I’m out here in the Arizona desert at Skooliepalooza, a cup of cacao in hand, staring at the vast, dusty expanse while an I-Ching reading from this morning echoes in my head. Got Contemplation (20) and Keeping Still (52)—“The ablution has been made, but not yet the offering” and “Keeping his back still.” It’s like the universe is tapping me on the shoulder, saying, “Hey Gary, slow down. Watch. Don’t jump just yet.” Reminds me of that Dao De Jing line—“The way is the way, but not the constant way.” Nothing’s permanent, and forcing a path when the signs aren’t clear? That’s just asking for a headache.
I’ve been wrestling with how to position Agroverse’s ceremonial cacao out here in this chaotic, beautiful mess of nomads and buses. It’s not just about finding a spot where the sun won’t turn the bars into a puddle—shade shifts with the sky, after all. It’s about reading the invisible currents: where folks gather at dawn, where they drift by dusk, and how I weave into this organic vendor street without stepping on anyone’s toes.
Patterns Unraveled: When the Mold Doesn’t Fit
Let me backtrack for a sec. I’ve been onboarding retailers to Agroverse, and I thought I’d nailed the profile of who’d join. Spots like Enchanted Forest Boutique in Chico or Go Ask Alice Apothecary in Santa Cruz—big Instagram presence, thousands of followers, always hosting community events. I signed them up while driving through the desert from San Francisco, feeling pretty smug about my system. Then, bam—two new ones out here threw me off. Whole Body Repair Clinic in Quartzsite, Arizona, with no Instagram at all, and Sanctuary of Healing ARTIST in Philomath, Oregon, with under a thousand followers. Not my typical crowd. Key observation: my outreach filter might be too rigid. Maybe I need a separate lens for these outliers—or maybe my brain’s just too quick to slap a pattern on random dots to ease the mental load. We’re wired for that, aren’t we? Pattern-recognition machines, always trying to make sense of the chaos.Reading the Desert’s Pulse: Sun, Shade, and Social Webs
Back to Skooliepalooza. Eleanor reached out a few days ago to camp with her crew at the llama camp, and rolling in here felt like stepping into a living, breathing puzzle. There’s the physical stuff—sunrise and sunset, where the sun blazes hottest (a real issue for cacao, since heat melts it fast), and how shade moves with the day. Then there’s the vendor street, forming on its own as more buses park in this desert patch, each picking their spot for the next two weeks. Human traffic shifts too—mornings one place, evenings another. And the social dynamics? A whole other layer. Eleanor and Levi, who I often team with at Washington festivals, have a booth, but it’s empty—Levi’s too busy fixing buses, turning their spot into a makeshift garage. Jen’s got the Magic Bus, selling drums and metaphysical supplies, with some Agroverse cacao still in stock. Samantha, Jen’s friend, has an altar for tea and herbs, plus a massage booth, and she’s bought a bag of our ceremonial cacao to serve. I didn’t want to clash by brewing at the same time—competing vibes can turn a space sour quick.I was half-ready to take Eleanor’s empty booth for an official Agroverse setup. But then the I-Ching draw—Contemplation and Keeping Still—hit me like a pause button. I stepped out of my car, heard voices, and wandered to Jen’s bus where a morning crowd had clustered. She’s serving coffee from 8 to 8:30 AM, with Swiss hot chocolate on the counter. A lightbulb went off—why fight for my own space when I can flow with hers? I asked if I could brew a pot of hot cacao alongside her setup and if she’d display our nips and ceremonial bars in a shaded spot by her supplies. She was thrilled. It fits—traffic’s already there, I don’t need to man a standalone booth, and it sidesteps any friction with Samantha since Jen, as host, serves what I brew. It’s about steering energy, not forcing it.
Tech, Bias, and Nomadic Futures
While sipping at Jen’s bus, Donnie wandered over, griping about how Grok and other centralized LLMs are getting loaded with value-system biases. I feel him—nobody wants a tech overlord pushing a worldview. My take? Tech’s moving fast. Chips are getting cheaper, solar and battery tech are soaring—soon, we won’t need these big, centralized models. Imagine offline LLMs trained on your own life, powered by a solar rig on a van. Van Life feels like the rough draft of this—standalone clusters forming, each with unique data. Donnie showed me his Meta Ray-Bans, which were nuts—voice input vibrates through your skull via bone conduction. Wild. But some nomads here call LLMs “tools of evil.” I told Donnie it’s like rejecting the first knife because it might stab someone instead of chop veggies. Tools aren’t the issue; it’s how we use them.We dug into morality and bias too. Donnie said some value systems are just wrong. I pushed back: morality’s subjective, always has been. It mirrors human thought, shaped by culture, which is shaped by geography. Desert folks are direct, resource-tight—harsh climates demand it. Tropical folks? Relaxed, because abundance allows it. Even colonial history shows this—take Singapore under British rule. Laws made for England’s weather and terrain got slapped on colonies with totally different contexts, often clashing or just plain irrelevant. No value system—or AI data—exists in a vacuum; it’s all adaptation.
Flow, Not Fight: A Universal Truth
Later, Jen asked for a divination reading with Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. I gave her a positive outlook for the next three months, linking it to her new Facebook monetization. She loved the interpretation (not so much the rules when I explained them), and a nearby nomad overheard and wanted a reading too. Jen said she admired how I “flow with the universe effortlessly.” I laughed—effortless isn’t the word. I’ve met plenty of social impact entrepreneurs, and here’s what I’ve noticed: the activist types, always fighting the system, often end up broke. My sense? Life’s short—why battle the universe when you can read the energy flows, latch on, and let them carry you? That’s what I’m doing here, whether it’s pairing cacao with Jen’s setup or rethinking Agroverse outreach.Where’s Your Flow?
So here I am, desert grit on my boots, a cup of cacao cooling in my hands, pondering the patterns I’ve missed and the currents I’m starting to sense. Reflections for the day: stillness isn’t idleness—it’s preparation. Contemplation isn’t hesitation—it’s clarity. Where are you pushing against the stream when you could ride it? Got a story of finding your flow—or an I-Ching draw to share? I’d love to hear it below.- Nomad Life
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