The piece you’re about to read or listen to is an example of showtime. In other words, I decided to sit and write for 3 hours, and this is the result.
The day after I wrote this, I also wrote a 24 bar poem in the same vein. I’m not sure why, but it’s a blend of silly and deep and…yeah. Enjoy the fun, forced rhyme.
Distractions all away.
I think...
—
Each time I sit to write a note to you, I feel this way. Muddled in thought, pondering why I’m here, usually overcaffeinated. Always aiming to share something transcendent with you, yet often carrying only a sliver of a formed idea in my mind.
I use note deliberately, as well. When I’m on, these newsletters are really just notes. You’re my friends. Framing this work as writing my friends a note adds a level of clarity in my mind. My audience is in front of me. It’s you. Hell yeah. What can I share that will make a difference in your life?
—
The pain in delivering a transcendent, helpful note is dealing with distraction. Again. It’s everywhere I look.
Spotify calls me to select an album (I still haven’t…this thought was too strong not to write). Roam sings at me to look back at my thoughts from the past two years, just waiting to be called upon for insight. “Don’t stare at money too long, it’s Medusa.” My browsers overload with more tabs than — well, if I’m honest — can ever make me feel sane. I’m accustomed to overload, but that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere close to my best right now.
So, I wall off. Open a solo window on a blank screen. Nothing else. Brian Eno plays in my ears now 1, but I’m not fully in it, yet.
—
That time does come, though. Sometime while An Ending (Ascent) plays. Eno, always the évocateur.
…And now I can sit with you. Hopefully you sense that when you read or listen to this. It will be a few days, or perhaps a few years, from the time I wrote it, but there’s a note here that may just strike you as transcendent. Things take time, take time.
It’s May 2022. And things have changed 2.
My life — at present — is mad. Mad is mostly good, as it plays to my long-term future. Mad is mostly tough, as it plays to my short-term clarity. There’s a lot going on.
Mad as mostly good
On the positives, my research is in the wild.
For the uninitiated, imagine a souped-up Wikipedia focused on software tools and how people connect the dots to form new knowledge. It’s an infogeek’s paradise, and we continue to add threads of interest. Later this year, we’ll publish in a proper academic journal, but today this acts as a guide through the idea maze for tools for thought.
I’ve given both Rob and Joel their flowers, but it bears repeating. Find collaborators you trust, that push you to be your best, that you want to work with for the rest of your life. If that’s the only thing you take from this note, great.
With this project at a proper wrapped stage, I’m back on the market. I suppose you represent this as the midst of the madness.
Spending a year in deep research has been a joy, but you likely know where I’m going. I miss design. I miss building product. I miss pouring my life into a single project I come to understand and create a world of joy with.
Fortunately, the research has opened opportunities. This is the mission, of course!
I — and the greats I work with — want to create a wildly better world for anyone who ever needs to learn with a computer. It seems like that should reach every human on Earth.
That also means looking very silly, very often, particularly when you’re trying to explain what it is you want to do. “Show, don’t tell”, they say. But what can you show when you’re imagining a world so different?
I suppose this is why I love science fiction — great sci-fi authors are forced to show their grandiose, invented dreams and paint a scene you can almost touch. They may be calling from futurist predictions, imagination+ a robust liberal arts background, or repeated LSD trips, but the best create a world where readers can inhabit the future chaos to come. Like them, I want to create new realities from my science fiction.
Today’s approach to learning with a computer makes sense only because that’s all we currently see. We’re stuck in the current paradigm, and this — what I am personally exposed to — is all that is possible, so we think. Students have to learn these subjects to get it. You have to design software with a mouse and a screen, not your hands and thin air. “This is how we do it.”
Learning with a computer is amazingly broad, even for Brenspeak. We can consider the obvious areas — games, apps, Wikipedia — where learning is embedded, but also areas that may not come to mind — Dynamicland rooms, programming environments, even computing protocols can enable learning.
Beyond the research-specific gigs, I’m looking into three areas — educational software, workspace technologies, and creator tools. There’s a common thread here. Can you guess it?
Each of these three areas offers the greatest leverage to tangibly impact our lives. 3 Right now I don’t have the precise idea, but I do know building tools for the wider world will unearth new ways of thinking, and, at some point, superpowers. Scale and potential.
In education, this is simple to see. I have a dozen years building in the field and seeing my partner’s obvious struggles in helping students at (literally) one of the best public schools in America. So…this is in my wheelhouse and impacts every single child and young adult on the planet. In China, the largest percentage of learners are in the 25-34 year-old category (Chan, Chen 2019). More is coming here.
Most prolific value in the world is created in workspaces — in the form of documents, software tools, or even scrapped ideas. Imagining the amount of low hanging fruit here is simple. Every idea you’ve written in a notebook, every spec for a new feature rotting in a Jira backlog, every proposal left sitting in Google Docs. Now multiply that by the number of people working on important things in the world. We have clear gaps to improve upon. Making better tools for workers is immensely important.
Creators — whether they be of the creative technologist or influencer sorts — represent the broadest audience of people making meaning in the world. I often dream of enabling those innovators. They’re the ones creating new environments for the rest of the world to experience. What if I can make something that breeds a new world of creators? You know, ones not focused on pure entertainment.
Should any excitement sirens go off in your head right now, you have a direct line to me. You know my ambitions here. If the siren is calling sweetly enough, it’s probably a hit.
Mad as mostly tough
Then, there’s madness in the tough stuff. Where do we begin?
My oft-mentioned partner in life is in a touch of struggle.
After a dozen years teaching high-level science to high-level students, she’s done. An unhealthy mix of COVID maturity hits, administrative choices, and ongoing societal (dis)respect has her thinking — there has to be a better way.
And there surely is.
So, she’s off. Trekking into my realm. If you’re seeking a top notch ex-teacher to create learning experiences or design tools for educators, give this one a shout.
Exciting, but uncertainty carries a weight. 4
Then there’s Chicago. Sigh.
I’ve loved this place I’ve called my home for the past decade. It’s been love, it’s been friendship, it’s been identity forming.
And now, it kind of feels like the end.
Over the past many months, Donna and I have been scouting towns. Namely western ones grabbing 300+ days of sunshine. We can’t take the grey anymore.
A mountain would be nice, as well. As we age, the appreciation for a long hike grows. Who would have thought?
So, our next exploration is Fort Collins, CO. If you happen to have deep knowledge of this seemingly lovely city — or better yet, reside there! — give me a shout. I’d love to hear how you spend your time.
The rest of summer has trips, too, but we’re open to other lovely spots if you have a rec.
This is the madness in my life, and I’m sure you have a full plate of it yourself. Likely much more than I’ve even shared. Keep on.
Today, the goal was to share my mind, in hope that maybe it opens a window to understand your own. Even if just a smidge. My mind is cloudy, unfortunately, but change is in the air. Summer is emerging. My partner is ready to leap. I’m on the verge of finding a new aim.
What a joy it is, even in these swells. I suppose that’s what articulating it for you does for me.
Love to each of you,
Bren
p.s. Here’s that poem. If you need to name it, call it:
Distracted by madness
Life’s a bit mad. That’s good and bad.
My work is live! Now welcome to the hive.
New friends on high, new paths, oh my!
Attractive but few, still unsure if it’s you.
Asking louder, “Is this our place?” Or just a step in our race?
Chicago —home for ten years, in a time of friends and cold beers.
Now I’d like more sun, and a mountain, for fun.
Donna, as well, but she’s out in the swell.
Great with tools, but at odds with modern schools.
Might as well call it new path times two.
So we look, and look, and cook, and look.
How do you let it all not fall on you?
If it were only that easy, you’re forgetting Tbilisi.
And everyone on Earth, fighting much more for their worth.
Your problems are nil compared to those seeking their fill.
A world intertwined, yet with a scattered hive mind.
15 years of iPhone. You think you’re on your own?
You’ve a fragmented mind, eternally reacting to the grind.
100 pickups each day…and you pretend you want a better way?
Each app you make, a dozen new behaviors at stake.
Madness by distraction. All that comes is inaction.
You did it to yourself. You always do it to yourself.
Immense to realize, but knowledge don’t make you wise.
The madness will go, as soon as you say no.
Obviously, music-wise it’s been a Kendrick month. By listen 4 or 5, the importance hit me. We’re back in masterpiece land, and a generation of folks can learn from it.
I’m reading loads of fiction these days. Richard Powers’ latest was heartbreaking and amazing. Someone could make a case that he’s the best fiction writer alive. Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves is robust and star-reaching. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is so vivid, I want to make it a video game.
Footnotes Exist!
Thankfully, I landed on a blend of inspiring and atmospheric. Apollo, for those curious.
One of my best pals often says, in an excitedly changing tone, “Well, well, well, things have changed!” That alone makes things change for the better. I need that back in my normal rotation.
I’m deliberately omitting standard media outlets and politics, as in reality, they are cesspools I’m not willing to swim in.
As we pass the one-year mark of leaving Capsim, I know that uncertainty surely does carry weight. Inspiring, life-affirming weight.
And still, it is weight.
Distraction's Many Forms — No.9