Indeed my keys have not been still. There has been no less tapping and muttering here, dear friends. I find myself, however, aiming my scribbly resources at a bank of words, a bank that, in time, will return something to you of great interest.

Since the time of my poisoning and recovery I have been on a journey of a different kind. While it is not in any way a new journey, it is my personal version of that ancient tale. It is also, in these times, endemic of a whole cast of characters riding alongside me, each of us in our little rubber rafts.

I do not know where the river ends, or when we will reach the great falls. Before that day, before the fall and my keys go silent, I hope to choose for you a bundling of waymarkers and tales. In short, yep, I’m writing a book.

I missed my chance to chronicle my days in the first wave of dot coms. I missed the next as I rode the independent film wave. One thing that became clear to me as I watched my life ebb in Taiwan was that, given another chance, I had two gifts left to give: my ability to listen and my ability to share. I’m alive and riding my third wave. I’m doing my best to give both.

Sometimes you find yourself staring into an abyss and something, a quiet voice inside, whispers at you, encouraging you to jump in and see how far you can go. I was standing over my bed, frozen for a moment as I lost myself looking deep into a tiny green bag. I had just pulled it out of its mushy brown mailing envelope. The nylon seemed tough and light and crinkled slightly in my hands. I opened it up and held it there, peering into the darkness. It seemed vast. Slowly the thought formed. What if… What if instead of having this be a tiny crushable day bag that fits into my pack… what if it was my pack? What if, for my entire trip to Thailand, I risked carrying only what would fit inside a bag that was supposed to roll up inside of a “normal” bag?

I’ve already done quite a bit to squeeze my life into a little book bag. All I had to do was trim back a little bit more and still have enough to survive. Of course, if I was just going to Thailand plenty of people survive with a pair of shorts. But nothing is ever that easy. On the way back, I had a ten hour layover in Korea in the middle of winter. This bag was going to have to carry enough gear to travel all through Thailand and survive temperatures down to 14 degrees F.

First things first: the backpack I started with was an REI “Stuff” Travel Daypack. It’s a great little bag, but as I considered it holding everything I thought about not just the size, but also the weight. I grabbed the nearly identical REI Flash 22, which has a waist belt. I figured that it might save my aching shoulders if I found myself hiking for hours (I spend a lot of time lost) and had managed to somehow make this thing super heavy. You never know what kind of alluringly beautiful river stones you might find along the trail.

(Side note: sadly, it looks like they stopped selling this thing in this parrot green color. It was perfect for Thailand!)

What Changed To Make This Possible

The collection inside wasn’t that different from my older kit, but the changes were significant.

First is the discovery, since then, of this incredible change to my life: Wool: Edible Ultralight Clothes. (My blogged page of praise not unlike what you’ll find slathered all over the internets.) It’s pretty much all I wear now in “normal” life and served me perfectly over a wide range of temperatures there too. I even broke out the little beanie in the mountains and, in fact, I’m wearing it right now as I look out over chilly, rainy San Francisco. OK, I need to stop typing or I’ll write another entire giddy page about this stuff.

These have been with me quite a while, but really proved themselves again: Ultralight Sandals. I wore these things through much of Thailand when I wasn’t literally barefoot. They slipped thinly into a pocket of the Parrot Bag.

(Long time readers will also now realize why I kept writing gear posts over the last week – they were all in support of this one! I promise the next will be more personal.)

The Big One: No Laptop

This was the biggest change and, yeah, a tough call. As a scribbler I really like being able to write longer things. But I went with a moleskin and an iPhone instead and for 2.5 weeks, it worked out fine. The iPhone is basically a little pocket computer, capable of almost anything I needed. (I should note that it’s unlocked: I payed a premium up front but as a traveler I want to be able to grab a $10 sim card anywhere in the world and run with it.) If I go any longer in the future, I’ve considered picking up a folding bluetooth keyboard. Since I’m primarily just wanting a keyboard for writing, this may actually carry me pretty far in travel mode and it’s $30 instead of $2000 for a laptop. That’s a big difference if it gets destroyed. If I camp out on a beach somewhere to finish one of my book projects, though, I’ll definitely want my Mac Air. It would add weight, but would also just squeeze into the back of this bag. (The power supply weight would actually be the bigger issue.)

Compression

I brought along some of these really cool Eagle Creek compression sacks. These are basically giant ziplock bags with valves at one end. Lay clothes inside, zip, roll out the air with a little ppphhhhhhttt and they stay ultra compressed. I loved these things and they worked great but, in the end, I probably didn’t need the extra space they gave me. I really was amazed at how much room I had in this 22L bag.

How Freakin Heavy Was It?

It turns out the whole thing, stuffed with food, was a little over 12 lbs. That’s it. Most of the time I wore one strap over my shoulder, sometime two, and never once did I use the hip belt. I should point out that the hip belt is removable, so if I wanted to I could have ditched it at any time.

No shame gloating in the customs lines every time a guard asked, “is that it?”

It turns out that the Parrot Bag had so much room left, I was able to pack another crushable day pack in for recursion points: the Chico packable day pack
. (Here is a good overview of packable day packs by another ultralight guy.) It wasn’t necessary, but certainly nice to be able to throw my water bottle, jacket and Nook into the “day” bag as I headed out without having to empty the main bag. With a day bag I love being able to take layers on and off, knowing I’ll be comfortable no matter what comes, without worrying about where to put them. I’m also a bit hypoglycemic and vegan so I like to have food and water with me at all times. Nothing worse than wandering around realizing I’m hours from food I can eat and so cranky and bent up from low blood sugar that I can’t find a way back.

The Cold

Yep. No problem. From the picture of all the gear you can see that I have made the switch to carrying both the Montbell Jacket and vest and no warm long-sleeved shirt. I could pop through any combination and hang in any range of temperatures, and with the North Face jacket over the top I could evade rain and snow too! This combination was amazing, and I didn’t miss the long sleeved Patagonia at all. I am really happy with this set up. Always comfortable. Note: I also went snowboarding in this same outfit in -7F a while back.

The Pile

Backup battery! This flashlight/iphone battery backup was awesome and works as a flashlight as well! Great when I started using the iPhone as my camera and map.

I didn’t link to everything, like the harmonica I now carry or the moleskine, but here’s the rest of the pile with links. For questions about what’s worked out after 3 years of living ultralight, check out the post (yet to come) on 3 Years in the Same Pants. (Yeah, the pants, for one.)

ExOfficio Men’s Trip’R Shirt

The North Face Paramount Peak Pants

Billabong Rum Point Boardshorts

ExOfficio Men’s Give-N-Go Boxers

MontBell Ultralight Thermawrap Insulation Jacket

MontBell Ultralight Thermawrap Insulation Jacket

Icebreaker T Shirt

As a kid hiking through the rockies my dad went on and on about how, “wool keeps you warm — even when it’s wet!” But what I remember was trying to see how long I could stay in one of those sweaters as terrifying itches crawled all over my skin. Now thanks to years of fiber hacking someone else did for me, I can hardly get myself out of these things they are so comfortable. I’ve been living pretty much exclusively in Icebreaker wool shirts since winter 2012 and still wearing the first ones I bought.

A Helpful Death

I also love that now I wear clothes that can return to the earth with me. Here’s what happens when you bury an Icebreaker shirt for a few months. Of course, this also means that they are full of delicious proteins and I now have a competitor, a nemesis, who loves my shirts as much as me and has no respect for property rights: moths! Fortunately as long as I’ve kept my shirts clean and out of their way I’ve been fine the last few years.

Buttery Underwear

Thanks to used sales on ebay I’ve been able to afford to collect a few more things including a delightfully smurf blue hoodie that is my only warm long sleeved shirt, a crazy light, breathable and warm pocket beanie and two pairs of underwear that are like wearing butter (well, ok, but they’re just so soft!) The underwear is also, I should add, much lighter and easier to wash than ExOfficio boxers, although the ExOfficios are so much cheaper they’re still most of my gear. (And, I should add, very durable. Haven’t given up on a pair yet.)

My synthetic ultralight shirts have long ago become so stinky or pilled that I abandoned them. (With the exception of one North Face shirt that they stopped making years ago… why?!) For shirts I’m completely sold on the Icebreaker wool from here out.

Weight

One note on weight: the tech lite t-shirts aren’t much heavier than most of the synthetics and are completely worth it. The pocket beanie is tiny. The underwear are much lighter than anything else. The hoodies and long sleeved things… are noticeably heavy enough that I wouldn’t travel with them, at least not for extreme ultralight. For that I’m sticking to the insanely amazing Mont Bell UL Thermawrap, still one of my favorite pieces of clothing of all time. More on that in the Thailand Next Level Ultralight Challenge post, where I attempt to travel in temperatures from 95F to 14F in a backpack designed to be small enough to hide inside other backpacks.

Other People

One guy’s fond farewell to an icebreaker t-shirt after 1400 miles of hiking.

I mentioned them as part of my ultralight living collection but haven’t dedicated a serious blog ode to my Xero Shoes just yet. I loved them for their portability then, but since that time they’ve carried me so much further. Now that I’m through the break in / strength building period I’ve worn them hiking on rock, desert, forest and, just now, all over Thailand.

The rock, in particular, seemed insanely intimidating. The first time I tried hiking I brought my hiking shoes as a backup. After several hours I was not only doing fine, I was in love. I could feel the smooth rock under my feet. Walking over earth and small stones was like getting a continuous little massage. It actually seems to have loosened up some of my particularly tight foot muscles.

Why They Aren’t For You

These things are absolutely not for everyone. For one thing, there is definitely a warm up period. They provide no, none, zippo support of any kind so your feet and ankles need to learn to do what they were designed for all over again. This takes a little while, and so at first you can only wear them for so long. Of course, once you’ve gotten through this period you’ll notice that your calves and ankles are stronger. Odd things happen, like discovering suddenly how easy it is to be on your toes.

They also require a fair bit of fiddling to get them lined up. The newer versions have taken care of this with fancy ties, but there’s still a bit of tweaking and adjustment to get them just right.

Did I mention no support? Also, no padding. So you actually have to learn to walk differently in these things. This takes time too. You can’t go falling forward on your heel like you would in padded shoes. Again, it’s how humans used to walk for thousands of years, but we’ve spent our whole lives (except for my friends who run around barefoot) doing something else. I’m a freaky, goofy, enthusiastic human who loves trying new things. You might not be.

Why They Are For Me

So here they are, some photos from a few road trips. Walking around Arches National Park was absolutely incredible. There is this sense, if I may hippie out for a moment, of being more connected to everything. There was so little barrier between me and the earth, and my feet could breathe. I felt myself wanting to move slower and really notice the sand, the flowers, the stone, and the sky.

I love being barefoot, so for me this is one step better: all of the barefoot without any of the pointy things to bother me along the way.

Where They Are

I recommend the minimal DIY kit because I’m hardcore, of course. They are also the best for slipping into a minimalist packpack because they are so… minimal. I muttered and worried about the thickness: get the 6mm “Contact”. The 4mm is just too thin.

Here’s a link if you want to check them out (and it’s an affiliate link so I get a percentage if you do – thanks!)

Xero Shoes Huaraches.

Other Cool Barefoot Info

Harvard Study with cool graphics

For much of my life “dressing up” has meant reaching into a crate full of circus outfits, leather and sewing gear to mock up something meant ultimately to delight and/or horrify. As I step further into my role as coach I have begun taking tentative steps, like walking into a dark room full of sleeping wolves, into fashion. The first of these was to attempt to wear a pair of nice wool pants I inherited from the now legendary, “Dan’s Gay Uncle Collection”. (Dan brought us his uncle’s castaways, a pile of the nicest clothes I had ever seen. In all my years of garage sales and thrift shops I have never seen such wonders.) As it turns out the cuffed bottoms are now, apparently, completely out of style and moths have nipped a few holes in them. Regardless, I was feeling hella stylish when I joined the after work business folk on the Metro until I noticed the dark pool of water. It was made particularly visible against the light grey wool of my pants, there on my crotch.

A quick run through of the past thirty minutes brought no memory of peeing myself. I hadn’t even washed my hands in a sink, a classic way to spill over into this sort of thing. Regardless, there I was. Fortunately the train was packed and I was sitting against a window so I wasn’t all that visible right away. I also managed to take the wrong train to extend the time it took to meet up with my friend, which may have been the face-saving extra minutes I needed to dry out.

The question remained, though… what could have caused this? Well, as an astute reader you’ve likely made the connection to the Dilbus. In fact, with some quick thinking you’ll realize that, because I was trying to be a little fancy, I probably took a shower. Meaning my hair was wet. Meaning the Dilbus could now guide water from my wet hair like a rain spout chain directly to it’s ultimate terminus when I’m sitting down: my crotch.

These are the moments that bring delight to the eyes of product designers. Of course! It’s so easy to work backwards from the failure to think about the design, but nearly impossible to put together all of the possible stories and use cases that take you from the design to how it will fail. This is why good companies put money into user testing products well before the designs are complete. In hours of brainstorming I would never have guessed that this would be one of the challenges of having a braid, but within minutes of use the problem was happy to shame and delight me by revealing itself.

The lesson? I have been putting a lot of time into preparing to teach, having the sense that I need to be ready. What I’m realizing, yet again, is that when it comes to businesses, workshops, hardware etc. preparation is important up to 20% – and 80% of the creation of something, of the learning, comes from making the attempt. Instead of guessing where the ball will get knocked out of the track and spending hours sanding, I need to roll it and see exactly where that will happen. I just need to throw that sucker and let the real problems pop up so that I can start solving them. I find that it helps when I shout, “of course!” and laugh with delight, throwing my hands into the air, when each new failure pops clearly into view.

And so it begins. I am taking what I know best and putting together an offering. I’ll start out working the program with one person at a time and with each new attempt the process will improve. Yes, I’m being cryptic. At least I’ll leave myself the chance to change the title and topic after a test run!

Other People’s Versions

I’m by far not the first to point this out. Here is James Clear spreading Richard Branson’s wisdom.

Sadly for her musical career, this has meant that she is more often interviewed about her 1.5 million dollar kickstarter campaign (and controversy around her old practices now that she is, “rich”) than her music itself. She also had no idea how to release her next album. In her communal, take it to the people style, she brought together a room full of fans to have a town hall discussion about what’s next. (She also included songstress Zoe Boekbinder) I hammered out a quick essay and, with luck, was invited to attend.

Tech Tech Tech Tech Blech

The most dominant discussion was around a whole range of technologies from Spotify to BandCamp to Kickstarter to Facebook and the fundamental dismay that artists feel when they just want to create something, get it out there for people to hear, and have enough to buy a sandwich while making the next thing. There was a lot of discussion about the challenges of trying to make music while having to be a technical expert, financial wizard, social networking guru and personality. It’s not enough to know how to promote music or set up a website today, because by the time you have another album of material everything will have changed. Nothing that worked before seems to work again a year later.

Music as dialog

Given this type of dialog it was impossible for Zoe Boekbinder to not play the song about technology she had written that morning. At the end of the discussion she brought a guitar to the mic and used it to perform, “I don’t need a machine.” Irony, never being lost on me, lead me to return home and immediately throw together a musical response to the song and the general tone of the event.

Maybe Darwin makes it all go away

I think one of the most fundamentally intriguing things Amanda brought up during the course of the day was the idea that supporting musicians through buying a physical object like a tape or CD was a phenomenon that was a tiny blip in the history of music. Before this you had to work for the church or other wealthy patron, hold out a tip jar, or charge people to see a show. The wealthy patron format has gone out of style and if paying for recorded music really does die that means that anyone who can’t perform will cease to be supported. That means that for a brief moment in history there was a golden era where introverted artists could make beautiful music and slide it out under the door. If we continue the way we are going, art from that whole spectrum could go away, a huge number of voices silenced. Darwinian and, perhaps, true.

Of course if it’s true that a viable career for introverted artists is going to slip into the history books perhaps that’s an inevitable part of human society’s evolution. Maybe, too, music returns from the realm of “professionals” and back into a place where everyone makes imperfect but delightful music with their families and friends in the evenings. A quick skim of YouTube makes it clear that plenty of people are already doing this by the digital fireside.

I think ultimately the drive to make art is too strong for many to not continue to make it, but there is definitely a sense that without support to provide time and space to practice and create there is only so far they can go.

Suck it up, you’re a plumber now

A reasonable case was also made that musicians may just have to suck it up like every other independent businessperson, from a bicycle mechanic to a cupcake baker. They just want to play with bikes or bake but most of their time is spent figuring out how to promote themselves and handle money. Amanda’s response was that people get into music because they don’t want to, or can’t, handle business, but I really don’t think that’s any different for anyone I know wanting to make chocolate or cupcakes. They are also just as trapped without income if they can’t show up to a job site or come in to cook cupcakes one day. Perhaps music (and, for that matter, writing) have just ceased to be product-based careers. (I’m skipping for the moment that writing, unlike music, has no performance aspect that could generate income. Also noting that I still don’t have a tip jar on this blog.)

Speaking between universes

One of the dynamics in the room that I found most fascinating was watching a techie talk about how she didn’t understand why musicians didn’t just create a co-op based technical solution. Amanda gave a human response, about the challenges of having artists work together and give up control of their images and material. The techie responded again with, “anything is possible”. Being of both worlds myself I could see the disconnect as they each spoke their different languages at each other. Amanda, without an understanding of the process of building software, focused on the human side. The techie saw infinite possibility in knowing she could build absolutely anything technical but that world of infinite possibility didn’t necessarily include the complexity of human behaviors, needs and desires. The solution, if there is one, lies somewhere in between.

Incidents and Calls to Action

At one point a fan in the back row told his story of how he had payed for a crazy expensive flight to Europe to see one of his favorite musicians perform – but hadn’t bought her latest album. On the other hand, he talked about how he was perfectly happy to contribute to helping buy her a piano so that she could make more of the music that he loved. There are clearly dedicated fans who are perfectly happy to throw money, tokens of love, into a bucket for someone they care about. All they need are incidents or calls to action. Amanda’s Kickster was just such an incident. When I heard that there was an opportunity to support her, I jumped at it and threw some money behind the project. I had given her money in the past and I could have given her money any time in the weeks or months before the Kickstarter but I didn’t. Helping pay for her meals would have allowed her to focus on her art and contribute in just the same way. But I needed a reminder and an opportunity, and this opportunity was particularly well flavored in that it gave me the sense that my contribution was directly contributing to getting the art I loved made.

But

All in all there were some interesting points but, of course, no real conclusions and it left a melancholy about an already sad reality. It helped a little to get an awkward fan photo with one of my heroes but then I made a bumbling ass of myself in our discussion and had to walk away evaluating each moment like I was 13 and just bumped into my crush in the hallway at school. It was just another demonstration of the power of human contact and perhaps brings us right back around to the fact that our artists may just have to learn to shake hands with, hug, and sing for their bumbling fans until we find another way.

After my snowboarding wreck I wasn’t able to play guitar for many months and the craving for musical expression was so intense I needed some kind of outlet. Something that didn’t require hands. Something portable. Something that bent with the flow of the soul. I poured through hundreds of websites and videos and finally pushed the button that sent a harmonica to my door.

Here in San Francisco, there isn’t much private space and there is a hell of a lot of waiting. Specifically, waiting for the archaic bus system that crawls through the streets at its own time and whim, that becomes tired and uncooperative at night and that leaves silence for hours — silence waiting for The Bus Stop Warbler.

At first I worried about how my practice sessions would be received. It’s not music yet, mostly a series of honking and squealing sounds. I think it was the second time I was brave enough to bust out at a bus stop. There I was, honking and squealing away. I was a little bit self conscious but tried to focus on squeezing out a real note. Behind me, a woman stood alone screaming obscenities into the air. It wasn’t very coherent, just an endless streaming rant about fecal matter, socially inappropriate sex and the like. The honking, the screaming… sounds of the city. No one so much as glanced our way. The people have spoken and my choice of venue has been accepted.

The Magic Harp Switch

Years ago in a move of legendary historical hackery, someone figured out that by drawing air through the harmonica in the right way it made the “wrong” note. The pitch went flat, even as far as several notes down. While originally seen as a flaw in the design, blues players realized that by basing the musical scale on the second hole the notes that “bent” out of tune allowed them to play a blues scale. Better yet, bending made it possible to be really expressive as you slowly twisted the notes from one to the next, and generally sounded significantly more awesome.

Now the bend, as it turns out, has another special power. It works much like a surf board. When you catch your first big wave, there is a rush of hormones and some irrepressible shout or squeal is released as a switch snaps in your head and suddenly you become… a surfer. Waves never look the same again. There is a deep longing to be back in motion. You dream about the drop.

When, after huffing and puffing away on the harp you suddenly feel that crazy resonating deep in your belly as the pitch suddenly dives… it’s on. The moment you catch your first bend a little toy suddenly becomes a soul extender. I may still be honking and squealing, but the harp switch is on. I don’t go a day without messing with it, and I carry a harmonica everywhere I go.

Gotta Be Different

Now, being that there is an internet, I couldn’t help but wonder what had come of harmonica innovation. It turns out that someone (Brandon Power) realized that the way the harmonica was being played was still a hack to a device of 200 years ago. What if you designed a harmonica knowing from the start that you were going to use it for bending? He figured out what makes notes bend (it has to do with both the draw and blow reeds for the same hole resonating together based on their pitch difference) and created a new tuning that allows all of the draw notes to be bent.

One of the most frustrating things about the harmonica to me, as someone who’s played music most of my life, is that the Richter scale, the standard on harmonicas, is designed for playing chords. Because of this there are a lot of missing notes in between. Brandon’s, “Powerbender” tuning allows you to play almost every note just by using the already awesome bending hack. I had to have one of these harps. Being that there is a China, he was able to get harmonicas with his tuning produced cheaply enough that I could afford to have one shipped from London. Now I’m playing the Godfather theme, Summertime, and random other things that require key changes and weird accidentals.

I cannot be stopped.

Earn It

My next step is to get good enough that I can Warble somewhere that people will throw me change. I figure it starts at the 16th and Mission stop, where there is enough chaos and madness that anything sounds good. I really want a better harmonica in the new tuning, but I refuse to buy it unless I can use money I’ve earned on the street. Only then will I have proved myself worthy. Until then look for daily sightings of the Warbler. Throw me a quarter or ignore me – I’m inspired either way.

The ritual was delightfully familiar. We wandered into a place and navigated from polite conversation to seated positions around an artful tea table. The Chinese woman who ran the place began suggesting things and we arrived at something to try, which she then served Gong-fu style. This is the way that I learned to experience and love tea in China. Hyun Ji would proceed with a ritual rinsing of the tea and the cups atop a fancy tea table. The little tables were designed such that intentionally sloshed tea would wash through slots or wind through little river grooves and away. The first steeping would then be poured from the steeping cup into the serving pot and gently poured into tiny tea cups for the tasting. I was so happy just to be around this little ritual again, even having the opportunity to throw around some of my Chinese.

The first place we went was fun, and some of the tea was interesting, but nothing really grabbed me enough to buy without further exploring. Eventually we strolled into a shop that, given the extreme cleanliness and lack of Chinese employees, didn’t give me high hopes. They weren’t especially forthcoming about serving us samples either. When I asked the woman behind the counter she said, “well, do you mean showing you how to properly steep tea?” Eventually we got the point across and sat down at one of the serving tables. While fairly knowledgeable, our server was not particularly well practiced. Her earlier resistance was quickly explained as she managed to both spill tea leaves all over the table and drop several of the cups. Despite this, no amount of her fumbling could prevent or interfere with what happened next; the exploding “YES” that the Báiháo yín zhÄ“n (ç½æ¯«é“¶é’ˆ | Silver Needle) sent rocketing up my spine. A grin exploded from my far too expressive face. This. This. This… was tea. Oh my old friend, I cannot say enough about how happy I am to see you again.

By the second tea, a 大红袍 (dàhóng páo | “Grand Red Robe”) even Alfred could not contain himself. Alfred is Korean American and so it’s not that his face moved, or that there was any sign of emotion whatsoever, but he stated in a complete deadpan, “this… is the best place I have ever been. I will tell everyone about this place.”

We were exploding with joy, each in our own way. I, for my part, kept cackling loudly and rubbing my hands together. And giggling. We tried a Gold Thread Reserve (極品金芽滇紅 | Jípǐn jīn yá diān hóng). We had to stop. Our wallets were screaming. No more.

I am overwhelmed with the joy of knowing that not only have I found a place to fulfill my deepest tea needs; it is also filled with yet unexplored wonders. Where is this place, you ask? (If you haven’t already followed the above links.) Dare I share it with the world? I know they have a limited supply of this year’s crop and already I can feel the fear rising within me that the Gold Thread Reserve will be gone before I can return. Please leave some for me, dear readers, and if you care for your pocketbooks or the education of your children, do not follow this tea link.

as always, photos link to photographer’s website

On the other hand, despite my days here being few, already I’m beginning to see glimpses of the resident beauty. The many micro climates dabbed about the city create little beds of fog-sprinkled flora. Succulents like the Jade plants I loved as a kid are everywhere around me, even using their plump rubbery leaves to form flowers. Outside my window is a lush green forest of exotic trees and palms that stretch through a hundred secret back yards towards the ocean.

As with any place, as with with any human experience, it’s just a matter of slowing down for a moment to spot it. When I’m racing for a bus the plums over my head might as well be oil stains on the pavement. When I make plenty of time to get from one place to another, and when I leave my phone in my pocket, and when I say to myself, “hey, there’s time”, I find myself walking and breathing more slowly. Suddenly the things around me, once frightened of my running, emerge tentatively to let themselves be seen. I can’t help but pause to say hello, reaching up to lift a plum or leaf to my face and let it enter and fill my world.

Life goes on beyond the waves that crash and recede over a place. I discovered a pocket of my old college friends. They’ve powered through their sleepless nights and, having found their gold, are still choosing to live here. They talk of theater and artwork, giving me hope that these things can still be supported in a place like this.

At some point this bubble too will pop and the wave will draw back leaving cultural seaweed and human driftwood just as every wave that came before. With its absence there will be space for new life to grow and the cycle will continue. Somewhere in that cycle I, like a tiny crustacean or a grain of sand, am playing my small part. If I pause just long enough, I can see that too.

We walked sideways across an impossibly steep hill and strolled through the courtyard past the fountains into a house that, in another era, wouldn’t have dreamed of allowing us in without an announcement from the butler. Dinner prep was already underway and quick introductions got us into the dining room. I watched as other guests arrived. One in particular, who no one seemed to recognize, went through a series of introductions where he would announce his first name and the recipient would suddenly explode with excitement and hug him. He was like some kind of virtual being who had finally manifest in the world. I imagined him building countless friends and enemies through his online writing over months and years, never to leave his tiny house or trailer on the beach until this moment.

not the house

I got a chance to talk to the living avatar later and asked him what he was into. He went into a string of jargon around facilitating electronic manifestations of human and music engagement etc. I was curious about what that really meant to him so I pressed on. “So you’re a musician? You make electronic music? You want to help musicians?” After a series of no, without a whole lot of explanation, he suddenly quit. It was like he had reached behind his ear, peeled off a giant rubber mask, and just tossed it to the floor with a sigh. In a tired voice he said, “listen, I’m recovering from a medical condition right now and I… don’t really have the energy to do the thing right now.” Suddenly I realized what was happening. We were doing a “thing”. Everyone here was. In theory, I knew that, but I’m from Austin, Texas. I was genuinely interested in this person as a human being. But here in San Francisco, every event was about uncovering who among the crowd had access to the edge they needed to take their scheme to the next level. He recognized that I was not a source and needed to save his precious energy. I politely bowed out and hoped to meet him as a human another day. Perhaps this is what online communication is for.

There was much chatter on the balcony overlooking the pool centered around various market segments, large companies, and strategies for working with said companies and segments, avoiding them, or extracting money from them. I actually enjoyed the strategic elements of the conversations. I’ll have to find some level of comfort with the interpersonal power moves of this game, but I’m all down with the actual exchange of knowledge and brainstorming solutions. Thinking, I like.

Around the dinner table the conversation finally dipped into more mundane topics. Amidst a long cycle of comparison of television shows the man who had been cooking earlier got my attention from across the table. “Got ten bucks?” I looked at him confused. “For ingredients.” At first I thought he was joking with me, but he didn’t laugh or look away. “Oh, sure, of course,” I said, digging through my pockets. Of course I have no problem chipping in for a dinner. My stunned response at the absurdity of the request was due to the seemingly opulent surroundings. It was then that I realized that one of several things were going on. One: the residents didn’t necessarily have millions yet. They were all at the point where they lived with little more than beds and computers and the beds were no more than workspaces and computer stands. (I had seen some of the rooms.) They were still gold miners chasing the dream, swinging fingers to keyboard like axes into rock, working late into the night in hopes of finding a big score. Two: the surroundings were, admittedly, also used to meet with potential investors. Perhaps the facade felt necessary to convince people of money that they were worthy of money. Three: old habits die hard.

If I’m completely honest I have to admit that despite my discomfort with tactic-based relationships I did feel, amidst the swarm, the old infectious energy of the startup world. I loved the buzz of it back in the day and I can feel it all around me here again. I left it to pursue more life-affirming passions, hoping to inspire and lift myself and others beyond the sale of computers and plastic toys, but the energy itself has a lively character that I cannot entirely dismiss. As I continue to learn and grow with my craft my longer term goal, should I continue to live on, is to take these skills and scale them to more people. I recognize that this will involve technology and, likely, connections. Perhaps the circle is beginning to close after all. Perhaps I can make use of the scramble for cash to trick the system into bettering itself or its neighbors. At some point I will have to grab the horns of the beast and see if I can tame it to pull a plow.