Salty Love and Sanity

First off, I would like to say "My Bad!" for being out of touch for so long. My computer flipped me the bird and got an attitude. Yes, I did back up my data in case you are wondering. What a relief when I accessed my back-up account and found all my files. Blog posts, articles, pictures, podcasts in progress, videos in progress, you name it, all there.

My computer is fixed and back in action (Thanks Sal! You are an awesome tech bro!). It took me about a whole month to restore harmony but that's peanuts compared to the big picture.

Lessons?

You bet! Back up! Back up! Back up! Those instants of anxiety and uncertainty quickly become a memory once you confirm your intellectual work is safe and sound. Loving cloud technology!

Anyway, back to business and onto the main topic. What's up with this "Salty Love" thing? Hey, get your mind out of the gutter, ain't nothing like that. The Salty Love comes from the beautiful waters in my backyard, Puget Sound.

Those who know me know how much I love scuba diving. There's a power in salt water I cannot describe and there is a need in me to be close to it and be part of it. The first time I visited the underwater world in scuba gear was one that changed my life, a moment of enrichment and completeness. My fellow divers know very well what I'm talking about.

Alas, many of you also know how I allowed my previous obligations to keep me dry and how I allowed them to create a creeping time gap. "I'll dive next week" turned into "I'll dive next month" and eventually "I'll dive next season". And within an eye blink, a year went by. I regrouped with the best intentions and returned to the water. I promised myself I would not neglect my diving again.

But I did not let it last.

I was still in the process of discovering myself, of learning to prioritize, and learning to step out of my comfort zone. I was in the process of learning to separate my work life from my personal life, and I fooled myself into thinking both could co-exist in the same dimension. The unimportant appeared crucial and again, I started compromising my personal life. And just like that, "I'll go diving next week" turned into "I'll go diving next month" and so forth until without warning, two years went by.

Without realizing, I distanced myself from the world I love so much. I was so overwhelmed I even contemplated selling my diving gear, and had the ads prepared.

Don't get me wrong. That hiatus was a time of tremendous learning and professional growth and has allowed me to help people like never before, but I was lacking balance. I could only see myself occupied every hour with every aspect of what I thought should have priority in my life. Leisure seemed an irrelevant waste of time and going back to diving out of the question and I thought I could close a chapter of my life by selling my gear.

Economic Growth and Environmental Sanity

There are many people who believe economic growth and environmental sanity to be interests opposite of one another. That does not have to be the case. The environmental problems of today are not a result of economic growth or of technology. They are a result of wrong technologies and brainless short-sighted economic practices such as burning the Amazonian rainforests and flooding the atmosphere and the oceans with CO2. And better, smarter technologies stand to add to economic growth and prosperity as much as they stand to reduce pollution and environmental destruction.

In early 20th century, the world moved from candles and horse and buggy to electricity and cars. Many people feared that this process would result in loss of jobs; but its actual result was vast prosperity all around. Transitioning toward better energy technologies is a less difficult task than was transitioning from candles and horse and buggy to electricity and cars. Most of these technologies exist already, and it is a matter of putting them into place.

There people who claim that the problem is not happening are as wrong as are the people who want to impugn technology and economic growth as such. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that, when you flood the air with CO2 while cutting down the trees that absorb CO2, you have big problems. Fortunately these problems are solvable problems. They are solved, while doing no violence to people's prosperity or economic growth, by putting better technologies into place.