Newsletter

Hey Legend,

I am grateful for the responses to, and reflections of, last week's newsletter. It feels that 📝Spoken With Kindness struck a chord—and a curious one at that.

One such reflection came from 📝Judy Estrin; an internet pioneer and, as Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard put it, "the most influential Silicon Valley woman you've probably never heard of." Judy co-created TCP/IP and, since 1981, has co-founded eight technology companies. She has served as CTO of Cisco as well as on Boards of Directors for Disney, FedEx, Sun Microsystem, and more. She's a total badass and is one of the wisest people I know.

Judy shared her appreciation for my "furthering the cause" which struck me as an interesting choice of words. Was she referring to kindness as a cause? Was she suggesting kindness needed advocates and supporters? Then, she linked me to an article she'd recently co-authored that clarified her meaning.

"For all the good the internet has produced," Judy writes, "we are now grappling with effects of 📝Digital Pollution that have become so potentially large that they implicate our collective well-being. [...] The internet [has] evolved from a tool that helped us do certain things to the primary surface for our existence. And the more we depend on technology, the more it changes us."

While this clean up might feel daunting to contemplate at a global level, the collective response to the 📝"I Have Been Thinking!" Text seems to have illuminated a solution; a remedy gracefully summarized by my cup of tea.

Reflecting on my dating anecdote through this lens; the kindness with which my date had communicated was her being the light, my sharing of her text (with her consent) was me spreading the light. And, now, we're both able to travel light knowing our truths were heard. In this, we live the light we co-created.

The secret of this wisdom—from Yogi Bhajan—is that it's accomplished in reverse. And it seems this was the "cause" to which Judy was referencing.

When we communicate without kindness, we create digital pollution.

It's important that we remind ourselves—often—that the tools which we use to connect are not what makes us connected; it's love and light. And, while that might feel true, it can be hard to breathe in while choking on notifications.

As 📝Neil Strauss said, "Our devices and technology have gotten to know us so well that we now need devices and technology to protect us from them."

This is, for me, for me, 📝Spiritual Bro can help. It will be, as Neil D. put it, a kind of 📝Engineered Subconscious; prompting gratitude, bringing kindness back to the forefront of thought, and guiding affirmation of a positive future.

With it, we will be better equipped to avoid the empathy sinkholes of the 📝Authoritarian Technology that is, for now, the primary surface of our existence.

Until that time, I'm curious to know of recent moments when you have caught yourself sending messages that weren't "You" but rather a byproduct of your immersion in the technology. Let's sync on how they could have been avoided and what kindness could have been communicated in their place.

📝Build cool shit and change the world.

📝Brian Swichkow, 📝Manifestor at 📝Mythos One

Sent with 📝Contextual Augmentation.

Contexts

• 🏷️#jto-newsletter