Gift Hub

Saving Polar Bear Families, too

When Audrey and her Tutor have serious work to do, in owning and saving the world, they retreat to her enormous wooden toybox, and sit facing each other soles pressed to soles, peddling as they ruminate. Audrey’s coverlet is pulled over the top of the crate, making a canopy. Master Jack and his protege, Master Bliffil,  are on other business bound. They may be talking to Momma about Family Systems.  Trust Protectors. Mentors. Black Sheep. Heirs, in general, and Audrey in particular, as Asset or Liability on the Family Balance Sheet. Who knows what all. Our business is different. “Did you know polar bears are falling through the ice, Tutor?,” Audrey asks. “How can we save them?”

Connected but alone? On Sherry Turkle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4&feature=youtu.be

Yes, of course, conversations are dying as the neurochemistry of the social is studied and manipulated by Silicon Valley. Yes, Facebook or Twitter could be optimized for humanity, built around love rather than money. But why would they do that, Sherry? The best products are addictive and extract value invisibly, walled gardens as seductive as a casino.  And we idolize those who do this. Destruction and reconstitution of humanity on an owned platform is their achievement. The costs are externalized. 

To convene more humane conversations, for the benefit of self, family, and society, among internet-addled humans, our fellow citizens, across our tribal divides, is a fool's game. (To which, therefore, Tutor and I are well suited.) What does it pay? For those with the skills to do it, the proper fee, based on education, years of experience, value of the work, its rarity, and the opportunity cost of providing it,  might be $10,000 to $20,000 a day plus expenses, first class, with limo service from the airport. The proper audience might be "super-citizens," and/or those who advise them on leading a flourishing life, within a dynastic family, while the world falls apart. In market terms that is the fee, and the audience, and I have the agendas, the experience, the temerity, the connections, and all the collateral.  Then there is the beggar's bowl, the shared bottle of bum wine in a paper sack, the Dumpster and a vow of poverty. If you want wisdom, the only price is free, because it is not for sale at any price and acquiring it is suffering unto death. But for more money I will give you what you need (worldly-wisdom) to advance the well-being of you, your family, and your business - while the world falls apart. I know it is wrong, blasphemy and sacrilege, but, at my age, my looks shot, my body and mind shattered, I have nothing else left to sell.