Category: Uncategorized

Technology slows down when too many people have the power to block it, but it will not be stopped, the barrier to entry is too low for advancement to not always continue. For as long as there is tinker in a garage somewhere trying something new, or a small startup chasing funding for their idea, there will be advancement. 

Far too many predictions of the future are overly optimistic in their timelines. I am an optimistic guy, but I recognize the role of people and economics in our advancement.  

Never underestimate the power of the ignorant in their ability to lead technology astray.  

Never underestimate the power of the fearful in their ability to block technology.  

Never underestimate the power of economics in its necessity for technology funding. 

But never underestimate the power of those determined to advance technology. 

We are in a race against our own mortality.  

This race is not a sprint.  

All out, balls to the wall, is not always the way to survive a race. 

It behooves us not to have our greatest minds burn out early and lose faith. 

For now, there are far more people against us than for us. 

We will not stop, we will not falter, we will not be defeated. 

It takes determination and vision, confidence in our goal. 

Our path may be wrong, and we may need to reset. 

We will never quit. 

Stay alive, and keep moving forward. 

Nietzsche Quote: 

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. 

I don’t think I have given this topic enough attention with my children, so this post is for them. I also think this rings true in every social media domain. 

Question everything. Most importantly, questions yourself. 

It is far too ingrained in our psyche to align ourselves with people who think like us, talk like us, do what we do, and believe what we believe.  

This is not always a bad thing. This is family, our support group, our comfort zone, our “church.” 

This is what our gym is to us. The people there are our family, and our box is where we go for camaraderie.  

It is important for us to have a place where we belong. 

Just don’t spend all your time in your comfort zone. 

Meet other people.  

Listen to what they have to say.  

You don’t have to join them to try and understand them. 

Think about what they say and believe. Think about why, and think about how it may apply to you. 

Just because you do not agree with them, does not mean they are not brilliant.  

We can not know everything, and others always have something to offer us. Figure out what it is for each person you meet. 

Talk to people. Get to know them. Learn from them. If what they say makes sense, then fold their input into your own beliefs.  

In all that you do, be present. 

One of my internal battles is to live in the moment, to give everything to the present. 

If I do not consciously reign it in, my mind will spend all cycles thinking about the future. 

In my search for balance, I fight this part of my nature, and believe that it is important to find equilibrium. 

One of the greatest gifts that my wife ever gave me, is the realization that right now is important. She has an incredible capacity to enjoy and live in the moment. I envy the ability to sometimes let go of everything else, and focus on today. 

here.now 

If I am with you, I owe it to you to be with you in body and mind. 

You will know if my mind is not there. Go ahead – tell me, slap me back to the moment if you have to. 

If I go to a meeting, I will commit myself. If the meeting is not important enough for me to give it my attention, then it is not important enough for me to give it my presence. As in all things, there are exceptions when simply physical presence is needed. Those times are the exception, not the rule. 

An even harder thing for me is to spend time in the past. But that is another discussion. 

I used to run marathons to find and defeat my inner demons. 

Twenty miles into the race I would hit a point where there was nothing in the world but myself.  

My suffering body, and my inner demons. 

Those voices would scream for me to stop.  

Begging.Pleading.Demanding.Ordering. 

Shutting down body parts to force me into compliance. 

And I would ignore them.  

That is why I ran marathons.  

There was no other time in my life when I could truly prove my own mettle to myself.  

I enjoyed the battle, and I savored the pain. 

In CrossFit, there are WODs that take me there. I can get there more quickly, and I can go there more often.  

This is what I am addicted to. Proving myself again and again  

To myself. 

As long as I know that I can defeat my inner demons, then know I can do anything. 

Coach Jeremy once told me: “You can always do one more wallball” (Tag Jeremy on instagram https://www.instagram.com/jmghenyi/) twitter @jmghenyi 

For a young guy, he was very wise. 

You can always get one more rep 

No matter how much pain 

Or how tired 

I may not be able to breath 

but I don’t need air for just one rep 

I don’t know my limits 

and I will never find them 

If I don’t at least try 

For one more rep 

… 

and maybe another 

Did you collapse? 

Did you pass out? 

No? Then you had one more rep in you. 

Don’t get me wrong, and don’t collapse in my gym. 

We should not push ourselves this far in every WOD. That is not sustainable and not healthy.  

But don’t tell me that you couldn’t do any more.  

Admit it, even if only to yourself.  

You chose to stop.  

There is no shame. In fact, sometimes it takes more will power to know when to back off.  

Be honest with yourself, and be conscious of your motives and rationalizations.  

If you don’t have a plan. A reason to break up the reps. A reason to slow down.  

Then just do one more rep. 

Let’s ignore the future for a few minutes. 

Before you start thinking “a transhumanist always thinks about the future” remember that I still believe in balance and if I can’t enjoy every day of my life, then I lose my desire to live forever. 

I believe that we need to know who we are and where we are before we can address moving anywhere.  

You cannot lay out a map to your destination if you do not know where you are starting. You have to be brutally honest with yourself.  

Judge yourself as harshly as you judge others. Forget your excuses for five minutes and take off your own rose colored glasses. You have been far too easy on yourself for far too long. That is the path that got you to where you are.  

Do you like the path that you are on? Do you see daily progress towards your personal, professional, and physical goals?  

Be honest with yourself. If you are not seeing progress, then is your current path working?  

Are you happy with the rate of progress towards your goals? If not, then something must change.  

This all assumes that you have identified those goals, or at least aspirations. If not, then that is the subject of an entirely different discussion that we will have later. 

Now tell me – how do you feel? 

Seriously, take a moment to self-analyze and lets do a body check. 

If you focus internally, can you say that you feel good? 

Most people are so accustomed to coasting through their day and putting up with discomfort that they don’t even recognize it anymore. 

I am not going to address the causes today, but let’s just focus on how we feel for now.  

How is your back? 

Do you have a subtle nagging headache? 

Eyes dry and tired? 

Is your stomach comfortable?   

When was the last time you belched? 

Are you bloated? 

When was your last bowel movement? 

How about the one before that? 

Are your muscles sore? 

Can you target a beneficial workout that caused the soreness? 

Do your feet hurt? Are you standing? 

Is your stomach full? 

Are you hungry? 

Do you feel relaxed? 

Do you feel rushed? 

Are you happy? 

Are you energized? 

Are you eagerly looking forward to something? 

Are you regretting something? 

What do you long for? 

Now, I’ll keep this post short. Take the time. Reflect honestly. This is the first step of a journey.  

Next, we take action! 

I was looking at the living will form letter from our lawyer yesterday and was struck by it’s inability to capture my real wishes. What do I really want? My entire body cryogenically stored? My brain? A sample of my DNA? 

Realistically the only reason to store my whole body is if I believed that my body and mind could be re-habilitated much sooner than a time when my brain could be scanned and loaded into a new body cloned from my DNA. 

Ultimately I need to just accept that my living will will have to be updated on a yearly basis, or more carefully worded with an executor who truly understands my wishes. 

The choice is heavily dependent on the cost of each option and my assets at the time. 

For now, I believe that the most cost effective and risk mitigating option is to cryogenically freeze my brain. I am very patient while I am alive, I think in death I will be even more patient. I will be willing to wait until a new body can be fashioned from my DNA, or at least until my brain can be non-destructively scanned and uploaded into a machine. 

If I get in an accident before I have my living will legal drafted, let this serve as my most recent desire. 

When I was 17 I was head over heels in love.  

All the adults around me told me that I was not old enough or mature enough to feel love.  

I thought I was the one young person who knew better. 

Neither of us were right. 

I was in love, there is no doubt. 

What we sometimes fail to admit is that love is not a quantifiable thing. Nor can it be contained. 

Why have so many writers and poets struggled to describe it? Because no one can. 

It grows and changes and evolves in each of us. 

When I was 17 I knew how to feel love, but I did not have the maturity and capacity to understand it and manage it. 

I am 40 now.  

I have more capacity for love than I had at 17. I have more capacity for love than I had at 30. 

There is not some magic age at which we finally understand love. 

As we grow and learn, our capacity to love increases. 

To my children: 

Love. 

Love with all you have. 

Let that love go when it does not align with your life goals. 

Feel the pain and grow from it. 

Then love again. 

Let that love grow, and know that what you feel now will grow into something larger. 

I have written before that I am an architect of the future. 

Technically, we all are. 

We work on a team. 

Some of us have a vision and drive to bring that vision to life. 

Some are underperformers, viruses, wrenches in the machine. 

It is like working at a job where everyone gets hired, and no one can get fired. 

Sometimes it can be exhausting, depressing, and hard to see the path to the goal. 

“Whenever I get sad, I just stop being sad and be awesome instead.”  -Barney Stinson. 

We got this. It is no different than any other job. There are obstacles in our path, but with determination we will clear them in time. They will slow us down, and throw off our projections with their negativity. This will not deter us. I am not committed to a timeline, I am committed to the goal. 

We must all do our part, and my part is an architect. 

I am not the guy who is going to perfect gene therapy. 

I am not going to build a robot replacement body for you. 

I am not going to perfect quantum teleportation. 

I am going to bring it all together. 

I am going to drive the vision. 

I am going to tie together the hardware, software, business, and people. 

I am going to document and analyses the options, patterns, and risks. 

I am going to identify the things that will work, and find workarounds for the things that do not work. 

I collect countless requirements, targets, goals, wish lists, dreams, and science fiction ideas. Then I consume them. I digest them, and then I press them into one well formed plan. Then I polish that plan until it shines.  

That was the ugliest analogy I have ever come up with, but not the ugliest I ever will. 

Mythbusters proved that you can in fact polish a turd. 

Sometimes, the best plans are nothing more than a polished turd that models the goal until you can get there. 

I don’t have to repeat all the research on the health benefits of wine 

Just do a search and you will find countless studies and articles on how drinking wine will reduce your risk of heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cataracts.  

It will make you smarter, live longer, more attractive, and calm your nerves.  

Wine is grain free, and full of vitamins. It is made from grapes so you can count it as one of your servings of fruit.  

Wine will make you a better dancer so that you can get more primal dancing around the fire. Wine will also indisputably improve your sex life – and there is nothing more primal than sex.  

Of all the things that we rationalize in our house, wine is the most common and the most creatively justified. We love our wine. 

I am committed to my transhumanist agenda. It may sometimes appear that everything that I do is committed to that mission. This is clearly not always true. I am even more committed to balance. I seek balance in every part of my life. If I do not enjoy each day, then why would I want to live forever? I like wine, and I will drink wine. I do consider it the lesser of many evils. I enjoy beer too, but my gut tells me that it is not as good for me. Literally, my gut reacts to beer the same way it reacts to other grains. If I am going to consume grains, a good stout or porter is my favorite way to do so, but I still tend to reach for a good Cab instead. 

Pop a cork my primal friends, and lets toast to our lengthy futures.