From the Bible to Einstein to Feynman (and surely thousands of places inbetween), a moment occurs in which an idea is birthed. Accepting the concept of linear time (which may be a convenient illusion), first there was silence, or emptiness, or (for some) a headache, and then there was an idea, a breakthru, a Eureka, a never-before-contemplated question. Unlike most physical births, when the mother is generally aware she is pregnant, a non-material birth has no known gestation period, or even awareness on the part of the birther (whose physical gender is irrelevant) that an idea is being prepared for delivery into consciousness. The imagery might be that of one taken by an observer looking at the earth, within which a seed is slowly working its way to the surface. It is only when the seed pops up into the light that the observer "sees" the seed, even though it was there all along. Anything may happen once the idea-seed is born. The observer, disliking the seed, may try to pull it out by the roots (think the British resistance to Ghandi, or the Klan's resistance to MLK). The observer may not notice the seed, or may alternatively aggressively nurture it (think JFK's invocation to put a man on the moon). Nothing happens, tho, without the appearance of the seed, save the passage of time. Einstein noted that "imagination is more important than knowledge." Imagination is a seed-nurturing environment. What follows are some seeds that have popped through the surface. They may be weeds, they may be flowers, they may be a new source of protein or a staggeringly efficient carbon sequestration system. That determination comes from the observers, who may be indifferent, manic, or mindful.

Word it Forward The idea here is to create a process which transitions to a time when certain words are so old that they are not only no longer being used, but they are no longer in dictionaries. Even digital resources no longer reference these words, as they are entirely out of the realm of the current consciousness. These words, which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and phrases, refer to specific things as well as concepts, ideas, paradigms. One needs to imagine reading about them in an online reference tool, as if one were a concept-archeologist, curious about what life was like “back then”. The concept-explorer may have to stretch her mind to imagine what a particular entry would look  (smell, taste, operate) or feel like. It is presumed that such a reviewer would find these entries not just hopelessly old, but descriptive of a civilization that is (thankfully) relegated to the far far distant past--mentally, emotionally, physically impossible to be restored. An example of a word found in this reference tool would be "war". By creating such a reference toolbox, which imagines a future civilization where, for example, the entries that represent physical items (think "thermonuclear bomb") are no longer in museums, having long since either disintegrated or been destroyed, (perhaps more appropriately transformed by the word “recycled”), our current paradigm can be seen as having an enormous transformative upside potential. To the extent that we will have so thoroughly disregarded a word that its only remaining location is in some hard-to-find archive, that whatever physical aspect it might once have had is so culturally valueless that it no longer actually exists, we will have hopefully eliminated some of the most self-destructive aspects of our (now current) personal and collective psyche. If it doesn’t exist in the mind, and it doesn’t exist in reality, we can say that we have evolved. The further idea here is that this word/concept repository is a summary of the collective aspirations and wisdom of those who maintain it; it is neither designed nor intended to be the result of one person’s perspective. The repository is entitled “word it forward” as a varient on the concept (made into a movie) “pay it forward”, in which we bootstrap ourselves by imagining a world where words (items, actions, ideas) currently dominant in the collective psyche of the planet are seen as no more relevant and applicable than used toiletpaper, truly out of sight and out of mind. The bottom line: the word/concept repository describes words (and any associated objects) whose very existence is incompatible with the imagined collective paradigm of an evolved psyche. Yet this is not just a static reference dictionary to the past. Since we are creating it now, pretending we are in the future looking back at where we are now, we must specify how we are going to transition from the frequent use of a specific word/concept to a period when the word has been eliminated from use. I imagine an online tool which allows participants to: suggest words (phrases, concepts, etc.) that need to be eliminated suggest methods for how to make the transitions necessary to eliminate the need for these words rank or rate the methods select the most highly ranked methods for implementation create processes that track, fund, manage, enable, prioritize, ensure success in achieving the goals. The interested reader can pursue this further.

Information tools (internet, powerful, ubiquitous and inexpensive computers, cameras, phones) change the rules of engagement between consumers and producers. Deceptive practices can be exposed and distributed world wide in minutes. The contention between producers who might not want you to know about where, or by whom, or under what conditions, or when, or with what ingredients, a product was created, then shipped, then stored, then put on a shelf, and what you might want to know about all of these factors, might be limited only by one's imagination as to what questions are important, and one's capacity for information overload. I am not a student of this contention. I understand there have been (and I expect there will continue to be) huge disagreements over labeling products and services. Manufacturers have fought vigorously to prohibit consumers from knowing nutrition information, or what the ingredients are, or even the design of the nutrition pyramid. Consumers are asking more questions: is this a fair trade product? How far did it travel to this store? Was it created by people being paid a fair wage under decent working conditions? What environmental hazards might surround its production? Answers to these kinds of questions raise the bar on understanding and trust. Can I trust (REI, Eddie Bauer, Safeway, Ford, ...) to produce sustainable, or made in America, or organic, products regardless of their claims? Imagine walking into a store with a new information tool. You tell it what your criteria are (local, or organic, or made without harming animals, or sustainable, or...) and as you walk through the store, those items that meet your criteria are colorful, while everything else is in black and white. You can create profiles: for a grocery store, for a clothing store, for a gas station. The tool creates, in effect, a label system customized to you. You don't care about organic? Suddenly all the vegetables are in color. You care about GFCF (gluten free, casein free) foods because your child is ADD or ADHD or ASD? Suddenly over 90% of the store is in black and white. Was this product produced by a sustainable energy resource? Does this product meet the Google "do no harm" standard? How about the packaging? How about disposability? What does buying this product do to U.S. / China debt payments? International trade? Carbon Dioxide generated? Effect on your body mass index? Impact on your chances of getting a heart attack? Does this product feed your addiction? Feed your limbic brain or your Higher Self? By combining criteria you can whittle down the choices to something that has meaning and value for you. You can tweak anything: colors, intensities, perhaps adding in a scale (1 to 5) for nuanced ratings. Manufacturers might go berzerk. Rating systems would have to be trustworthy. (You could choose which rating system provider(s) you trust). You would get far more information than that supplied on the package by the manufacturer, but only if you wanted it. It might be that what you thought was cheap was harmful, or was unfair, or was more expensive in the long run. It might be that you choose more carefully, learn about what this product is really about, learn whether it is good for your kids.

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