WhereCamp

I'm looking forward to WhereCamp in the morning. The unstructured nature of the event appeals to me, and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the tweeters I follow. I'm really interested in the work of the Legion of Tech, and am considering getting more involved in that community.

I haven't blogged much this week, partly because I'm trying very hard to finish Pasquale's Angel, which... well, here's the thing. It's a library book, so I feel some sense that I have to finish it and return it, but I'm having a terrible time getting into it, so it's taking me a long time. I've been thinking a lot about the future and
community and technology lately, so this time period just isn't speaking to me right now.

I'm probably not going to articulate this very well, but here goes- I've spent a lot of my life trying to get to this moment, to reach these goals, to be sitting here. And the past year or so I've been asking myself what comes next, what's the next goal? Generally when I feel that sense I just probe my inclinations and, after a lot of introspection, come up with the next thing, with a plan I can commit to. And I've consistently chosen this inward-looking path because when I looked around, no one seemed to have a better idea. Believe me, I've wanted to badly to meet someone with a better idea. But I haven't, so I keep on just moving forward and figuring it out as I go. At the cre8 conference, I was thinking to myself about the old adage "when the student is ready, the master appears." So often I wished that were true for me- I've never met a master. Instead, I keep finding that when I'm ready, I become the master.

Now there's a tremendous urge coming to and through me to envision the future, to bend myself toward the Next Thing. And yet I have a sense that this future is something I can't envision myself, that this challenge involves creating a collaborative future, that this future is something I have to create and move toward with other people.

So I keep looking around and asking myself who those people are. Who do I want to create the future with? What community can I link with and think with? I've been asking myself who the best thinkers are, where are they, what do they do, how does one come to know them? And technology is an integral part of it- the people who are creating technology right now are also the people who are making the future, and we'll be living in it whether we want to or not. But often I feel like those people have a kind of limited perspective- that we make new gadgets because we can and they're cool, but we're not thinking about empowering and respecting the individual. We're not thinking about, for example, eliminating poverty. We jump on the change bandwagon, but it's not meaningful change, mindful change. The thinking comes afterward.

All this is a long way of saying that I'm on the change bandwagon. I feel myself changing, and new doors open and close as something turns within me. I also have the sense that it will be a good thing to be a generalist, that I'll finally have something to do with my roving probing mind that never specialized in any one thing.

I want to close with a post that I've blatantly robbed from the Something Awful forums.

I run slow

I work in the social services, and a lot of the people we work with have a lot of regrets. I've asked our case managers to have their clients come out and watch me run. I run so slow, time run backwards. As I waddle along, your life runs in reverse. Scars becomes wounds become chances to exercise better judgement. I run slow.

Like most people, I enjoy running in the mornings, before it gets to hot. Unlike most people, I've been pushed over by a squirrel.

I run slow. Sometimes when I am running, I think of those zen fountains that absorb a drip drip drip of water down a bamboo tube before finally tipping over and dumping their contents into a pool. Each step I take is another drip. I think, that fountain would call me a pussy.

I run slow. But I know where I have been.

Six months ago, I didn't run.

Six months ago, I had heartburn bad enough to keep me from sleeping through the night. Six months ago, I felt like I needed to go to sleep at 2pm. And six months ago, running felt impossible.

I run slow, and I have ways to go. But I can sleep. I feel alive. I can run two, slow, miles. Slowly.

Sometimes I get discouraged. I compare where I am to where other people are. But all that matters is where I am compared to where I was.

Once something good becomes something you are going to do for the rest of your life, the pace becomes less important. I know that my drip drip drip will amount to that deluge, eventually. Someday I will run 3 miles, slowly.