The Day After Tomorrow

My problem, you see, is one of communication.

I live in the future. It's too far a commute for me to work "today," where most of you are stuck. I live in the day after tomorrow, so most days I try to compromise and meet you in the middle (although the temptation to telecommute from home is huge).

Except we've developed new ways to coordinate and new modus operandi in the day after tomorrow. Crafting narratives and reading novels on smartphones and transferring them to laptops via cards the size of coins that carry more data than every computer in the world had in 1970, or better yet, bring these incendiary packets of words directly to the web. Denizens of the future coordinate business in different cities, on different continents and sometimes on entirely different worlds. So, apologies to Jasmine Guy, but "try me."

I'm trying to tell you something.

Stepping into tomorrow, I sought out like minds. Talents that I thought could see all the way to where I live, and beyond. The problem is that "today" holds a lot of things that draw that vision and that attention away from looking ahead. Taxes, shootin' the sh** with your friends, moving vans, paychecks, sleep, romance. All admirable in their own right, but all happening today. "Be mindful of the living force, Obi-Wan." Yes, yes, but the man with the plan kept his eye on the ball that's bouncing now while engineering the score he'll make tomorrow, and the extra point that comes next door to where I live.

I overestimated my reach, and I failed in my desire to share some of what I've learned, so high up above the field like an offensive coordinator, with three men who still could easily surpass me. I owe them a great debt and a sincere apology for that, which I will only in part honor by never taking down the work we did together. Everything else I'll have to repay in time.

In the mean time, I went home -- to the future -- and regrouped. I have never been very good at instruction. The patience required, the grasping the learning styles of others ... its no easy feat for me. But many have asked and may seek knowledge, so I will instead reformat this space -- The Hundred and Four, named after the ambitious but ultimately failed work of my namesake -- into a place where I can leave breadcrumbs that could lead you through tomorrow. This website will be a place where I can illustrate the blueprints for what I believe -- what I pray -- is a finer world, seen through web links and analysis ("blog fu"), micro fiction (a passion of mine now I've rediscovered the science of the vignette), writing assignments (which I will showcase and then do, and anyone who wants to play along is welcome to do so) and what have you.

"Isn't that what Micro$oft does? Change the definition of success?" Not at all -- what happened before failed. This is something new, without Sanaa Lathan. It uses words that I considered anathema before -- hope, for instance -- in the seamless web of a paradigm shift that is essential to choosing joy.

Hopefully this time, there's a message you can hear. I'll be right here, ready to tell you, if you'll only -- as Erule so emphatically wished -- listen.

The End Of The World As We Know It

I don't wanna dwell on the end of things too much, but I've gotta close down the past before I can go back home to the future.

The following text is from an email sent to Rumond Taylor, Ritch Hall 2 and Chinedum Richard Ofoegbu ...

Hey, everybody.

You're fired.

I hate to say this, but based on what appear to be irrefutable facts, in my life as well as yours, I don't believe that any of us have the stamina to participate in the program I originally envisioned. It's just not in us. To be seven months behind on a fairly insular assignment with no remote display of trying to get it done (or even, in the case of Ritch's video-game playing tweets, interest, given the hot potato assignment he caught and never submitted anything for), combined with my impending scion ... it's just too much. We can't get it together.

Which is not, by itself, a bad thing. We're living our lives. We're handling things. We're paying bills and trying to keep significant others happy and breathing as Black men in a world seeking our destruction. I am not writing this with a whiff of anger or disappointment -- it simply is what it is, and I'm as guilty as anybody of de-prioritizing this work, and even more stupidly, trying to do it in public before I had the machinery in a well-oiled state.

Which is not to say the lessons are over. I will be reformatting the website (and keeping all your work online, so worry not about losing the reference should you wanna have that) into a sheer blog, where I'll combine my regular blog fu about a wide variety of topics (currently slated: technical, futurism, random, writing and a few more I don't remember) with an interspersing of the lessons I planned to teach you, complete with exercises. Who'll do 'em? No idea, and even less concern. If you'd like me to look over your stuff, or post it, sure, no problem. I'll surely post links to any of your work I see, as well as maintain the Pipes feed (while probably taking myself out of it, as I think I hogged it up anyway).

But The Hundred and Four as we currently know it is dead, and that's just the way the cookie gets stomped on and completely obliterated. You owe me nothing, and we're all good.

I hope to see more of each of your writing, outside of my own umbrella (ella, ella, ey, ey, ey). Shade and sweet water, travelers. We will speak again.

So there's that. In case you missed it.