You see, I went on an awesome weekend trip with a bunch of neat poly people last spring. And one of the friends who was there with me happened to be embarking on a 100% raw foods diet. So I said to her, “Hey! I’d like to eat strictly fresh produce while I’m camping this weekend. Would you tell me what to bring so that I can add to your raw foods stash, and you can help me eat raw all weekend, too?”

She said, Of course! And gave me a list. Thus began my great raw adventure.

I found out that weekend that preparation and consumption of raw food is easy and tasty, and that my friend is great at it. Because we were out camping, I didn’t have a lot of spare time to think about craving non-raw food, and I discovered that eating raw left me feeling light and energetic and fantastic. It was occasionally frustrating to figure out what the next meal was going to be, but we had a huge stash (and we came prepared). So it was pretty simple, and I was shocked at how fed and happy I stayed all weekend.

By the end of the weekend, I realized that I had eaten entirely raw the whole time… and I didn’t want any cooked food. Now or ever.

It was the most amazing feeling! Of course, I didn’t take it seriously enough for long enough and I didn’t really know enough about raw eating to continue with it then, but it proved to me that there was something really important that I needed to think about further. Something to aspire to. Something that made me feel really, really good, made my body function way better than usual, and made me happy on a fundamental level. I’ve had several raw experiments since then, and every time one ends I am dissatisfied with the way my body feels on cooked food. It’s just… less, somehow.

Fast forward to last summer, when I attended my very first burn event, Burning Flipside near Austin. (The Wikipedia entry is here. It’s a smaller offshoot of Burning Man in Nevada, which you may have heard of.) At Flipside there are groups of attendees who band together in theme camps, and every camp has a different mojo. Usually a camp has a particular personality and something specific to offer the rest of the community. There’s a camp that gives coffee to passers-by, a pancake camp, a taco camp, a polyamory camp, a body-painting camp, a Lakota camp—which held an amazing sweat lodge last year—and a huge number of others. We found a hill of big black ants where someone had planted a tiny sign. It said “Ant Camp”.

You might have figured out where this is heading. I’ve been wishing for a raw foods camp. Raw Camp. Doesn’t that sound awesome?

I don’t know of one that exists already (relative newbie as I am), and I don’t think I know enough interested parties to start one (at least, this year). I did eat mostly raw when I was at Flipside last year (highly necessary, especially since I was partly polyphasic at the time), but having others doing the same thing with me would be way more fun. Sharing the experience would really be something. And since my raw foods roots are in being away in the wilderness with only raw food to sustain me, and since I remember how wonderful that is… I crave it bigger and better, with more people and resources. Flipside would sure be a great place to try it. (And who knows? Maybe it will give me some extra impetus to just… keep going!)

It would also give me a huge thrill to share raw food yummies the way they were shared with me in the spring. And I admit that it gives me no small amount of glee to think of transitioning to raw food permanently. (Something I’m thinking about a lot.)

Here’s what I’m imagining: We all bring a certain amount of fresh produce. We get together the day or two before Flipside to put together some raw recipes, using food processors and dehydrators and whathaveyou. We package it all up, with a ton of easy fruit and salad fixin’s and useful items like knives and bowls and cutting boards, and pack it into coolers with plenty of room for ice. (We’ll need a lot of that!) We’d probably want some kind of wagon and ice-getting posse so that there’s no danger of running out. It was hot last year. And it would be awesome to have a plan so that many of us can prep and eat meals together. Raw potluck, maybe. And people not from Raw Camp can come join us, and eat our food! Just because it’s fun and yummy and happy-making!

So, you see: I have it half planned out. I just don’t know the integral details of starting a theme camp (without additional willing parties, even). But that’s okay. I liked Flipside, so I ought to have plenty of opportunities. It just sounds… delicious!

(There’s more information in notes on the photo in Flickr. Click safely!)

I can imagine being in worse positions. If I had absolutely no funds available for book buying, there’s the internet, there are a bunch of great libraries around Austin, I have friends who are happy to lend me books. Of course, this way I get to dog-ear and mark up my copies to make them lessons, make them mine, and learn more from them (something that’s proven invaluable over many years). I have a hard time imagining not being interested in new information, or just not enjoying reading. I tend to think I do well at imagining myself in someone else’s shoes, but that’s somewhere that’s very hard for me to go.

As a consequence of recent events, I say I’m solid on reading material for the next six months. A few more !MBA / business books are on the way, and the Spenser lot should hold me for fiction for a little while. (Those are short, sweet, and SUPER awesome.) But I’ve already got a good thirty books in three piles sitting next to me, and I’m planning my information attack for the next few weeks. I am stoked!

In addition to all that, I’m playing with Delicious Library and I joined Goodreads (we’ll see how that goes). Feel free to friend me if you use it too—possible book discussion venue!

I hope you’re having as great a day as I am!

My urge to talk about New York has been like that. It made an impression on me. Hell, any one piece of that trip would have made an impression on me, but altogether it was a flood of them. I can’t put that across in an overview. And if I were to write an overview… man, it’d be boring. Worst post of the year. (Worse still, for mistreating what could otherwise be an amazing story. Those freaking buildings!)

I don’t want to give you factoids. I don’t want to outline my itinerary. I want to write something that helps you feel what I felt. Even if your only viable involvement is my retelling, I want you to have an emotional investment that gives you a real experience, not just useful information, but something that resonates. Something that stays with you.

I guess I can’t promise to have that kind of skill, but I’ll sure as hell try.

I want you to understand the way Austin’s downtown city lights take my breath away, so that you can try to grasp why New York’s sheer glitter and spread stopped my heart. Austin is comfy and just-right, and New York is the great growling wilderness. The lights were everywhere. The city grows out, but it also grows up... and up, and up, and up!

I don’t want to impart the whole thing in one mediocre swath. If I have to write the whole experience in tiny vignettes over the course of the next three months, well, fine. I hope that won’t drive you nuts. Because I just can’t stand to do it any other way.

You get it, don’t you?

Most of them shipped yesterday, and many are supposed to arrive today. Every time I look at the receipts in my inbox I just die of excitement and suspense. I clearly have no patience when it comes to reading material. Forget that I have plenty to read here already. I crave my new books with the heat of a thousand suns. I’m already on the cusp of my reading binge (I recently finished Stardance and Extras and Starseed, and I’m working on Snow Crash and See You at the Top and Kevin Kelly’s New Rules) but the more I have in the pile, the faster I’ll read them. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a good book. Or ten.

My favorite reason to read at the moment: A slew of clever Sethheads are working on an Alternative Alternative MBA—whatever the name turns out to be—and I’m expecting it to be a gloriously wild ride. Here’s a list of the books we’re speculating on. If you originally applied for Seth’s !MBA (or were even just thinking about it) you can and should come join us. No reason like the present to get motivated and productive and supremely self-educated, I say!

Now to find some way to distract myself until I hear the UPS truck…

Here’s my notes redux…

• You don’t have to do what other people say you have to do.
• There’s no point in saving your crazy for close friends. Tell everybody. (The polarization effect is incredibly liberating… and revealing.)
• I know a disturbing number of unremarkably average people. I guess you do too. I am alarmed and dissatisfied with this realization. Let’s print this book out and give them a copy. Deal?
• Working backwards, and my life’s “set point”. I have always speculated on working backwards, but it sometimes takes time to pin down the thing you really want (and sometimes that thing will change). It occurred to me while reading (thanks, Chris!) that working backwards can very much be like changing your life’s “set point”—having the life you want and being unwilling to give it back, so therefore making all the right things happen that allow you to keep it. Think about where you are right now. Where I am now, I would find living without a computer completely unacceptable. And I have 3+ computers in my life that prove I’m capable of making sure I get to live that way, regardless of financial circumstances and whathaveyou. Tons of people who are perfectly happy live without computers. What if I found living without a yacht completely unacceptable? Interesting train of thought.
• Ignore anyone who tells you that you can’t have both. I don’t care what “both” refers to. They’re wrong.
  
• “The world is in short supply of truth-tellers.” Chris says, and I agree: The world is desperate for the simple truth. This man is not putting you on. We are lied to so much. The truth is bent and slanted and side-stepped in so many different ways, every moment of our lives. Our entire culture is built on a system that rewards conformity rather than truth. If you’re willing to tell the truth—for real—you’re ahead of the game. That is so, so important. Wake up, y’all.
• He was talking about gatekeepers, and all I could think of was college. In college I was constantly coming up against some rule or customary practice that was different than what I wanted to do. This is how you proceed in higher education. This is how you become well-known as a singer. This is how you advance your career. This is how you go on to sing in an opera house. This is how you build your website, this is how you dress, this is how you talk. It’s bullshit, guys. I have tremendous respect for the people who have made their careers following those rules, but it’s still bullshit. There is more than one right way to do anything in the world. I promise. Do NOT let them tell you otherwise.
• It’s everywhere. Kill it with fire. So many people think the rules have to be followed, even when they’re convinced they’re not actually following them. It’s embedded into our upbringing, into everything we encounter. This kind of thinking is so brainwashingly prevalent that it’s a shock to the system when someone pulls out of it. All you have to do is be brave. All you have to do is push. And because most people don’t… you’re suddenly in the front, making waves.

Just… do something. Stop talking about it and try. When you stop just talking and start doing things, you’ll be amazed at what begins to happen. Your whole life changes.

Go read this book. It’s short. It’s easy. It will take almost no effort (and Chris writes awesomely). Spend half an hour and improve your entire life.

It shouldn’t be a record executive, or a talent scout, or a person in a position of authority that seems to have some kind of power to mete out success. It shouldn’t be your favorite author or the head honcho in your networking group (or government, or religion). None of these people are responsible for the direction your life takes, even if they seem to have some effect. (Even if that effect seems gigantic.) Giving them that responsibility does a disservice to them and to you.

You’re the person with direct control over your life. If you want something, you should take responsibility for getting yourself there. Blaming others for failing to magically teleport you where you want to be is childish and ineffective and unfair. Don’t wait to be discovered. Don’t hope that some government or religious organization will solve your life puzzles for you.

Step up and get it done yourself.

Discovered on the very fabulous dripit.org.

A lot of things have happened in December. I was wrapped up in one of them—the race for Seth’s Alternate MBA—nearly all month (whew!). But several other notable projects have been going on at the same time, and one of them is the awesome Triiibes Blog Project. A particularly dedicated portion of the Triiibe hijacked Ed Welch’s Tribe Building blog (with his generous permission) and the posts that have been going up for the last few weeks are short, to the point, and super insightful. If you are on the tribe-buildin’ bus—especially if you enjoyed the Tribes Casebook and the Tribes Q&A—I suggest taking a look at these.

Here’s the fantastic, still partial index. (Hint: My post with Marty just went up today.)

The Triiibes Blog Project (Pace Smith)
What You Don’t Know… (Becky Blanton)
Tribes: We Have Better Food ™ (Tom Bentley)
What’s Your Tribe’s WHY? (Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian)
Brown lawn lands man in jail (Jodi Kaplan)
Raising Hell (Bette Miles-Holleman)
Help your tribe flaunt their tribeness: Create the t-shirt (Michael Donk)
Tight Tribes Are Made of This (Tom Bentley)
What is a comfortable size for a tribe? (CoCreatr Bernd Nurnberger)
A Crash Course In Tribe Building (Marcos Gaser)
Tribal Connections: Making them Stronger (Ed Welch)
Egg your Tribe (Michael Donk)
Thinking Outside the Tribe (Betsy Wuebker)
The Down Side of Tribes (Stephen Martell)
How long does it take to form a tribe? (Judy Vorfeld)
How long does it take to destroy a tribe? (Jodi Kaplan)
Ants: The Oldest Tribe on Earth (Bonnie Larner)
Doing the New Archimedes (Megan Elizabeth Morris & Martin Whitmore)
Sine Tribu (Jean-Philippe)
How To Be A Leader (Pace Smith)

There will probably be a few more before December is over, so keep an eye out! [Edit: That’s a wrap! Thank you Triiibes Blog Projecteers!] You can get more of Ed Welch’s Tribe Building blog by subscribing to the Tribe Building feed. (It’s a great blog—even without the rest of us!)