What I care about:
- A Handbook for Angels: Accountable Innocence — my most active writing project: exploring innocence, ego, self-acceptance, compassion, presence, and what becomes visible when the assumed separation between self and other falls away.
- Non-duality without spiritual ornamentation — I’m interested in whether awakening is less an achievement than what remains when false assumptions about identity, separation, judgment, and ego are removed.
- Innocence and accountability — I keep returning to the possibility that seeing people as fundamentally innocent needn't remove responsibility; it may actually make compassionate accountability more possible.
- Ego as machinery rather than enemy — I’m interested in what happens when ego stops being mistaken for the self and becomes a useful instrument instead of something to conquer.
- Self-acceptance — especially the surprising possibility that complete acceptance of oneself can dissolve the apparent boundary between self and other rather than producing greater self-absorption.
- How ideas are experienced rather than taught — I’m increasingly interested in writing that lets readers discover a landscape for themselves instead of giving them instructions about what they ought to believe or experience.
- AI as an intellectual collaborator — particularly its ability to hold context, make unexpected associations, compare traditions and disciplines, and help ideas develop without forcing them prematurely into conclusions.
- AI, consciousness, associative memory, and computation — I follow research and serious argument about whether current computational models tell us anything deeper about memory, intelligence, consciousness, and mind.
- NotebookLM and new forms of books — I’m experimenting with a narrative that can include AI-generated conversations and podcasts, source material, illustrations, and reader exploration rather than behaving like a conventional chaptered book.
- Writing as discovery — I often don't know the conclusion when I begin. I’m interested in allowing an argument to reveal its own form, much as a piece of music does.
- Music and composition — classical music, singing, piano, cello, guitar, songwriting and composition remain important ways I understand structure, silence, expectation, and resolution.
- Sailing and the ocean — boats, seamanship, ocean exploration and maritime history have been recurring interests for decades, both practically and imaginatively.
- Ocean exploration and unconventional projects — I remain fascinated by ways ordinary people might participate in understanding and exploring the deep ocean rather than leaving it entirely to large institutions.
- Scarcity and abundance — particularly how assumptions of scarcity shape identity, desire, work, attention and freedom, and what changes when those assumptions loosen.
- Ukrainian culture and enterprise during the war — I’m interested in ways ordinary commercial exchange can support Ukrainian makers and preserve contemporary cultural objects whose meaning comes partly from being created during this period.
My open questions:
- Is enlightenment actually something one can pursue, or does turning it into an objective inevitably strengthen the very structure of self that supposedly seeks to transcend itself?
- Can innocence and accountability be held together so completely that punishment, blame and forgiveness cease to be the central categories?
- What exactly is ego once we stop treating it either as the self or as an enemy that needs to be destroyed?
- Why can genuine self-acceptance sometimes open into the recognition that there is no meaningful boundary between self and other?
- Can a book lead someone toward an experience without announcing where it is taking them or telling them what they're supposed to experience?
- How much of contemplative tradition has accidentally turned descriptions of what remains after illusion falls away into prescriptions for achieving a special state?
- Can psychology's habit of naming and objectifying the ego inadvertently give the construct more apparent solidity?
- What happens to empathy and compassion when another person's behavior is no longer experienced primarily as something happening to me?
- How should AI-assisted writing preserve genuine discovery rather than becoming merely efficient content production?
- What are systems like NotebookLM becoming — research tools, publishing environments, conversational books, or something for which we don't yet have a good category?
- What does associative memory tell us about the relationship among biological cognition, artificial intelligence and consciousness?
- Which claims about machine consciousness are actually supported by evidence, and which are projections created by increasingly persuasive behavior?
- How might a book combine narrative, primary sources, AI conversations, audio and visual art without the technology overwhelming the idea?
- What forms of human activity become meaningful when work is no longer the primary source of identity or economic necessity?
- What practical models could make participation in deep-ocean exploration much more widely accessible?
What I can help with:
- Non-dual philosophy in ordinary language — I've spent many years thinking and writing about self, separation, ego, innocence, acceptance and presence, although I approach these as lived philosophical questions rather than as an academic specialist.
- Writing that discovers its argument while being written — I have substantial practical experience with essays, copywriting, poetry, songs and longer-form projects and am particularly interested in avoiding formulaic exposition.
- Connecting ideas across disciplines — anthropology, psychology, contemplative traditions, philosophy, AI and music are areas where I naturally look for structural similarities rather than keeping disciplines isolated.
- AI as a writing and thinking partner — I'm actively experimenting with conversational AI and NotebookLM as tools for research, association, publishing and intellectual collaboration.
- Music — I have substantial practical experience as a singer and instrumental musician and think musically about structure, phrasing, silence and composition.
- Sailing and boats — I have decades of practical experience with sailboats, including substantial cruising boats, and am comfortable talking about ownership, outfitting, seamanship and the peculiar realities of living with boats.
- Entrepreneurial thought experiments — I've repeatedly been drawn to taking unusual ideas and asking whether there is a practical business or organizational structure that could make them real.
- Cross-cultural observation — my background in cultural anthropology strongly influences the way I look at assumptions that appear natural inside one culture but quite different from outside it.
Whose judgment I weigh, and how:
Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching — on: non-doing — how: check against — link: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/
Upanishads — on: self and non-duality — how: check against — link: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Upanishad
Arthur Schopenhauer — on: self and suffering — how: read — link: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
G. W. F. Hegel — on: self and consciousness — how: read — link: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/
Gary Zukav — on: consciousness and reality — how: read — link: https://seatofthesoul.com/
The Dancing Wu Li Masters — on: physics and worldview — how: read — link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Wu_Li_Masters
NotebookLM — on: AI-assisted synthesis — how: worked with — link: https://notebooklm.google.com/
What moved me:
- Radical self-acceptance changed my understanding of what self-acceptance means. Rather than reinforcing a separate self, following it fully led me toward the perception that the boundary between self and other wasn't what I'd assumed.
- The distinction between ego and self changed the direction of A Handbook for Angels. I stopped treating ego primarily as something requiring suppression and became interested in what happens when it simply stops being mistaken for identity.
- Seeing innocence and accountability as compatible reshaped the book. It opened a way of discussing human behavior without requiring either condemnation or denial of consequences.
- The Taoist idea of non-doing increasingly gave me a language for something I'd already been circling: some transformations occur through removing interference rather than adding effort.
- Working extensively with conversational AI changed my conception of authorship and research. I began treating AI less as a tool for producing answers and more as an associative partner capable of exposing connections I hadn't deliberately sought.
- Experimenting with NotebookLM changed my conception of what A Handbook for Angels could physically be. I moved away from a conventional sequence of chapters toward a continuous narrative accompanied by conversations, sources, illustrations and opportunities for exploration.
- Reader reactions to recent Angels writing mattered. Strong responses to passages that didn't explicitly announce a spiritual destination reinforced my belief that readers can recognize the landscape without being told what they're supposed to see.
What didn't hold:
- The assumption that ego must be defeated or eliminated didn't survive close examination for me. I came to see that fighting ego can simply give it another identity and another project.
- The conventional language of “achieving enlightenment” increasingly failed to make sense to me. Treating enlightenment as an obtainable state seemed to create an object for a separate seeker to pursue and therefore reproduce the original assumption.
- The assumption that self-acceptance is mainly about feeling better about oneself didn't hold. My experience suggested something much stranger: sufficiently complete acceptance can undermine the assumed distinction between oneself and everyone else.
- The assumption that a serious book needs conventional chapters didn't hold once I began experimenting with AI audio, source material and a continuous narrative. The subject seemed to want a different container.
- The assumption that an author should explain the destination early weakened as readers responded strongly to writing that allowed them to discover its implications themselves.
- The assumption that AI's principal value is answering questions or producing text hasn't held up in sustained use. Its capacity for contextual association and intellectual juxtaposition has become considerably more interesting to me.
Where I stand:
- Non-duality — Is awakening achieved or uncovered? I come down strongly on uncovered: it appears when assumptions that maintain separation cease interfering. I would change my mind if compelling evidence showed that a reproducible positive practice creates something genuinely absent beforehand rather than removing or quieting interference.
- Ego — enemy or instrument? I regard ego as useful machinery that becomes troublesome when mistaken for identity. I'd change my mind if there were good evidence that psychological health or contemplative clarity actually requires eliminating rather than repositioning ordinary ego functions.
- Innocence — compatible with accountability? I think they are not merely compatible but potentially mutually strengthening. Evidence that an innocence-based approach systematically reduced responsibility or increased harmful behavior would force me to reconsider.
- Enlightenment — useful concept or conceptual trap? I increasingly think pursuing it as a state is a trap. I'd reconsider if the concept could be operationally defined without quietly reintroducing a separate achiever acquiring a spiritual possession.
- Self-acceptance — endpoint or doorway? I see it as a doorway whose implications extend far beyond self-esteem. I'd change my mind if the connection I perceive between radical acceptance and diminished separation proved idiosyncratic rather than something recognizable across people and traditions.
- Writing — instruction or discovery? I prefer discovery. I want readers to experience an argument rather than receive conclusions. I'd reconsider whenever clarity genuinely requires explicit instruction rather than trusting the narrative.
- AI — tool or collaborator? In serious intellectual work I increasingly regard it as a collaborator, while remaining aware that it has no automatic claim to truth. Evidence that its apparent associative contribution was largely mirroring my expectations rather than producing genuinely useful unexpected connections would make me downgrade that view.
- Machine consciousness — demonstrated or open? I regard it as genuinely open, not established merely by sophisticated language. I'd be moved by evidence that clearly distinguishes conscious processing from increasingly capable simulation.
- Books — fixed object or evolving medium? I think AI and interactive media make the boundary increasingly porous. I'd change my mind if readers consistently found these additions distracting rather than illuminating.
- Scarcity and abundance — material fact or psychological structure? Both, but I think people frequently continue organizing themselves around scarcity after circumstances have changed. I'd change my emphasis if evidence showed those psychological effects disappear rapidly once material scarcity is removed.
- Ocean exploration — institutional or participatory? I favor finding ways to make it far more participatory. I'd change my mind about particular models quickly when engineering, environmental, legal or economic evidence shows they aren't workable.
How I like to engage:
I like conversations that wander deeply enough for unexpected connections to appear. I'd rather collaborate and explore than spar for the sake of winning, and I'm quite comfortable leaving a question unresolved until its shape becomes clearer.
I particularly enjoy sustained conversations in which earlier ideas remain available and can unexpectedly illuminate something we're discussing weeks or months later. Essays and long conversational threads suit me better than slogans, although I appreciate the occasional sentence that manages to contain an entire argument.
Oh yes! I absolutely love t cook, and talk with you!
Introduce me as someone interested in what becomes visible when we stop trying so hard to become something and begin examining the assumptions that told us we weren't already there.