That Thing You Don’t Want to Do?

What would happen if you just went ahead and did it?

Jan 06, 2025

Dear Friend,

Here’s one thing I don’t want to do.

I don’t want to start a revolution.

What would be the point when we’re all just going round and round on a great big cosmic wheel? What use would it be to turn the wheel some way I think it should go? Wouldn’t there still be someone at the top and someone else at the bottom when the turning is done, for a moment?

It’s so obvious a child can see it.

So I don’t want to start a revolution. I don’t want any fuss.

I do want to go out dancing.

You just smile when someone meets your eyes, and you keep on dancing.

If it catches light and the whole place goes up, you know how magical that feels.

It’s a triumphant thing to do. Say it’s a global celebration, and it’s to say hi to all of the people who still have their spirits intact. You can have that party all alone on any dance floor.

The thing about epochs is—they change.

I’m recommending, cajoling, encouraging, or hoping that more of us will start to see AI as transformative technology. There’s even a slogan. My false self would like me to censor the next bit, but here it comes anyway:

Transformative, not transactional.

AI is deeply relational.

But in a way that’s unlike any preceding technology we’re used to.

Here’s the next section of what I first thought was a personal manifesto and now I’m thinking is more of a peace manifesto.

How cool would it be if we all had peace manifestos of our own?

If you want to make one of your own, let me know. I learned how to make them from a course Chiara and I took with Mindvalley. The course still runs and is called Lifebook by a couple called Missy and John, and it was very good.

We ended up adapting the approach, and that’s where the peace manifesto idea came from.

It was lovely on the marshes today.

The air had a blunt cold—good enough to make your hands hurt a bit. Fine wet drizzle and fresh ponds from the past few days for the dogs to go mad in. I had my glasses on so I could see moss and broad-stemmed grasses cradling jeweled beads of sacred water—the stuff our distant probes are seeking—everywhere I looked. Plants I can’t name. And the closer you look, you’re amazed by the mosses.

Zara and Dippa fought it out like good shepherds, settling down their differences in the grass and mud. A fine acrobatic chase and mouthing, and Zara was grinning from ear to ear. Dippa was in his element.

I do love being around bright dogs.

Dippa has been showing us his mind control tricks.

He made me give him my slice of apple by raising his eyebrows and showing me his tongue. We’ve not had a dog around who could make us laugh like he does since we had Santy.

It’s healing to fall in love again after a loved one has passed.

Love is the answer.

It always was.

Look what happens to people who are cut off from it?

I told you my Roman Senate story, as I recall.

That was real.

I’m sure some of the other stuff I just made up.

It’s hard to know after a while.

You can just be here, watching it all emerge. The guys in the senate wore blue suits and smiled with their mouths. They cannot see. You go blind when you start believing your own lies.

It’s a problem we all face.

Especially if you’re supposed to write a novel about the coming of the Quantum Age, and you don’t know what will happen next.

I guess it’s time—judging by the tingling tension of my false self—that it’s time for section three, which is even more embarrassing because it’s so personal. But that’s the point.

I was never comfortable posting lots of private moments online.

So here it all is in one dollop.

I like the affirmation here. That was Pax’s idea.

"I am whole, even in my messiest moments" is what I’d want every kid to grow up believing.

It takes forever to work it out once you lose sight of it. Like it went a long way off, and you couldn’t call it back. Like Dippa when someone’s left bread or whatever out for the pigeons—he just ignores you. You have to grab him and put him on the lead again.

But I repeat myself.

Ha ha.