I thought it would be fun to write down some of my life goals so that I can see in a few years time whether any of them have come true.
I'm generally the happiest when I'm pursuing several of my values at the same time. The strongest of my values (that I'm prepared to talk about on my blog) are adventure, digital intelligence, music, education, sport, politics and travel.
Money makes it easier to pursue lots of values at the same time, so right now I'm focused on turning my three education companies - edu20.com, edu20.org and edu20.net - into a cash cow that can fund my efforts in other areas. I really enjoy working on innovations in education, so I intend to keep running these companies for the satisfaction as well as the income.
If this comes to pass and these companies start generating significant profit, I plan on adopting a "mobile life style" where I will stay for 1-2 months in different areas of the world. I would select each destination largely based on the AI/Cognitive Science conferences that are scheduled in that area. For example, if a major AI conference was scheduled in Rome, I might stay in an Italian villa for 2 months around that time. Conferences are often located in really great areas of the world, so following such conferences almost guarantees a constant stream of interesting locations. Some of these conferences are near where my family lives, so I'll also be able to be closer to them more often. And since my businesses are web-based and my music equipment is portable, it's easy to take everything with me.
I would like the main goal for the rest of my life to be the pursuit of digital intelligence. I think this work is something that's done best by a small team, so I hope to be able to hire some super-smart team members in the next few years that I can work with to achieve this goal. I haven't decided yet whether our work will be open source, but I think it's likely that it will be.
Composing and performing music is the thing that's actually brought me the most joy in the past, so I also plan on devoting more time to music. With any luck I will blog my first new composition later this year!
Well, that's all for this post. The world can change on a dime, so it's entirely possible that none of this will come to pass. It will be interesting to see what pans out.....
Interesting post and I'm looking forward to reading more from you! I just recently read a book called Biology of Belief in which the author details how cell membranes and computer chips are practically synonymous. It's a good read and I feel like it's somewhat in line with the books listed in the left-hand side of your page. I'm including a link to my blog where I talk about the book a little bit more.
Best of luck on your educational journeys!!
Posted by: Erin Murphy | Aug 04, 2009 at 07:24 AM