The Light Triad
One year and 700,000 words later, I have landed on three foundational, interrelated forces that I believe drive all of human activity. As I close the chapter on this project, I wanted to share them with you.
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A year ago, I embarked on a mission to write 365 thought pieces in a process of self-discovery. I had a vague plan: unearth, explore, test and debate anything and everything I could find related to the human psyche, with the hopes of ultimately distilling clarity from dizzying complexity.
The idea came to me after experiencing the alchemy of Burning Man for the first time. In Black Rock City, I encountered a 75,000-strong community of unconnected individuals, but for their unusual degree of curiosity, bravery, generosity, vibrancy and creativity. I’d never seen anything like it. The two weeks I spent helping to build—then live in—the city fundamentally renewed my faith in people.
Over the preceding forty year period, that faith had been consistently eroded until I was brought to a dark and lonely place. And so, the inclusivity I found at Burning Man was a personal revelation—a renewal.
I wanted to understand what made it—and the people who were attracted to the event—so exceptional, so that I could tap into that life force consistently in a decidedly duller world.
Within a month of my return, I sat down at my keyboard to begin the journey of unpacking my shift in mindset. The only plan was to write daily for a year, until whatever came out of it had run its envisioned course.
That day is tomorrow.
It has been, to say the least, illuminating. My deep dive into stories, books, research papers and news articles has expanded my understanding of so many things that it would be difficult, if at all possible, to measure the quantum between my starting and current mind-states.
Hundreds of thousands of words later, the exercise has — truly — transformed me, and with it, not insignificantly, my relationships.
Writing in the format I chose was a protracted mental meditation — a sustained exercise in sense-making. I’ve debated and tested these ideas continually with…
