Perhaps my best insights on life, projects, and future plans that I’ve had were while I was on vacation on the mountains of Whistler in British Columbia, near Calton Hill in Edinburgh, or during my time on planes observing civilization from the window.

In fact, that’s where I have written my best blogs and where I’m writing this one. I literally pull up Google Docs and start writing.

I never intend to do this, in fact my goal usually when I’m at these places is to enjoy my time and NOT think about work. But my subconscious gets triggered somehow and as I start writing a waterfall of thoughts starts pouring that’s much faster than the speed I can type in.

The consistency of this phenomenon is very strange to me, and I’m often puzzled by how many new thoughtful ideas emerge simply with different earth coordinates. Perhaps an important heuristic of these places is that they’re new to me, have a vast landscape that stretches endlessly, and are just delicately beautiful.

This observation provokes an interesting question that maybe we shouldn’t be spending too much time continuously in the same city, maybe there’s lots of low hanging fruit innovation a few miles away?

Seattle, Washington, 2024