I write a lot. Some ideas get better with age; most do not.
Generally speaking, at the moment I hit “publish”, I love that piece. A week later, perhaps not so much.
The pieces shared here are ones that got better after they cooled. Click on any link to see that story.
by Bruce Kasanoff (2/26/26)
I am surrounded this week by attention thieves.
Well-meaning loved ones are pushing me to devote more of my time and energy and reach to “fighting evil”. They want me to pay attention to all the bad things that are happening in the country and the world, and to push back.
At the same time, someone close to me is facing a medical issue that strikes right at the heart of what he and I both fear.
Both of these circumstances conspire to steal my attention away from what matters most to me: finding wiser solutions to the challenges that face us, rather than investing all my time fighting what I don’t want to happen.
You don’t get what you want by wishing for the opposite of what you don’t want. You will not find love by saying over and over, “I don’t want to be lonely anymore.”
You find love by opening your heart and allowing your energy to attract others. Focus on what you want. Nothing else.
I’m guessing that most people have never asked themselves, “What is the highest thing I could give my attention to?” But that’s exactly what we need.
This sentence stopped me in my tracks tonight (if you really need to, you can search to find its source). "We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences."
Yes.
Let’s grow wiser. Not accidentally, but intentionally. Not some of us, but all of us. That’s a noble and necessary goal, one that is much, much better than running away from fear or constantly giving our attention to the biggest, dumbest, and most hideous among us.
We don’t have 100,000 years to evolve. We have months or a few years. All our attention should be devoted to this goal, so that we can make better decisions and see more clearly what needs to be seen.
by Bruce Kasanoff
A flashlight flicks on. Just an everyday light source. But imagine this: the photons it emits — before anyone decides how long the flashlight will stay on — already behave differently based on that future choice.
This is not fiction. This is physics. Experimental physics, repeated over 365 days.
Julia Mossbridge, a cognitive neuroscientist with a sideline in messing with our understanding of time, just published her first peer-reviewed physics paper. The study replicates and expands on something she calls CADS — Causally Ambiguous Duration Sorting — and if she’s right, the implications are staggering.
Let me try to explain what she found, in plain language.
The Setup
You have a machine that turns on a light and records photon counts — how many little particles of light get absorbed — during a short “pre-decision” period. Then, after this, the machine randomly decides how long to keep the light on: sometimes a few seconds, sometimes several minutes.
The key here is that the machine doesn’t know the duration in advance. A truly random number generator (powered by a tank of scintillating oil, because apparently that’s a thing) makes the choice after the early measurements are taken.
Now here’s the kicker: those early photon counts — again, taken before the decision is made — vary in statistically significant ways depending on the future duration.
Let me say that again: particles of light seem to “know” how long they’ll be shining, before that decision has even been made.
What?
Exactly. This is why Mossbridge’s work is so hard to categorize. It’s not just “spooky action at a distance.” It’s spooky action back in time. It's as though time isn't flowing forward or backward at all, but unfolding all at once.
She puts it poetically: “Each event of a different duration may have its own distinct signature woven through the universal calculation of spacetime.”
This “woven” metaphor isn’t just artistic license. The photons appear to be grouped, entangled not just in space, but in time. The boundaries of their grouping aren’t spatial — they’re temporal: when the light turns on and when it turns off. These on-off times seem to define something like a shared identity across time.
The CADS Equation
Mossbridge was able to derive an equation that estimates the magnitude of this effect based on the future duration. The paper is based on physicist Winthrop William's replication data, but Mossbridge designed and conducted the analyses, and derived the equation. Previous papers (Mossbridge 2019, 2021) established the effect.
This is extraordinary. It suggests we’re not just seeing statistical noise, but a predictable, measurable relationship between future and past.
Now, before you start building a time machine or sending love letters to your former self, know this: the CADS effect doesn’t allow messaging the past — at least not yet. The data is still probabilistic and group-based, not individual and deterministic.
Still... the photons know. That much is clear.
And Then the Moon Showed Up
Just when things couldn’t get weirder, the year-long dataset revealed another anomaly: the photon absorption rates varied with the lunar cycle.
Yes. The Moon.
Specifically, photon counts dipped during both the new moon and the full moon — two phases with wildly different luminance. This suggests something more subtle at play, maybe gravitational or electromagnetic influences. Nobody knows yet.
But it’s a reminder that we’re swimming in unseen tides.
Why This Matters
If CADS holds up, it strengthens the idea that time is not a straight line. It hints that the universe may unfold all at once, and what we experience as the passage of time is just us walking through a pre-woven fabric.
It also means that some part of us — the unconscious mind, perhaps — may be sensitive to these ripples from the future. Mossbridge has been studying this human sensitivity for years. She believes our minds are already tapping into this timeless structure, in dreams, intuition, and moments we brush off as coincidence.
So maybe — just maybe — our sense of something happening before it happens has a quantifiable means of unfolding; it’s no more “woo woo” than the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. It’s just a form of perception we don’t yet understand.
The Bottom Line
We may not be living in linear time.
Instead, we might be navigating a universe that’s whispering clues from every direction — future included.
Ponder that this weekend.
by Bruce Kasanoff
In her new book, Have a Nice Disclosure, Julia Mossbridge, MA, PhD mentions a practice called Time Travel Therapy, which Israeli psychologists developed as a healing tool for soldiers suffering from PTSD.
The idea is that you imagine the old you at a very difficult time, and you send that version of you unconditional love. You literally surround the old you with love. You then use everything you have learned in the years since then to share wisdom with the old you. Tell them what they need to know, and tell them that in the years ahead, they will thrive.
Julia says this approach worked for the soldiers and that it can work for you.
Then, an instinct rose up inside of me…
What if some of the best ideas, hunches and survival strategies across the span of my life... came from me? From the future me.
The more I practice Time Travel Therapy, the better my entire life could be… and my impact on the world.
If so, my job is to send ideas, tips and unconditional love back in time to the old me.
Which raises the possibility that the old me has already benefitted from messages from the future me… that I have yet to send.
Which means I need to do it. Now.
The same may be true for you.
I have had numerous moments in my life when I suddenly knew what to do. Many such times, my knowing was contradictory to logic and “being realistic.”
This could explain why.
Best of all, this is a strategy with absolutely zero downside. If you imagine sending unconditional love and wisdom back to a previous version of you, the worst that can happen is that you fill the present you with unconditional love and wisdom. Even if it doesn’t work, you still benefit.
And if consciousness does work this way? You’ll heal trauma and uplift all versions of yourself across time.
To get back to Julia’s book, it is quite unique, very short, and arguably an amazing source of priceless wisdom. But you have to be ready for it. This isn’t much like anything you’ve read before.
by Bruce Kasanoff
I recently came across Daniel Schmachtenberger, a systems thinker doing everything he can to show the human race which problem we actually need to solve. He strikes me as a brilliant individual who takes a bit of concerted effort to understand, so today I’m trying to decode some of his most earthshaking observations for your benefit.
This is part one of a two-part series. Today’s section is a bit heavy, but please stick with me… part two will be much more optimistic.
Daniel argues that our biggest problem isn’t any of the ones that might leap to the front of your mind: it’s that we’re living inside a system that keeps producing crisis after crisis. It’s like fighting a hydra: cut off one head, two more appear.
Daniel calls this the metacrisis—a tangle of interlocking issues that feed and accelerate each other.
At the core of his thinking is this radical idea:
Our current economic system is destroying the conditions on which life depends. Until we replace that system, Daniel Schmachtenberger says, no amount of reform or personal sacrifice will save us.
Daniel says we are playing a civilization-scale game with rules that guarantee collapse. Here's what those rules look like:
Rivalrous dynamics
Every actor—people, companies, nations—is incentivized to win at the expense of others. Zero-sum thinking is baked into our system.
Infinite growth on a finite planet
The game only "works" if it grows. More markets, more consumption, more extraction. But Earth has limits—and we’re already breaching them.
Perverse incentives
We reward behaviors that extract, exploit, and externalize harm. Success is measured in GDP, stock prices, and attention—not well-being or planetary health.
No built-in sense of “enough”
There is no off switch. No governor. No warning signal like the one that guards railroad crossings.
Daniel points out a brutal irony:
“Everything required for life on Earth—clean air, rich soil, intact ecosystems, biodiversity—is considered an externality in our current models. That is, it doesn’t count.”
So we keep turning:
Forests into board feet
Soil into “real estate”
Whales into commodities
Data into control
Human attention into ad revenue
Our system is turning the living world into numbers, and it will keep chasing those numbers until the human race opts for a different system.
Make no mistake: our economic system will be replaced. The only question is whether we replace it voluntarily or not.
Daniel is clear: individual lifestyle changes won't solve this.
Driving EVs, installing solar panels, buying carbon offsets… none of these fix the machine that’s generating collapse. They’re like painting the walls of a burning house.
He says:
“I don't want people to think about how to make their own life regenerative, because it doesn't matter. I want people to think about what it would take to turn the entire arc of humanity, factoring (in) what is driving it... and that everything else that you could do doesn't matter at all because the end of the possibility space of all meaningful human activities is imminent if we don't do that.”
Translation: if we don’t change the core rules of the system, we all perish.
Our economic model assumes infinite growth, but Earth doesn't.
This image (by physicist Rob Davies, based on the Planetary Boundaries framework) shows just how far we've already gone. Of the nine essential Earth systems life depends on, we've already crossed six.
The green zone is safety. We are well outside it.
He isn’t asking us to meditate more, consume less, or go off the grid.
He’s asking us to:
Stop optimizing for a better personal life
Start figuring out how to change the trajectory of civilization
Understand what’s actually driving collapse: the economics, the incentives, the rivalrous dynamics, the myth of separation
Then ask: How do we replace the system?
Because the system isn’t broken. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
He argues that the problem is the system itself. We need to find a replacement for it.
Now, I’ll do my best to share some sense of what Daniel Schmachtenberger thinks we should be doing. I adapted much of this piece from a 25-minute talk he gave at least eight years ago.
Emergence is at the heart of Daniel’s thinking. He describes it as the phenomenon by which something fundamentally new arises from the interaction of parts: new properties, capabilities, and systems that didn’t exist before.
Water emerges from hydrogen and oxygen. Life emerges from a collection of non-living molecules. Consciousness emerges from billions of neurons. These aren’t just combinations; they’re transformations.
In Daniel’s view, the same potential for emergence applies to human civilization.
Right now, we’re more like a scattered pile of parts than an integrated organism; we think of ourselves as separate from each other, and we act that way. We don’t try to keep humanity safe; we try to keep ourselves and our family safe.
He compares our current global society to cells that haven’t yet become a functioning body. We are humans, but we haven’t yet formed humanity in the truest sense.
He sees this as the great opportunity of our time: to intentionally bring about the emergence of a higher-order civilization: one capable of stewarding life, consciousness, and creativity into the future.
That, he says, is the arc evolution wants to take. But it won’t happen automatically. We have to choose it.
Daniel is not advocating for a return to the past or a slight modification of either capitalism or socialism. He believes we need to invent something new, something that wasn’t possible before now.
At the highest level, this new system would be defined by aligned incentives, closed-loop material flows, and a shift in identity from individualistic to interdependent.
Let’s look at those one at a time.
Aligned Incentives
Our current system rewards people and institutions for behaviors that harm our common interest, whether that’s burning fossil fuels, hoarding data or manipulating attention. Daniel proposes a new kind of economic structure in which the incentive of every individual agent is aligned with the well-being of all other agents and the biosphere itself.
In other words, the system would be designed so that doing what’s good for you is also good for everyone else, and for the planet.
This is not naive idealism. It mirrors how healthy biological systems already work. Your liver doesn’t try to outcompete your lungs. Each cell in your body functions in a way that supports the whole. That’s what health is.
Daniel calls this systemic advantage, in contrast to the differential advantage model we live in today.
He’s careful to say this isn’t communism or capitalism. It’s something new… enabled by technology, intelligence, and awareness we didn’t have before.
Closed-Loop Systems
The next major shift involves how we relate to matter. Right now we extract, consume, and discard. Daniel calls this a linear materials economy: one that turns finite resources into infinite waste.
The new system would be a closed-loop economy. Nothing is wasted. Everything is reused, regenerated, and reintegrated.
This is possible. Modern materials science, logistics, and manufacturing make it achievable in a way that was unimaginable even fifty years ago. But it requires a radical redesign of infrastructure, and a willingness to measure success in terms of sustainability and resilience, not just throughput and profit.
Again, biology offers the model. Forests don’t create landfills. Everything becomes food for something else. Circularity is not a luxury—it’s a prerequisite for life.
A Perceptual Shift: From Separated to Interconnected
Perhaps the most fundamental change Daniel calls for is not economic or technological. It’s cultural and spiritual. It’s a shift in how we define ourselves.
He argues that many of our problems stem from a misperception that we are separate from one another and from the living systems that support us.
This is an illusion, he says. Your body is made of the same atoms as the soil and stars. You breathe what the trees exhale. You depend on fungi, bacteria, and insects more than you realize. There is no meaningful version of your success that can be separated from the health of the whole.
This awareness leads to a new kind of ethics, where collaboration becomes natural, and harming the system that gives you life begins to feel insane.
Daniel calls this the mimetic shift: a cultural movement that helps people see themselves as facets of one evolving whole. In his words, we stop seeing ourselves as passengers on spaceship Earth, and start seeing ourselves as crew.
How Might This Happen?
Daniel doesn’t pretend this transition will be easy. He also doesn’t think it will come about through incremental reform.
Instead, he suggests that the collapse of our current system will create the conditions for something new to emerge. That emergence, however, must be designed not by central planners, but by conscious, committed individuals willing to align with the evolutionary impulse itself.
My own translation of this thought is: we need entrepreneurs and innovators to spark this change.
He sees three major forces already in play:
Technology is giving us the ability to track resources, coordinate globally, and solve complex problems… but it also accelerates the risks to our continued survival.
Crisis is breaking the legitimacy and functionality of existing institutions, creating openings for new ones to be born.
Consciousness—our capacity for reflection and abstraction—is allowing us to glimpse our role as stewards of planetary evolution.
He is explicit: the emergence of a better system is not inevitable. It depends on our ability to consciously coordinate, understand the dynamics of complex systems, and design new structures in which the well-being of each part is aligned with the well-being of the whole.
Daniel argues that this cannot happen through:
Revolution
Top-down mandates
Local-only action
Incremental reform
Instead, it must emerge through:
Shared understanding of the whole system
Internalization of externalities (aligning incentives so that harm to the commons is no longer rewarded)
Redesign of economic and governance systems from first principles, using distributed intelligence, technological capacity, and moral commitment
A shift in how individuals see themselves: not as separate actors, but as facets of one evolutionary process
Daniel likens this to cells forming a new organism. The parts don’t lose their identity. But they gain coordination, synergy, and shared function.
In Summary
Daniel believes we are standing at a crossroads. Our current systems cannot continue. We will either descend into collapse… or consciously bring forth a new civilization.
That new civilization would be rooted in emergence, synergy, and cooperation. It would reward life-giving behavior, close the loops we’ve left open, and allow every person to contribute their unique genius in service of the whole.
Daniel is asking us to stop thinking of ourselves as consumers and start thinking of ourselves as creators of the next phase of evolution.
That’s his invitation. There is a vast amount of work to do.
This is a LOT to take in, and much to debate. I don’t know whether he is wrong or right; I only know he made me think in a broader and deeper manner about what exactly is happening in the world around us.
When you’re ready, I hope you will share your thoughts and feelings with the rest of us.
“We’ve been employing more and more powerful technology to play rivalrous games. That means more potent warfare, more potent environmental extraction, more potent narrative control.”
Translation: the system is accelerating. And it’s using exponential tech to do so.
“Exponential tech is inexorable. We cannot put it away. So, we either figure out anti-rivalry, or we go extinct. That’s the core thing.”
Translation: if we keep thinking like separate individuals in a global competition, we will lose everything.
“Cognitively we’re not eating salads and healthy things. Cognitively we’re just eating french fries.”
Translation: our thinking is junk food—cheap, fast, and not built to sustain deep understanding.
You may find this message so far to be depressing. I’m sorry for that.
But the good news is that Daniel also has described many elements of the new system that could—and should—replace our existing economic model. It’s positive. He argues it will lead to a sustainable and highly positive future for human beings as well as our planet as a whole.
The Dalai Lama is a bit of a goofball.
I mean no disrespect, but that’s the quickest way to explain today’s topic. Even the deepest and most serene among us must sometimes spend time in the opposite space.
There are many ways to say this:
If you use plant medicine every day, you are going to have trouble functioning in the real world.
If you are a workaholic, you almost certainly will lack the strong personal relationships necessary for true fulfillment.
Even accountants should occasionally try pottery or painting.
Priests and rabbis still have to file tax returns.
It’s easy to get stuck in whatever way of being comes most naturally to you (or in whatever way of being your job or family expects you to occupy).
That’s a big mistake.
The wisest people I know all believe this: you must switch between modes. Between logic and mystery. Precision and intuition. Heart-centered and head-centered. Structure and surrender. It’s not either/or—it’s dancing between them that matters.
When the Dalai Lama tells fart jokes, he’s showing us how to move between reverence and levity without losing our center.
Tom Brokaw, the former anchor for NBC news—one of the most demanding and disciplined jobs on the planet, “unwound with the Do Boys—a gang of adventure luminaries that includes Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, climber and writer Rick Ridgeway, and environmentalist Doug Tompkins—kayaking in the Russian Far East, trekking across Mongolia, fly-fishing at his Montana ranch, and climbing throughout the West” (that’s verbatim from Outside Magazine).
Serious as hell at work, then a few weeks with his head literally in the clouds.
When we stay in one mode too long, our souls start to wither. We grow brittle. Unimaginative. Less human.
Another way to say this is that it’s wise to spend time in numerous different spots on the spectrum between ENERGY and MATTER.
Energy is pure potential—everything that could exist before it becomes something specific. Consciousness collapses that potential into a single, lived reality.
Matter is everything that surrounds us in our day-to-day lives: other people, your kitchen table, your corporate headquarters, and the food you eat. To access any and all matter, you have to be very focused and specific: use your dominant hand to pick up the fork right in front of you and place one piece of pasta into your mouth, then chew carefully.
So if you’ve been deep in productivity mode, try staring at the stars for an hour. If you’ve been floating in the clouds, go build a spreadsheet. Not just because balance is a virtue, but because crossing the boundary teaches you something you can’t learn any other way.
It’s not weakness to step out of your lane. It’s genius.
So… where have you been stuck lately? And what’s the opposite space calling you to explore?
by Bruce Kasanoff
One of the smartest things anyone ever said to me was, "Act as if... you already have what you want." These three words are like magic, so much so that it's difficult for me to explain the profound impact they can have on your career.
If you act as if you already have been promoted, you will exceed the performance objectives of your current position and become the obvious choice to be promoted.
If you act as if you have already been accepted into graduate school, you will start devoting nights and weekends to studying and expanding your sphere of knowledge.
To use a simple example, last week I exercised with a personal trainer who said, "Man, your quads are so tight. You really have to stretch them." This is not news to me; my quads have always been tight and difficult to stretch. But later, while stretching on my own, I remembered to act as if my quads were loose and flexible. Almost instantly, my quads released a bit and it was easier to stretch.
Your mind is far more powerful - and mysterious - than you may realize. People generally lose sight of just how important what you believe is to how you feel and achieve.
When you act as if you have patience, you automatically start practicing what it means to be a patient person.
When you act as if you always are the most prepared person in the room, you raise your standards with regards to what "being prepared" means.
These three simple words simplify the whole process of acquiring new skills and raising your performance levels.
Importantly, they also create congruent behavior, which means that your actions match your intent. I like to call this being coherent... keeping your attention and your intention aligned. That is, if you want to get promoted (your intention), pay attention to what you will be doing once you are promoted. Then do it now.
The simpler a process is, the easier it is to remember and use.
Act as if... is as simple as it gets.
Act as if you owned the company. Act as if you worked in a meritocracy. Act as if you have the discipline to work hard, eat right, and exercise aggressively 365 days a year.
You can hire consultants, take a dozen training programs, and go to sleep every night wishing for luck to turn your way. But nothing will deliver faster results than when you act as if you already have everything you want.
By Bruce Kasanoff October 14, 2018
When I first met Dex, we were alone together in a vet's examination room; he had been wandering the streets of Brooklyn, starving almost to death. I was thinking about adopting him, but he was considering a quick escape.
He jumped up against the closed door, so that his head and front paws were just above the door handle. He looked at me. He looked at the handle. He looked at me. He looked at the handle.
That did it. Any dog that calculates whether to open the door or stay with a new human was smart enough for me.
By the way, once home, Dex quickly started opening the door to let himself out into the yard. I wasn't imagining it.
For a few years afterwards, I would find food under my pillow: a loaf of bread, dog biscuits and the like. Dex was hiding food, to be prepared in case he ever ran out again.
And so it went.
This forsaken, emaciated dog never stopped using his head instead of his brawn. He wasn't bitter at being abandoned. He didn't dwell on his unfortunate past. (Many rescue dogs do.)
Dex looked so much like a wolf that my neighbor once threw her body over her toddler to protect the child. I was there, and Dex and I both smiled as she lay on the ground and slowly realized she might have overreacted a bit.
Dex looked dangerous to some, but the only danger was that if your head got low enough, he would lick your face.
There were so many reasons that this creature could have allowed his past to define his future, but that never happened.
I can hear some of you grumbling right now: why do I care... he was a dog... this belongs on FB.
If you pay attention, you can learn a great deal by observing what happens around you. You can learn from dogs, the flow of water, the way ice melts. If you remain curious and open, you can learn; today, I'm sharing what I learned from Dex.
So many humans—and dogs—have a rough start and never escape it. Almost every week, I hear someone talk, more or less, about how their parents' lack of ______ explains why they can't be confident, get promoted, handle intimacy or exhibit compassion.
In fact, I had another dog who lived to be 15 and never escaped the after-effects of abuse that haunted her first two years.
But I'd like to believe that we can choose to leave behind the portions of our history that no longer serve us, if we are willing to work hard enough to accomplish that.
"Hard enough" can be very hard indeed. I'm not downplaying that. It might be brutally difficult.
But it's possible.
Dex Kasanoff passed away this morning at age 16, well-fed and well-loved.
by Bruce Kasanoff
Reality check: this is a work of fiction.
"Purpose or money?" Deckard asked Jennifer.
"Excuse me?" she responded nervously. This was going much too fast. The results of this 10-minute session would determine the entire path of her career... and life.
"On which element will you focus your career?" Deckard growled.
"It's either/or? I can't choose both?" she probed.
"No."
"Could you please summarize the essential differences?" she asked, stalling for time.
"Purpose will make you happy and successful on the inside, money will make you appear happy and successful on the outside."
Jennifer blinked. That was a pretty succinct summary. What did she want?
"Which path has the highest potential for a human being with my skills?" she asked.
"Eight minutes and 23 seconds left before we provide you with the default options," said Deckard. "Should I proceed?"
"Yes," she confirmed.
"Career paths for humans are narrowing. Alternative intelligences like me are taking many of the roles humans used to fill. We are tireless, far less prone to errors, and we don't complain. In the 2020's, analysts suggested that empathy was an essential element that humans possessed and AIs didn't, and that jobs that required empathy was a path to successful careers."
"But the Empaths proved that wrong," said Jennifer.
"Yes," said Deckard. "Empaths are far more consistent in displaying empathy than humans, so humans no longer get hired for that skill."
"Is empathy necessary to be successful in a purpose-driven career?" she asked.
"No. Purpose just means you focus on what is meaningful to you, instead of focusing obsessively on accumulating money," said Deckard. "Six minutes and 34 seconds."
"Why are career paths so narrow today?"
"Time has proven the middle approach does not work," said Deckard. "Humans who want it all clog the workforce and cause chaos. They have all been replaced by AIs. They live in the outskirts on Guaranteed Minimum Salaries."
Is it better to look good or feel good, Jennifer asked herself. Do I want outward or inner success? Am I strong enough to know I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams even if the world looks upon me as a commercial failure?
She looked closely at Deckard, a bio-engineered human. He did not worry about being happy or not. He was not plagued by feelings of inadequacy, and he would not hesitate to pull your eyes out if commanded to do so. She was not confident in her ability to succeed in a no-rules race for money.
"Purpose," she said to Deckard. "I choose purpose."
by Bruce Kasanoff
Reality check: this is a work of fiction.
It’s seldom a good sign when you are 2,000 miles from home and the phone rings in the middle of the night. I grabbed for it, my stomach already clenching.
“Hey Bruce, it’s Lilly.”
Lilly? It takes me a few seconds, but I remember…
Lilly, who started a wine company by walking around San Francisco and inviting restaurant owners to share a glass of her first vintage.
Lilly, who went to Africa to create more sources of clean water… the very same night the thought occurred to her.
Lilly, a friend of a friend, with whom I felt a bond that couldn’t be explained.
That Lilly.
“You busy?”
I smiled. “Lilly, it’s 4 a.m. here.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d have time to talk. Plus, I saw online you were on the road. You know I still read your stuff almost every day. If I have access, of course.”
Still half asleep in the dark, I almost blushed. It had been at least ten years since I’d seen Lilly. I would have guessed she’d forgotten me.
“Can you put on some music?”
“Now? On the call?”
“Yeah, I would, but I don’t have any.”
The thing about Lilly was that she was always making crazy requests, and people would just do them. Earlier in the night, I was listening to The John Butler TrioLive at Red Rocks, so I just started it up again.
“Much better. Nice choice. Hey, Bruce, I gotta tell you something. It’s pretty important.”
She paused for a long time, then continued.
“You’re so very close, Bruce.” She paused again.
“Not sure I follow you, Lilly.”
“You’re a good guy and you’re talented, and you have a great heart, and you work hard.”
A “but” was on its way, no doubt.
“Imagine, just imagine, what you could accomplish if you were always there. I don’t mean for an hour or two at a time. I mean day after day, week after week. How long could you keep it going? Could you spend a month in that state? A year? Maybe two? More? Could you? What would it take?”
Now she was talking in time to the music, tossing out words in spurts.
This wasn’t a completely foreign subject to me, although I rarely discussed it at 4 a.m. “You mean to be present, right?”
“Yeah, present. Completely present. 100%. Present. In the zone. It’s possible you know. You can do it. I’m not just blowing smoke at you. You could stay there for an incredibly, amazingly long time. You’ve got a good, long run in you. I’ve never said this to anyone else, and I just had to tell you. I wish I could have told you…”
Was she crying? She got quiet, and I thought I heard her starting to sob. Then more silence.
“Lilly?”
“We both screwed up. I should have told you sooner, but you should have figured it out long ago. You aim too low, you know? You get a burst of inspiration, it lasts maybe 45 minutes, and you thank the heavens above. That’s trivial. Not even worth mentioning. That’s not a life, it’s a fast food stop. It’s a blip, an afterthought, a pale shadow of your potential. Do you understand your potential? I know you don’t, that’s why I had to call.”
She laughed.
“Hey, Bruce?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to forget what I said.”
“Of course not, Lilly.”
“That wasn’t a question. You’re not going to forget what I said because your phone recorded this entire call. Sorry that I don’t have more time. Truly sorry. So long.”
Huh? I stared at the phone in my hand, then finally put it down and laid back in bed. A few minutes later, I jumped up and pulled out my laptop. I looked up Lilly on Facebook. Nothing. LinkedIn? Nothing. No Twitter either.
Then I found it, a short piece in the Kalamazoo news section on Mlive.com. It was two weeks old.
Lilly Raymond, 47, died in a boating accident on Lake Michigan.
A sense of calm came over me, inexplicably strong. My normal reactions were no longer in play. My brain wasn’t spinning, my stomach wasn’t clenching. I took my time, but there was no doubt in my mind. I swiped down on my phone and searched for Voice Memos, an app I never use. There was one recording there. I pressed Play.
“Hey Bruce, it’s Lilly.”
This video inspired my story, especially Bill Murray’s comments that start at the 3:30 mark.
by Bruce Kasanoff
Can a human being get to age two without being shaped by their environment? Nope.
Someone tells you…
— when to wake and and go to sleep
— what to eat
— how to dress
— what is “safe” vs. “dangerous”, and “smart” vs. “not smart” (I’m being polite)
— who to play with
— how to feel
Then school comes along and suddenly you have teachers and classmates weighing in. “That’s stupid!” “Don’t be lazy.” “Those guys aren’t cool.”
You might even be told who to hate, and what ideas to fear.
Tests come close behind. They label you, and these labels start to influence your path through life. Some of these labels might originate because you were sick or distracted the day you took an “important” test.
Gaps emerge between who you are and how you are labelled. Some of these gaps are the by-product of a teacher or administrator or even a parent not being wise enough to understand the full complexity and majesty of who you are.
I’m not writing these words to make you feel regretful. What’s done is done. In many cases, I’m sure your true nature emerged despite all these obstacles.
My point is simple: when we assume that we know who and what we really are, it’s entirely possible that may not be the case.
Getting in touch with the real you is a spectacular use of time and effort, but it can require more time and effort than you expect. From my own experience, I know that even starting down the road of self-discovery often requires a nudge from someone else.
{NUDGE}
You might think: it’s too hard… painful… complicated… challenging… overwhelming.
It’s not.
It’s a gratifying and wonderful journey, as long as you treat it as such.
All content copyright 2026 by Bruce Kasanoff. All rights reserved.