So far, 2024 isn’t giving me any joy.

Mary Oliver said, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society.

So this is what’s happened to the world: optimization trumps human preference. The people who want to win the argument are effectively prepared to ignore human truths to preserve the integrity of the artificial model.

alchemy is about facilitating change, growth, evolution, or transformation in another. alchemy is what we do when we offer services or products of any kind.

I do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.

But how do you keep talented people happy and creative?

“What we can do is construct an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes everyone’s creativity. If we get that right, the result is a vibrant community where talented people are loyal to one another and their collective work, everyone feels that they are par

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This is all, unfortunately, a microcosm of the problems we face. We’re up against a system that views and treats hyper short-term profits as more important than our collective future. We’re up against corporations and ways of doing business that would ignite the planet before letting their profits fall – and that’s exactly what they’re doing. We, t... See more

how can my creative superpowers as an artist be channeled into giving extraordinary value and service to others, while sharing my ethos & philosophy along the way?