At the same time, I’m a westerner, living a life as a husband, father, employee, etc. Being enlightened, I have some choice about how involved I get in the normal, cultural, mundane life. Trying hard, in a marriage, a job, and/or as a parent, it’s difficult to be detached. It’s sort of lousy to be detached, too.

When you go swimming, it’s important to get wet. When running, sweat and breathe hard. The same thing in life- it’s important not to stay detached. Dancing is much more fun when you get into it and boogey down. Living life involved is much more rewarding.

But one can easily get trapped inside a persona and its limits. There’s anger and suffering too. I prefer to let those go.

When I was a kid, I skied. When you ski, if you’re too careful, you go slow and it’s not too much fun. If you go too fast, you can lose control and wipe out. It’s best on the edge.

Living on the edge of a character

I didn’t purposely come up with the ideas of PeopleCount. I was studying myself and politics and saw the bullshit of my own understanding- our cultural understandings. My background as a problem-solver helped. So did my inclination as an iconoclast. Once I saw the solution I was impressed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. But it needs to be done. So I began.

I’m not rich. It took me a while to detach enough to part with my salary to work full time on it. I did a fair amount of new thinking about the meaning of money. Is a guaranteed retirement more important than a healthy planet for my kids?

During that time, most of my family members were too fearful to be very supportive. There was plenty of drama. It was very challenging to be their rock and come up with the money necessary to keep two kids in college, cars repaired, expensive Obamacare health insurance paid for, etc, etc. My family and friends couldn’t support me much- I was working lots of hours on it and needed people beside me for hours. I needed partners, not 5-50 minute conversations with people who were holding back.

I found myself depressed at times. I’m a great problem solver, a fair mathematician and a pretty good software engineer. But business planning and marketing were a stretch. Networking and relationship-building seemed to be way beyond skill set. I failed a LOT. It hurt. I gave it everything I had at times. It was enough to open old scars that had been mended and closed for years.

Do you know that 14% of high school students contemplate suicide? 7% attempt it. Personally, I don’t think non-enlightened people should try extreme emotional trips, like adolescence…