Josh Allred's Blog

Deafheads are hearing impaired hardcore Grateful Dead fans that started showing up to concerts in the ’80s. They would use inflated balloons to feel the vibrations of the songs. Today, they have a Deafhead’s sections with ASL interpreters for the songs and large video screens so that the concert-goers can read the lips of the performers on stage.

Going out of our way to let others feel welcome opens so many doors of possibility that enrich everyone’s lives. Connecting to humans makes us more human.

The problem is you can’t travel down both paths at the same time then evaluate to see which one had a more desirable outcome.

Knowing the answer ahead would be really cool but with no adventure what is the purpose?

Precisely because we don’t know what happens next is what makes life so interesting.

This might work. This might not work. You don’t know. Whichever path you go down is up to you though.

When we step on the edge of uncertainty I think that is the realm we feel most alive. Learning to accept our limitations is also the path of a warrior too.

Well, it turns out Miles meets and marries the Queen of Funk, Betty Davis, who then introduces Miles to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone which gives him the inspiration to experiment with the fusion of the trumpet with psychedelic rock. Miles goes on to produce Bitches Brew, one of the greatest jazz albums of all time, and ushers in a new era of jazz fusion. It is later speculated that the name was a tribute by Betty Davis and her girlfriends and that Betty actually supplied the name for the album. On top of all this, Betty was a model and introduced Miles to the fashion world.

All good ideas originate from somewhere. They are borrowed, mixed and matched, blended together to make something new, even stolen.

Miles Davis wasn’t just cool cause he could play the trumpet. He played the trumpet in a cool way.

I opened up a microwave dinner the other night of Indian food from Trader Joe’s and on the box, it said, “Authentic Indian food from Canada.”

So, what makes it authentic?

Is it because they copied the recipe exactly? Is it the ingredients? Is it who makes it? Does the location matter? What exactly are we buying when it says authentic on the label?

Authenticity is overrated. Authentic is part of the story we are telling ourselves. An authentic chef who specializes in Indian food doesn’t always feel like making the same meal. Tonight she may want to make Italian. If she was to be authentic, then we wouldn’t get what we paid for. But since she is a professional, she does her job to delight the people she seeks to serve regardless of how she feels in the moment.

We so desperately want an authentic idea, we are willing to wait before we begin. We have it wrong. Begin and be a professional. Do your job. Be generous. Share your ideas. Be brave. The authentic parts, the genius, will seep through as you are engaged in the world.

With so much information shared, it has never been easier to change one’s mind than it is today.

Each of us has an opportunity to exchange error for truth but there is an emotional cost of discerning this avalanche of information at our fingertips.

Here’s the challenge:

Instead of using the information to change narratives, we use it to reinforce old ones.

It’s difficult to admit one has been wrong. There is also this door that has simultaneously opened–now that you know this now, how will you behave?

The room for growth here is truly endless.

What’s the point in having free speech if you don’t exercise it? The same can be said about the freedom of the press or the right to assemble.

Many before us have fought and died for these freedoms that are so abundant today. But when is the last time anyone of us assembled a protest?

It seems risky to take a stance in our reactionary culture of today. After all, you might go to jail or receive backlash on social media. And yet, if you can’t push back on the status quo, those in power seem to stay in power.

When we exercise these freedoms, that is when the power structure works for us.

90’s sci-fi drama, X-Files, was a hit because it tapped into the public mistrust in the government and conspiracy theories. Most episodes end without an explanation breeding more skepticism. “The truth is out there.”

Juxtapose that to the kids show Scooby-Doo, where at the end of each episode there is a reasonable, logical explanation to the paranormal. Every time, in fact, it is attributed to foul play.

There is nothing wrong with being open to wonder while being skeptical. But we also must not reject the reasonable, logical explanation rather than assume there must be a larger conspiracy in play. Big claims require lots of evidence. We waste a lot of mental capacity when we reject science and math to fight gravity.

If you are going to learn how to play baseball, you are first shown how to hold a bat.

If you are going to learn how to play guitar, you learn to hold a G chord.

And the same is true for riding a bike.

Economics are different. Because we are all born from different sectors with different advantages. Some just have none.

Some things are difficult to even understand because you need 10+ years of higher education before you can understand the math.

This is what I love about skills that can be learned. In most cases, we are all starting at the same spot. So, you can appreciate the contributions experts are making in their fields because of how long it took in the first place to even get there.

Facebook lost half a million global daily users in the fourth quarter of 2021. A drop in a bucket when Meta hosts 1.93 billion total daily active users. As a result, Meta shares are now down 20%, not because the business stopped working, simply because the market thinks they might have topped out. So, we move on.

There are limits to growth even when almost 2 out 7 people use this product every day. So the question we have to ask is, why are we working to be so popular? If everyone is using it, then we must dumb it down. Therefore, if everyone is using it, it wouldn’t be remarkable then.

It’s not just Facebook. We saw this with Amazon, Uber and WeWork. What makes the shareholders happy is to see the imaginary numbers go up. Running a nonprofit, I can tell you people are sometimes generally confused when we ask for help and their response is under the mindset of “What’s in it for me?” It isn’t easy to turn on this mentality of “What can I give?” or “How can I help?”

Benjamin Franklin said, “death and taxes.” Another old proverb states, “Only three things in life are certain: birth, death, and change.”

The point is there are not many guarantees in this life. You can literally count them on one hand. Almost everything can be taken in an instance. And always looming in the back of our minds the amygdala is reminding us we can’t live forever. The clock is always ticking.

No wonder human beings are so stressed when we know the only thing certain is someday it will all end! We all need to come to terms with our own mortality in some way. In the meantime, as a reminder…

Life is supposed to be lived. To be consumed, spent, loved, failed…Take a punch. And to stand on top of a mountain to see the sun rise. To smell the salt from the sea. You can’t stay forever. That is sort of the beauty of it all. We get a glimpse.