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I recently stumbled upon Johnny Harris’ video from a few years ago titled “What I learned by befriending Iranians on Facebook”. In it, he talks about how, in an effort to better understand the situation in Iran in 2015, he reached out to a couple dozen Iranians online to hear their stories. This act of befriending, talking with, and hearing stories of Iranians — a group that Harris admitted he had viewed through the West’s media lens as militant and hateful to a large extent — ended up humanizing the Iranian people in a way Harris wasn’t expecting. ...

In technology, a protocol is a standard and agreed upon language that allows different systems to communicate with each other. It’s the idea underneath every layer of technology that is allowing you to be reading this right now. The web is based on protocols. It’s a paradigm that focuses on freedom, on accessibility, and on interoperability. Protocols grant the ability for anyone to access, use, and build on top of the work of those who came before them. Especially when it comes to the internet, protocols allow anyone to build their own website, or their own app, or chat/email/social-media server. The protocols of the internet make it so anyone trying to do those things is working on a pretty level playing field. We’re all dealing with the same networks, the same rules, and the same bits and bytes. We all start with the same digital Lego blocks to build what we want to build. ...

It’s something I think many of us realize at a conceptual level, but I wonder how often we make decisions or align our lifestyles accordingly. In reality, it’s wisdom that goes back millennia – “It’s more blessed to give than receive.” Making something, building something, creating something is naturally a better use of our time than consuming. We were arguably Created to create. But thinking of our lives, both digital and physical, how much of our time is spent living this out? ...

These past two weeks I had the supreme honor of taking the Permaculture Design Course on the Greening The Desert project in the Dead Sea valley, Jordan, where they have succeeded in turning a plot of completely dead desert land into a thriving food-generating ecosystem. It was incredibly cool. I had such an great experience meeting amazing people, and learning amazing things about caring for creation. I will surely write more about it in the future. ...

Human civilization has existed for thousands of years — eons of empires rising and falling; of knowledge being created and lost; and of stories being lived, told, written, and retold. There is a LOT that came before us… And there will be a LOT that comes after us. You and I only get a small handful of decades to exist and be a part of it. But the bigger story continues on. ...

There are a lot of reasons single-use plastic waste is problematic. However, completely stopping using single-use plastic can be pretty difficult… Improvement, however, is comparatively pretty easy! Take a minute to think through the single-use plastic you’ve thrown away this week. Are there any patterns? Anything you threw out several times throughout the week? Utensils, coffee cups, water bottles, plastic bags, meat packaging? Note one or two instances that stuck out. There is likely a simple habit change that you can make which will make it so you won’t need to use that type of single-use plastic again. ...

The blank page is scary. It’s unclear what “should” go on it. “What should I write about?” “What should I draw?” “What should I make?” Not to mention, there’s the terrifying element of we don’t want to mess this up! If we leave the page blank, it stays clean. We can have the satisfaction of not having made any mistakes. We know we can walk away without having failed. Leaving the page blank is comforting. ...

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email; not a text message. A letter. When was the last time you wrote an address onto an envelope, and sent it to someone through the mail? It’s probably been a while. Heck, there’s a decent chance you don’t even know the mailing addresses for some of the people you might want to send a letter to. You might not even have paper and envelopes on hand to write and send a letter. ...

Sometimes a reboot is the best option. Sometimes things just get too much to keep up with, and the best option is knocking it down and trying again. Could have been an issue with taking on too much. Could have been lack of good systems for managing the challenges that would arise. Could have been something completely unforeseeable and beyond our control. But regardless, there comes a time where resetting is all-around a better option than trying to push forward on something that’s not working. ...

Most people are familiar with the quote commonly attributed to Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” The implication often being that it doesn’t make sense pursuing a positive outcome using tools and techniques that we know from experience tend to leave us with negative results. The inverse of that idea seems less frequently discussed, but may be even more important: if something you do is giving you positive result, don’t stop! ...