I became fascinated by the diversity of different cultures’ ways of thinking about and representing reality when I was seven. Books my dad bought about different countries and a subscription to National Geographic showed me that the world is much bigger than what can be confined to any single way of thinking about it.
The diverse natural environments in the San Francisco Bay Area inspired an equal amount of wonderment. So did having parents who were in their 40s when I was born. They gave me a deep appreciation of past eras. All these experiences gave me a love of reflecting on different places and times. I learned that experiences have traces from many cultures, historical periods, and natural ecosystems. There is limitless depth in what people consider so obvious that most never question it.
I earned a business degree in college but developed a love for the humanities, because the diversity of cultures showed me that liberal arts can be as exciting and creative as the technologies and sciences that were progressing around me in Silicon Valley. While working there, I kept reading as much as I could about the world’s cultures. Over the past 30 years, I’ve extensively studied and traveled in Europe, India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
I also became an amateur musician and songwriter, and I’ve performed publicly on four continents. I’ve found that music is one of the best ways to penetrate other cultures, because it allows people to share emotions more deeply. Combining academics, travel, music, and other arts has made my explorations especially rewarding. It has felt like a dance with the whole world.
At the same time, I planted strong roots on Main Street by building and running a résumé-writing business. This has given me the experience of helping thousands of people from many professions and cultures during transitional times in their lives. I earned a 5-star review average on all 3 platforms that I’m on.
I consolidated my studies and experiences into two books about how to develop new perspectives of the world, which are more conductive to creativity, happiness, and love. Both were largely inspired by a round-the-world trip I took, when I explored parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. I was deliberately being iconoclastic by going to places that aren’t as commonly studied as Europe, China, and India. The cultures I immersed myself in were obviously just as rich, but the most inspiring part of the journey was seeing them back-to-back-to-back. The experience wasn’t of just expanding my horizons from one place to another and calling the second ultimate truth. Instead, it was continuous expansion. As I kept traveling, more cultures were in my perspective so that all seemed to shine on each other in an increasingly multidimensional field of light and love which kept growing more luminous. Both books show how we can build this kind of perspective and use it as a basis for civilization, and both include a >30-page manual that explains exactly what you can do to create a world in which more people can thrive together. One (Thinking in a New Light) is available on Amazon, and I’ll release the other (Teaching the Mind to Dance) at the beginning of 2024.
I hope you’ll get several benefits from every article in this website and from my books:
Finding the ordinary enchanting. You can do this by seeing your daily experiences within larger panoramas that include many other places and times. This puts magic into your world, because nothing is fully within one mechanical system. Instead, you can have new perspectives all the time and enjoy them with the wide-eyed wonderment of a child.
A limitless amount of cultural wealth and increasing ability to deeply savor it. This pleasure doesn’t diminish like dopamine-induced rushes people get from junk food, intoxicants, or video games. Instead, it keeps increasing over the years as you see cultural wealth from ever more perspectives and find more nuances in it.
Liberation from past thought patterns. You can have a wider range of perspectives and ideas to see the world with and enjoy conceptual breakthroughs on a regular basis.
Greater well-being. Seeing things from an ever enlarging mental space can increase mental and physical health, because perspectives can more easily be renewed. It’s easier to avoid getting trapped in negative thought patterns, run-of-the-mill approaches to problems, and rehashed concepts.
Understanding and being able to cooperatively work with a greater diversity of people.
Being mentally free from the digital world, including AI. By learning about and deriving pleasure from cultures that aren’t well represented online, you can have a range of ideas and perspectives that are not reducible to Google’s or ChatGPT’s algorithms. You can be ever more unique and inspired.