I have heard everyone say it. If I had to, I could not count how many times my pals with kids have asked, “So when are you going to be a dad?” or “How come you don’t have any kids yet?” For years I fielded kind words from my friends who considered me well suited for it, who wondered aloud why I was taking so long. For years I thought they were mad for giving up so much of their free time.

Meanwhile, I was spending mine on every indulgence. Travel, people, ideas, experiences. I do not know what boredom is. Put me in a room and I can occupy myself indefinitely. I was missing something. It was great sometimes. It was also unfulfilling. Eventually I grew stymied by my own modest successes. Eventually, without any sacrifice, without a reason, one day I woke up and began to allow the idea in – that it all meant very little. Matt Johnson wrote it best as a sarcastic anthem to the selfish side of being human, True Happiness This Way Lies:

Have you ever wanted something so badly that it possessed your body and your soul? Through the night and through the day until you finally get it – and then you realize that it wasn’t what you wanted after all? And then those self-same, sickly little thoughts now go and attach themselves to something or somebody new and the whole goddam thing starts all over again…

I am grateful for many things and thank the gods moment to moment for each of them, not least of which is this mother of all adventures. I thought I knew what true collaboration was. I thought I had an idea of how much I had to learn about patience and taking care of myself. There was a time I presumed to be standing on the edge of understanding what was important to me. It may have been practice or it may have just been wasting time. Now, I am learning a kind of generosity I did not know I was capable of. Somehow, there are more authentic versions of such heavy things following me around like sauntering breezes tumbling leaves around my ankles. I have at last been introduced to myself. Looking into the eyes of your own child does that. My pals were hardly kidding.

Tonight my little boy lies here over my shoulder, asleep. Inspired by this picture of Daschel and I, taken by his mother, I write this as I snuggle him and rub his face gently with the back of my hand. I am at this and each passing moment fully aware of him, his mother, our life, and my impact on it. This is now the definition of success. Whatever I used to care about, whatever I once thought important is dust. You better believe this is everything it is cracked up to be. If there is a bigger, more ultimate, adventure I would love to know what it is. I am grateful I did not miss out.

We wished for him, you see, his mother and I. We both wanted nothing more than to be parents. Each of us, alone, from the midst of our previous and interesting (albeit unsatisfying) lives daydreamed a child of our own. A miraculous occurrence. Here he is looking at me (with just one eye now, he’s getting snoozy). In that previous life I would have quietly asked myself, “What are the chances of that?”

Now, I know better. Things just got more interesting than I could have imagined.

One day I will fruitlessly try explaining this to him, knowing full well he will merely have to stumble around until he discovers it on his own as I did. I will likely blather on saying something like, “Baby, life is what you make it. Thoughts become things. Choose only the best ones.”

This is the beginning of a little boy. Imagine a small, special box tucked discreetly away within a very large place, filled with moments, pictures, and stories, all notions of a little boy named Daschel.

My first niece was born today! Stella Calease Bakken was born in Ames, Iowa around 8am CST: 7 pounds 7.5 ounces, measuring in at 20.5 inches. Mama and baby are doing well. We’re in love!

I think about water. A lot. I think about water because it has this exquisite power: water can change dramatically while retaining its original properties. It morphs into unrecognizably different states of matter while continuing to be itself, unaltered.

It is easy to resist change. We are conditioned against it in most of our cultures, generally speaking. Is it a natural reflex to resist it? Many of us make great sacrifice to avoid it. Laws are written and put into place to stymy it. Large, expensive buildings are built to protect against it. Minds are made up against it and reject ideas that even hint at it. Blockades of all sorts are built against experience that may lead to it. The fights against it use energy we don’t even have to spare. In some cases, some put themselves at risk in the process physically, emotionally. Heavy stuff.

Steeped in a culture of change, I anticipate it, ride it, enjoy and thrive in it. They say change is the only thing that stays the same so, even as a child, it was clear: why not make friends with it and welcome such opportunities for growth and learning? I owe my resiliency to having a family that faced many changes and stayed together through each and every one, relying on change, even as it was difficult. We collectively and individually learned to make the most of each one and find lessons in change that could not have been learned from any school. We taught ourselves to live better through it and within it. I owe the quality of my life and my capacity for experience to these lessons and to my family for providing access to them.

Wherever I go I meet people who spend a lot of time, energy, and resources fighting change. Inevitably change wins out and I am forced then to watch them tire and cave into it reluctantly, sometimes painfully. I try and not speak during such situations. I have only the choice to let others make their own mistakes in whatever way they choose. There is no other way to learn. We can try to tell them to just let change take them on the ride and enjoy it, but that doesn’t work. It only inspires them to resist more zealously.

I think about water. While I’m watching those I barely know or those I love with all my heart as they adapt to change, I think about water. I think about how long water has been doing it, changing, adapting, enduring, and yet it does not really change. Water does not waste time or energy in the face of the inevitable. It literally just rolls with it. It finds a way around obstacles. Every time.

I think about children, too. In children lies this spirit, willing to explore change, even revel in it. Somewhere along the line most of us seem to lose touch with a kind of innocent tenacity, the way a child solves a problem in play. The effort to change is transparent in children, like water. They have the ability to exhaustively problem-solve using none of the biased doubt (I call it ‘obstructionism’) often found in grown-ups. We make excuses and use our amazing brain-machines to come up with answers for everything, or create atmospheres of resistance, even subconsciously trying to derail change, arrogantly, ignorantly, trying everything except friendly solutions to accepting it and making it work for us.

Being afraid is no fun. It causes stress. It is no good. It affects everyone around us while we give into it. My strategies for dealing with it is this: I think about water. I think about children. Mostly water. I come from the water.

via Strobist:

My brain is still a little scrambled by the fact that what looks like a shadow in the checkerboard isn’t actually a shadow. It’s a tone.

I will describe keyboards to my son one day in a not-too-distant future when he asks about them. That is when he and I will ask the computer to show us some examples. We will spend a rainy afternoon making make-believe keyboards (QWERTY and Dvorak) out of cardboard and crayons and pretend to type in our queries. The computer will humor us and play along.

It is interesting to think about the ways human interface devices (keyboards, mice, etc) have influenced the way we interact with machines. As I write this, haptics are clearly leading the way into the future. Tt is even more exciting to see how much more intuitive and user-friendly using complex systems will be with access to these interfaces. It is only getting better, in that context.

On the other hand, managing our time, how much we use them, and in what capacities, will continue to be a challenge, along with balancing their use with analog activities like playing outside, for example. For now, typing and staring blankly, alone, into a glowing box in the dark is just one way to spend moments of our lives we’ll never get back. Perhaps, that is what I see as the greatest potential for haptic interface devices, such as tablets. Children are more open to sharing in the physical world with them. Whereas while using laptops they completely zone out even while others are in close proximity. Haptic interfaces allow us to be truly social while interacting with technology.

How will touch interfaces further shape how we ask for, receive, and interpret information from machines in the future?

How do you choose your heroes and icons?

In 1977, I was 5 years old when my parents took me to my first movie but, it wasn’t just a movie, it was a drive-in movie. The movie? Star Wars. Needless to say, it flipped me right out.

Unlike most of my pals, who were drawn to Luke or Chewbacca or Han or whatever, I was obsessively drawn to R2-D2. I wasn’t just into R2, I wanted to BE R2. Something about his character, his utility, his outright usefulness in so many contexts and situations captivated and appealed to me. So, my room had models of R2 on the shelves, my bedside table had an R2 alarm clock, my watch was an homage to R2, and my birthday cakes were more than once adorned with his image in crystalline sugar.

The obsession continued throughout my elementary and middle school years. I might even say it never actually ended. I saw, and continue to see, his influence everywhere. In the functionality of tools, vehicles, and other simple machines, devices, industrial design, consumer gadgets, and systems theories.

Here’s the thing: R2′s sheer ability, willingness, and selflessness to adapt so readily, without fear or delay, to so many challenges on behalf of the goals of his peers inspired me as my family moved around. As a kid, I was constantly having to adapt to new environments, new geographic layouts, people, styles, vocabularies, dialects, the whole thing. Since that wasn’t easy, I often imagined what R2 would do, moving through situations as if I were him, though slightly taller and more maneuverable. Just the idea of him, imagining myself as having his chutzpah, gave me confidence when I needed it and, I admit, continues to influence me to this day. Silly? So what?

Imagination makes us powerful. As children we imagine ourselves as someone else, someone more capable of accomplishing what we feel we cannot. It is through these personas many of us are able to make our first, significant achievements. Whether faced with the adversity of a spelling bee, school play, or the playground rights of passage, we resort to the power of our imagination to envision ourselves accomplishing something seemingly beyond our reach. As we age, some of us seem to either pull back on this while others expand on it and, in some cases, become Jack Whites, Oprah Winfreys, and Michael Jordans.

Success pivots on something simple: the will to believe.

I had the distinct pleasure of spending the weekend with some new pals at a discreet location to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. Naturally, whenever I travel to places I’ve not been before, I bring along “the armored bear,” a trusty Canon 5D Mark II. I made this short vid as a humble “thank you” for their company and for allowing me to share in their revelry:

Unnamed pals preparing to light up the sky at a discreet location.

This year it means something personal. This past year has included a great many changes for your humble narrator. Changes he is grateful for. Changes he had consciously and patiently been waiting for and working towards. These included trading a life he had reluctantly planned for the one that was waiting for him, all along. This is a lesson that has reinforced a notion to always follow his instincts and believe, especially in the face of adversity. As a result, this new-found independence has afforded him many new experiences, uncovered new talents, and new pals. Gifts like these make the gratitude a small price to pay, he’d say.

So, with that in mind, regardless of what the word, or the holiday, meant or means to you in your corner of the world this year, Happy Independence Day. Please enjoy that photo up there that your host took of two of his new pals celebrating the way they enjoy most in a place they love best. Sums it up rather nicely. Click it for a better view. Cheers.

Since becoming a grown-up, there are many things about childhood I remember fondly but one of them I was happy to forget about forever and wasn’t anticipating having to deal with again: allergies. For my entire adult life I was allergy-free living in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. .

In Chicago, I have tried over-the-counter remedies, which all leave me feeling speedy and just “off.” But, wait. There’s a better solution: locally made honey.

Check this out: honey has anti-microbial properties and has for centuries been used for medicinal purposes of all sorts, including as a dressing for serious wounds. It’s also high in antioxidants and tastes real good on cereals, in sauces, lemonade and all kinds of stuff.

The most interesting use I’ve ever heard of for honey is as a natural remedy for seasonal allergies. According to various natural health practitioners, pollen found in locally-grown raw honey works over time to desensitize the body to allergens much like traditional allergy shots.

It’s working for me. The season so far has been allergy-free, even amidst rumblings from pals that it is unseasonably allergy-ish, and I would like to thank the local apiaries for selling multiple varieties of the stuff – it has saved my sanity and will make my summer completely enjoyable. Thanks, all you bees and beekeepers out there.

What a year it’s been so far: