me.
Yet something in me pushes me to stretch my boundaries, and do that which feels uncomfortable; to feel the fear and do it anyway.

That is a really interesting question.

When I was about 13 years old, my hands and feet were covered in warts - had been all my life.   Some had been surgically removed, some burned off, and always more appeared.  One day  I got so determined to get rid of them that I took out my pocket knife and cut one out of my hand.   It hurt.  It was a messy process.  I decided to stop at one, at least for a while.  And a couple of weeks later I noticed that I didn't have any warts.

Later I learned what probably happened, that by damaging the wart in the way I did, some of it got into my blood stream, and my body learned to recognise it as an invader, and then my imune system dealt to those clinging to the outside of my skin.


Many years later I started something similar in a different domain.  I started to recognise my own judgements, about me and everything else.   I started to recognise the cost of being as righteous as I was.  I started to see the cost of my arrogance.  Slowly, with many failures, and much repeat offending, I have worked away at the over-confident sense of righteous arrogance; and have tried to avoid mortally injuring the sense of what is possible.

Now, most often, I can manage to create a thought of what might be possible, without having it necessarily be "the only way forward".   They become true possibilities, some of which eventually make it to reality.   I am much more adept at having my own cherished ideas and opinions, and creating a space to receive and consider the ideas and opinions of others.   I can actually manage to be committed without being attached.

It is an amazing sense of freedom, of lightness, of release of tension - of peace.

Quite a change from an arrogant young anally retentive know-it-all.

A few years ago I set out to get my golf handicap down to single figures.
Turns out that requires a lot of time and discipline, and there are other things that are more important.
So now my handicap varies between 16 and 20, and I get more time to spend with family or work on other projects.

Patterns at all sorts of levels.

It seems that most people do not trust themselves much, nor have they made much effort to learn the basic patterns of mathematics and science - thus most of what happens in the technological world occurs much like magic.

In the face of that they look backward, looking for depth of understanding in ancient writings.   For the most part, it simply is there, the old words are being reinterpeted in a modern context and the meaning is totally modern not ancient (some exception, but not many).

Much of what is happening today is happening on an exponential path.  Our expansion of knowledge and technolgy are both like that.   One of the odd things about an exponential curve, where-ever you find yourself on it, what is behind you looks flat, and what is ahead of you looks impossibly steep - anywhere on the curve, always and for all time.   That takes a bit of getting one's head around.

Another thing to gets one's head around is the statement of Albert Einstein "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
Thus we cannot look backwards in creating solutions, we must look forward.  Looking forward is not blindly trusting in fate or technology, but using and trausting the infinite capacity of the holographic processor that is the brain of each and every one of us, both to choose more appropriate ways of acting for oursleves, and more appropriate uses of technology for the ecosystems that support us.
Economics is a tool in this process, not an end in itself.

200 years ago few would ever have imagined that horses would be merely for recreational use. 

The changes in technology over the next 20 years will be greater than the changes over the last 200 years.
Most people wont notice - they will just accept what they can of what they see, and ignore the rest.

What I see as possible is detailed in www.solnx.org

If I can achieve alignment on that project - the future for humanity could be much more secure than it currently looks.

Like most things it depends on my level of awareness.
When I am at my best - trust is relatively easy.  It is a choice.  Lots of rationale that could justify it, and fundamentally - it must be my choice.

When I am at less than my best, and I am experience fear and lack of confidence, then trust is very difficult.

I think I'm spending most of my time on the higher side, and still too often at less than my best.  Lots of opportunity for growth and development ;)

Very definitely.
Any way you want to think of it ;)

My wife and I often joke that we met each other as we fell off the bell curve.

Depends how threatened I feel.
If the unknown doesn't seem too dangerous, I'll have a good look, and try and figure out what it is, and what is a sensible response to it.

If it feels dangerous, then I'm likely to take steps to avoid it - very big ones (rapidly).

When I get to feel safe again, I'll investigate from what seems a safe distance.

And I'm the sort of guy that likes to have a plan A, plan B and plan C for most situations.

I find wisdom and courage in everyone I meet.
We all contain all things, and all experess all things, in some measure at some time.

I find great wisdom in many books.
I like Brian Johnson's "Philosopher Notes" - and thank him both for those and for this website.
So much wisdom in great writings from past and present.
One Brian doesn't have on his list is Richard Dawkins, who gave us the term meme, in his classic 1976 book "The Selfish Gene", which I read in 1978, and still class as the best read of my life.  Being a 4th year biology student probably has/had something to do with that evaluation.  Currently reading Richard's "Ancestors tale".

My beloved Ailsa is an amazingly wise person.
A lot of wisdom on this site - mostly why I keep coming here.
Thank you all, for sharing, for openness, integrity, being willing to say it how it is for you, and risk the "looking good" in front of others.

Arohanui

Ted

When I am at my highest self, nothing.

In reality, much of the time, fairness, which when I get "down and dirty" with it, means getting what I want when I want it but smoked over with letting other people have what they want too (provided it doesn't get in my way).

When at my best, I accept what is, and then make choices that are intended to be of benefit to me and all others.   Then I dance with the consequences of those choices - one two three, one two three,.... one two three, one two three.   With a bit of luck someone else will be able to hear the same music, and maybe not.

It's OK to dance alone!

At the moment I first read the question I was calm and contemplative.
In the couple of minutes since I have experienced happiness, apprehension, pessimism and optimisim.

Can't see the mountains this morning - low cloud.

I accept my life.   I accept that in this life I get to experience a wide range of emotions.  Even in the last year I have had emotional experiences that I had never previously experienced - both highs and lows.
It is interesting, becoming sufficiently familiar with the range of emotions that I can continue to hold awareness above them while also experiencing them.
All good training.

Yesterday was particularly interesting in that regard, many tears shed at the wake of a friend who recently died.  He was an amazing bloke.  A sense of humour that would find something to joke about in any situation, and with it he rose from infrantryman through, RSM, to senior explosives trainer for the NZ Armry.  From there he became active in and in charge of training with - the Mountain Safety Council, Local, regional and National Coastguard, local and regional rural Fire fighting, local and regional civil defence, local and regional road safety.   He was also involved in the territorials, and as an honorary fisheries officer (something we shared).
A man of many hats - I think I saw 22 of them there yesterday.
Next to a guy like Mike I appear positively lazy.
At his service his wife Sally asked me to do a video record, which I have done, and will put onto DVD for her and the family later today.
At the service he got full militrary honors, full honours from Coast Guard, St Johns Ambulance, Firefighters, Fishery Officers, Distruct council, with about 10% of the district population packed into the hall.
A man who gave so much, lived life to the full, yet died so young (just over 50) of a very rare form of cancer.

That was yesterday.
Who knows what today will bring.

Very little if what has happened in my life was expected by me.

Most of what happens, I simply accept and deal with - as we all do.
Most often we all come up with all sorts of justifications after the fact.

In reality, I have a fairly poor record at predicting long term outcomes.
None of the really pessimistic stuff has happenned - most people are still alive

I am gradually becoming more and more of an optimist, and I still slide backwards occasionally - like climbing a scree slope.

I find that when I suspend my judgement that anything ought to be any way other than what it is, that I can appreciate the beauty in everything.

I am far from consistant in generating this level of awareness.

And it is something that is ahppening more frequently - sometimes even daily.

To me, greatness is demonstrated by trusting one's own deepest assessment (intuition) of what is required, and acting in accordance with it - whatever the circumstances, whatever the consequences.

Every day I see people making choices that meet these criteria.
We all have our moments of greatness, we all have our moments of less than greatness.

For a host of reasons.
At the genetic level, we are primed to sexually select young and virile partners.  We feel that within ourselves, and we notice it in others.
At a cultural level, youth has a lot going for it.  They experience a freedom and daring that seems to fade as we age (again for a host of reasons).

At the purely intellectual level, we can see that youthfulness has a suppleness and energy that we want at a visceral level.  The energy of youth is attractive at all levels.

The idea of living forever, of living without the pain and scarring of old age, is very attractive.

Personally, it is my intention to be able to remove all the effects of scarring (scarring is a system developed by warm blodded animals because they could not afford the down time to fully regrow damaged limbs and organs as their amphibian and reptilian ancestors had), and to activate the rebuild systems to bring all levels of our biochemical functioning to full potential.  Having the technology to do that, and to rebuild all of our DNA to original, is probably about 50 years off.  At the rate our knowledge is increasing we ought to be able to disable most of the aging mechanisms very soon - that will slow aging and allow most of us to live for a very long time, aging only very slowly, until complete regeneration technology come on stream.

I plan on retaining all of the knowledge, experience, intuitions and wisdom aquired along the way.   This is not some return to the insanity of youth.

www.solnx.org shows what I believe to be a combination of education, social, political and technological solutions that will enable a society of many billions of essentially immortal individuals to live togther in peace, prosperity and diversity.

Good question.
I have no idea.

It seems likely the corrupt political and economic systems will continue to support self serving laws and structures - with short term thinking and age old ideas.

It is possible, though highly improbable, that something like www.solnx.org could empower people all over the world to claim their own power, and stop accepting the things that law and culture tell them; but, realisticly, it is not a high probability outcome - givent he results I have produced over the last 20 years.

Still - not an excuse to stop trying.

In many ways.
Mostly in terms of education and experience,and also in interest and contemplation.  Both of them left school to work by the age of 13, I did not leave university finally until 23.
In so many ways I am similar to my parents, in most of my genetics, in much of my cultural beginnings.

I am not either of my parents, so I cannot give any sort of absolute answer.  I did not have my parent's experience, I have my experience.
Accepting that, it appears that my understanding of what I am is several levels deeper than that held by either of my parents, and I loved both my parents deeply.  They both had strengths that seemed to exceed my own in some areas.

I'm like my Dad in being a "jack of all trades, master of none".  For Dad it started growing up 2nd of 8 children, with his father running a butcher shop, as well as growing a few pigs, keeping a horse etc.  Dad was then apprenticed to become a jockey, then grew too big, then took on being a butcher, then shepherd, then farm manager, then forrester, the freezing worker, then driver, soldier, taxi driver, wharfie, carpenter, farm owner, cray fisherman, then dairy farm worker, whitebait fisherman, dairy farm manager, building labourer, then boilermen, then flounder fisherman, dairy factory worker, fish munger, shop owner.
Dad would never let any thing beat him, and if someone didn't keep their word to him, he would move on and try something else - happened a lot.  He grew up in the depression, and would always lend a hand to someone in need.

I grew up on farms, and around fishing boats, and learned the ways of living things, how to hunt, how to farm, then got interested in how thing work, and took every machine apart, and got most of them back together again, built radios and computers, played in my own laboratory, until the governemnt made it illegal for guys like me to buy the reagents I was playing with in the quantities I was playing with them (some stupid idea that explosives are dangerous - I dunno - some people just got no sense of adventure ;) ).  Then I started getting into how organisations work, and started joining committees, and getting involved in politics.  Studied all the sciences, history, some of the classics, got into programming computers, studing economics, getting out and meeting people at every level of industry and goverment and NGOs.   I remember reading a story by AE van Vogt when I was about 14, "The voyage of the Space Beagle" in which the hero is someone traning in learning how to learn new stuff - from the Nexial Institute - he solved problems on scales that few if any others even perceived that problems existed.

So I'm like Dad in doing many things passably, yet I take it further, and try and apply the skills of mind that come with it across all humanity.

Mum was very skilled also.  Her first job after leaving home at 13 was as cooks assistant then cook at a boys boarding school.  She was one of 9 children.  My experience of mum was of generousity.  We never had much, yet we shared whatever we had with anyone in need.  We never knew if we would be 5 or twenty for dinner, mum could stretch a meal on half an hour's notice (peel more spuds - quickly) and no-one ever left the table hungry.
Mum loved to read (several books a week), and read to us.  She loved puzzles, crosswords, riddles.  Always keeping our minds active.

I think she was quite pleased when I joined MENSA in my early twenties - quite a change from being told I was retarded when I was 5.

In my teenage years I would often read a book a night, but usually 2 or three a week.  I remember at university a friend loaned me his copy of The Hobbit after lunch one day, I finished it before dinner, and went looking until I found a copy of Lord of the Rings, and read that until I finished it (after lunch the next day - then I slept).  I often find tales like that compelling reading - once I start a good book, I read it until it is finished (like mum, probably how I learned to cook and look after things aorund the house - when she had a good book).

So I am like my parents, in that I can fix almost anything, and I can empathise with, feel compassion for, and lend a hand to, almost anyone.

I am also like both my parents in being very slow to anger, but you really don't want to be around me when I am angry - not safe.   It is many years since my anger got free reign, I hope it never does again, I've had far too many years training in martial arts, and know far too many ways of doing serious harm at far too many levels and the thought of it getting loose does concern me.  In the past, once it passed a certain point, all I could do was look on, I couldn't control or interfere with it.  I hope I have more power and control than before, and I hope I never need to find out for sure.

Actually, compared to most of humanity, I have a fairly cruisy life.
I don't think I would change anything, my greatest strengths are at the same time my greatest weaknesses.

Sometimes I think it is hard being a loner, and at other times I find it difficult to stay in conversations with other people, as my mind wanders off on tracks it has found intresting and wants to explore.   Yet those wanderings and explorations are what allow me to build connections between things that few others have.  The constant traversing and re-testing of connections - sometimes it has an almost obsessive-compulsive feel to it, and I think I'm still on the free will side of the line - just!

Sometimes I think I could have done so much more with my life, had I been focussed and directed towards making money.   Other times I look back on the vast range of experiences, and wonder how I managed to do so many different things.   So many of them from completely unexpected sources - just bumping into people, starting up conversations, offering assistance - next thing doing 160mph on a motorbike, or 20 miles off the coast at midnight fishing for broadbill swordfish.

Sometimes I worry that it is hard on my family having me be so different, yet at other times it seems that we are all fairly well off the bell curves, family or not.

Sometimes I get frustrated that I have not made major progress at ending warfare and poverty in promoting www.solnx.org, and at other times I read of all the other people who have gone before me, from Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, ............ who also failed, and I don't feel quite so bad.  And I haven't given up yet.   It may yet happen without requiring much direction at all.  It may yet be the natural consequence of technological advancement.

All things considered, being me aint bad.  I live in a beautiful place, with fresh air, mountains, ocean, rivers - all easily accessable.  I have a beautiful wife and partner whom I love.  I am well fed.  I have lots of interesting things to do, lots of people to talk to, spoilt for choice one might say.
Started reading Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" yesterday, a quite remarkable document for it's time - about 10% through - one of the many gutenberg.org eText books I have in my to-read list.

I like that I like making a difference for others, that I can feel empathy, and that I canshift perspectives relatively easily.
I like that I have people near me who love me, and whom I can love.
I like that I live in a peaceful place, with food and security.
I like that I can solve problems that most others find too difficult.
I like that I have lots of toys, and lots of access to communication.
I like that I have the freedom to follow where my interest leads most of the time.
I like that there are so many options for communication available.
I like that there are so many opportunities to contribute.

It aint bad being me.

I have had several profound experiences in this regard, and many much more common.

The most common feeling is like I am actually the other person.  It feels like I understand the other person's point of view (however illusory that may be in reality).

One of the most profound experiences was being with a friend, and realising that I cannot "know" anything of how another feels.  All I can know is what I felt like when I was in a situation that appears similar to me.

The idea that I can create what another says by how I listen to them.   In a situation where speaker and listener are in close proximity this feedback can actively create how and what the speaker speaks.

Can get very interesting.

Being listened to feels good.
Being understood feels much better - I would love that to happen with respect to www.solnx.org - but it hasn't yet.

Cuddling up with my girl.
Playing with kids.
Tramping, fishing, cycling, pretty much anything involving getting out into nature and exerting my body.
Being present - in any circumstance.
Flying, driving, talking, golf, blogging,.....

Hard to pick one.
I like cuddling up with my wife.
I like looking at the stars.
I like the lack of noise from cars and trucks, so that the natural night noises come through loud and clear.
I like the occasions when there is no moon, and there are auroral displays, so I can walk outside and look south and see sheets of red and green light glowing dimly in the sky.

Waking to the first sounds of birdsong - the Bellbirds in particular.
Watching the sunrise over the ocean from the kitchen window as I make a coffee.
Taking the dogs for a walk and breathing the fresh air.

Standing at the kitchen window this morning, and looking across the bay with about 4 ft seas coming inshore, and about 70 knts of wind blowing offshore, with the sun just on the horizon.

Where the waves hit rocks, the waves broke and a brilliant white spray flew back out to sea.     From time to time the strong wind swirled into waterspouts about 20 to 30 ft high, also brilliant white in the low sun.

Amazingly beautiful and full of energy - such a privalege to be alive and looking at it - such a profound appreciation of being alive.

Keep on going.
Find something, however small and seemingly insignificant that you can do, and do it, then do the next thing.

The greatest example I had of this was out cycle training one day.  I was three hours into a ride, and had climbed through about 6 series of hills and valleys, and had just crossed a bridge and was starting the climb up the other side, and I really wanted to stop.

I had the thought, it is over an hour's riding to get home, everything hurts, I can't do it.   Then I looked at the road in front of my front wheel, and saw a small stone only about 3 inches in front of the wheel, and thought, I can reach that stone.  When I got to it, I looked for another stone, 3 inches in front of it.   For 10 minutes, that was all I could do, one stone at a time.  Then suddenly I realised that it wasn't so bad any more, I had reached the top of that hill, and had about 5 miles of downhill in front of me.

A lot of the last few years of my life has been like that, finding some little thing I can do, and doing it - even if it is just writing this blog.  Maybe, it will make a difference to someone somewhere.

Almost any question can be a real question in an appropriate context.

For me, really interesting questions are questions that have real answers, that are discoverable, yet have no yet been solved.

Some of those are on my website - www.solnx.org - lots of them on this website.

Everything.
I love looking at the mountains, and knowing that they are the the result of massive crustal plates crashing into each other on a timescale that dwarves humanity,
I love the waether, the unpredictability of it, the savage survival nature of it - the reality of it.   If you get caught on a maountain in a blizard, you're quite likely dead unless well prepared.  That brings somehting to living.

I love observing life, plants, animals fish.
I love hunting and fishing, tramping.

Something in the untamed, uneven, irregular uniqueness of everything natural appeals to something in both my neural networks and my holographic processor - it just feels good - at every level.

Both.
One of the thing I find most interesting are the oldest unanswered questions - or perhaps more correctly, finding answers to the oldest questions without answer that fit well in modern paradigms.

I like to find explanations for ancient wisdom that work in modern scientific paradigms, and where required create new paradigms to allow the ancient and modern to come together.

Why?
I guess I just have a mix of neural networks and holographic processors that resonate together when enguaged in this activity.

I also like to work with modern technology - for the power it contains to free people to explore their unlimited potential.

It is easy for me to imagine a set of social, technical and political institutions that replace the need to earn a living, and allow every individual to spend all the time they wish following their own bliss.   See www.solnx.org for a way to achieve that.