#gratitudeNow: Our Glorious Future

Yesterday was a big day for all mankind.

Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched a test flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket, sending the whimsical payload of his personal Tesla roadster into space, on its way to a heliocentric orbit around Mars.

I've been a Musk fan for a long time now.  I think that this launch is the beginning of a whole lot of change.  There are a series of technologies Musk has created which compliment one another in improving how we live and get around.

His solar roof tiles will provide cheap, plentiful power, which will come in handy, to power your self-driving electric car.

Speaking of your car, his boring machine will create a vast tunnel and tram system to eliminate surface road traffic.

Plus, surface travel without a car is going to be boosted by the near-vacuum-tube based pod hyperloop system.

Roads are going to get a whole lot less congested with this stuff.  This will be further enabled by the Tesla Semi, which is not only electric but soon to be completely autonomous, self-driving.

But let's get back to that space thing for a moment.  The Falcon 9 rocket isn't just stronger, bigger, reusable, and thus cheaper to run.  It's not just going to get us out to the stars.  It's also going to make our planet a much smaller place, by making it possible to go almost anywhere on earth in about an hour.

When I sit and ponder the potential social changes this sort of technology will bring, it astounds me.  It'll lower borders, create jobs, make medicine more reliable, enlarge humanity's reach out to the stars, improve our life on earth in countless ways.

Yes, the world is filled with social ills.  Yes, there's poverty, racism, sexism, misogyny, bigotry, and hatred rampant in it.

But there's also this, and I'm thrilled to be a witness to it.

This is all really happening.

#gratitudeNow:Pokéschmoop

Missy loves me.

She caught a shark Pokémon and named it after me. 

#gratitudeNow: I've been working on the railroad (and the website)

I'm on a train heading up to visit family in New York.  With four hours or so on the train, one of the things I've had the time to do is some "digital housekeeping."  I took some stuff off my main page, because I'm not doing life coaching anymore.  (It's not that I don't enjoy it, but I've got limited time and resources, and have to focus on what I'm up to now.)

Plus. I reorganized the fiction that's already there, and made room to add more.

Because there's going to be lots more.

I'm grateful for the time, and the space to show off what I've been up to.

See for yourself.

#gratitudeNow:Know Thyself

For a while now I’ve been contemplating my relationships to other people.  It’s both a deep and wide sort of thing to explore. Who do I connect with? How does that connection occur, and evolve? Why do I make a connection? What does such a connection mean? 

I don’t have any ready pithy answers for you. My connections to others are varied in a myriad of ways.

They do all have one thing in common: me. 

There’s a Lao-tzu quote I’m rather fond of which is front and center in this particular contemplation: 

“Mastering other’s is strength, mastering yourself is true power.”  (Pictures a man in a tug of war between brain and heart, being ripped in two)

It is damn hard to understand what you feel and why you feel it.   I’m often very tough on myself in any number of ways, including relationships.  

I often stumble into a binary of being in the right or wrong in my relationships. Am I being a good partner, husband, friend, employee, business owner?

But it’s not that simple. And part of that is that I have to consider myself.  

That can be challenging. Plus, ultimately, I have to do that considering by myself.  It comes from me, and it’s for me.

There’s this particular scene in The Matrix that speaks to this process and its value.

Today that scene is very much on my mind. The way the Oracle describes Neo’s knowing he’s the One is a kind of mindfulness. She says it’s like being in love.  

Bingo.  

I know my love for others from experience of it .  That means I know what it’s like to love vs to be in love. They’re very different things.  And it means that when it comes to relationships, there aren’t any hard and fast rules, no black and white hats.

That’s a very helpful thing to realize. 

Compassion for the self is challenging but worthwhile.  

#gratitudeNow:I'm not a solo act

So, I've been writing new erotica for a few months now, over at my patreon, https://www.patreon.com/makoallen.  It's exciting stuff.  I have a lot of control and freedom there, to experiment and to innovate.

I write stories, and record audio of them too.

But, I have help.  Part of those innovations I'm talking about is working with a female narrator, my friend Suzie Jenkins.

And another is working with a brilliant illustrator, Jenn Solo.  She's amazing.  The way she illustrates my stories is  a sort of smutty, erudite New Yorker Cartoon style.

Take a look.

She's so great.  I'm thrilled to have her as a creative partner.