Did serendipity have a hand in landing you here? Let's prod that probability.
May I introduce myself: Max Kaizen. Creative technologist. Collector and connector of ingenuity from across the ages, cultures. and species. Why? Because our human lives are absurdly brief, and business models opportunity EVERYWHERE.
Yup, MAXIMILLIAN KAIZEN.
I know. My name evokes a Teutonic colossus, right?
IRL: more pocket-sized, wizard creative technologist than battle-ready barbarian of yore.
But here we are ... lace up yer boots, let's go.
DISCLAIMER: okay, honestly: I also plunder their brilliance through productive merriment to invent, build, test and learn together. And sure, it might have something to do with adaptive system change blah blah.
But I promise (with citations and experience) that luxuriously-nerdy escapades, intelligent leisure, merry makeathons, and seemingly-frivolous sabbaticals yield more a-ha! breakthrough innovations than brute-force and big budget R&D could ever hope to. And always have.
Sanctimonious and sacrificial are poor approaches to effecting worthwhile systemic change. Trust me, I know about helping old systems adapt & transform ...
I equip bright people craving the thrill of meaningful ambition again, to boldly venture beyond their ken.
To reply to big changes with adventurous ingenuity, discovering the quests & friends they didn't realise would help them feel most alive.
NARRATIVE FORESIGHT
Because if I said everyday time-travel to rewrite the future, would you stay?
Narrative foresight isn't predicting the future, nor the sexy futurist showmanship of sparkly new gadget and consumer trends. It's more of the preventative health reality check-ups, workouts and veggies version of futurism. Inoculating against future shocks and expensive surprises.
It requires hunting down the many hidden stories coursing under the surface of reality, to name the monsters, unflinchingly detail the fiascos. Then rewrite the scripts, and rehearse our part if one of the dystopian disaster flicks we foresaw, starts playing at a reality theatre near us.
Shortening the gap between freak-out ➔ figure-it-out takes getting our reps in. Never in isolation. It takes MANY kinds of minds, community inventory, role-play and skill-discovery to evolve through complex transitions, be they personal or planetary. Abstract dread ➔ action-packed invitations to plans + practical adventure.
It's also the realm of strategic mythmaking for those with big responsibilities. Cultural diplomacy. Placemaking. Film, food and fashion as soft power? You know it. We deal in big time, thick data, tiny actions and deep nerdery in decision-craft for this high stakes period.
Be Prepared
"Prepared for what?"
"Why, for any old thing"
- Lord Robert Baden Powell (Boy Scouts)
INTELLIGENT
LEISURE
Genius is no tame thing. Epiphany flirts from the periphery. It's often slippery, serendipitous, silly. Refusing to shimmer up with reliable certainty upon command or calendar. It's here where brute-force brilliance and deep pockets come up short in trying to industrialise innovation.
In seeking that meaningful quest that will captivate us, we need stealthy strategy. It needs to be lured with spaciousness. Unfurling our surface area to "luck" with intelligent leisure: unusual friends, skill sabbaticals, writers retreats, field trips, awkward first steps in new fields, makeathons, sensory acuity, obscure deep dives, creative tech tinkering, cultural immersions, raiding the adjacent possible. Anything but leaving it to chance alone, if we want to chart our own journey in this one lifetime.
= doing things that aren't to burnish your resume, and where income isn't the only outcome. Surprisingly often, supercharges both.
Nothing is boring when you know the clues are everywhere.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries,
is not "Eureka!"
but "That's funny..."
- Isaac Asimov
CHARACTER DRIVEN R&D
Too often we mistake WHAT to DO next, rather than WHO to BE next.
Heartbreakingly, I've watched too many brilliant people squish themselves into a role too small for their soul: the seemingly safe/sensible choice in the hot industry, high status or the one too lucrative to turn down. Rather than the arena that they secretly long to wholeheartedly test themselves within.
Or suffering the unanticipated weirdness of retirement, realising their identity was tethered to their lofty job title.
Developing our own character, and quests, outside of social utility and standing, is a gift few people afford themselves. Wealth and fame don't confer it. It's earned in frustration, awkwardness and daring that we can't delegate.
But once won, it's like a comforting skeleton key ⚷ We can take far more courageous and interesting risks, negotiating our terms with relief. Trusting internal clarity over external validation offers the freedom money can't buy.
Self importance obstructs learning
NATURE'S OPERATING SYSTEM
Okay, so this is the heart of my own quest. Odds are absurdly long but the maybe is enough for ambition: the chance in our lifetime of bringing LIFE roaring back. It won't be won with bullying brinkmanship and strewn with sacrifice, nor boring and sanctimonious.
Though we don't yet have a route, we certainly have the collective genius and the tools to pull off this caper off - and make it a blockbuster.
"It's still magic even if you know how it works."
- Sir Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky)
IT'S ALIVE!
AN
INVITATION?
The Enlightenment forged many of the great engines of reality that got us here. The freedoms, rights and scientific progress have been key to human flourishing. But our needs, and knowledge have outgrown its 250 year old "apps" - political, financial, educational.
Clinging to the old operating system means we're endlessly patching corrupted, overheating systems, riddled with malware. Like any good reinvention, it takes fitness, focus and sometimes a new set of friends. But there's thrill, nay relief in breaking through to a new level. It is a possible storyline. Keen for charting new maps, in good company?
The Enlightenment ⏛ The Enlivenment *:･ﾟ
Hagan: Herman, listen. We need you for this. I know you think you're not fast enough, and I'm not strong enough, and I know we've had our differences, but I think it's time we —
Herman: Okay.
Hagan: "Okay?"
Herman: I'm in, man.
Hagan: Wow, you made that super-easy on me; I had, like, this whole speech worked up and everything.
Herman: Hmm, well, thankfully we don't have to listen to that.
