When I find little traces of the world in February 2020 or earlier, it continually reminds me of the dual reality we are experiencing.

It’s funny, sometimes the little details are the ones that resonate the loudest.

It happens for the funniest of reasons… I scroll through the photos on my phone looking for something and as soon as I get earlier than February I see all of the activities that I had taken for granted. Or if I go to look up a charge on my credit card statement and I go back to February and see the charges from the restaurants and remember how common place all of that felt.

As we stay in our cages, looking at each other on a video communication pathway that Illusion Factory pioneered in 2005, I cannot help feeling like some of what the Matrix was projecting is coming true. These reflections remind me of how valuable the smallest things in life were and still are.

I think we are all craving a return to normal, and some are craving it with such intensity, that perhaps they are putting even more people’s lives at risk. When I have that wake up moment and remind myself how much I really value the life that I have been leading, I think it is very healthy to take stock of where things are currently and accelerate the appreciation that I feel for things that I had taken for granted.

It feels very much like dual realities to me which is the essence of why I picked this image and this thought for today. I have every confidence that we will re-emerge and that we are not going to be in this chaos forever.

Let’s hope that society pulls it together so that we can make this happen sooner than later?I hope you have a magical day!

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It’s OK, you just forgot who you are. Welcome back.

Reality is truly perceptual. Any situation can be viewed at face value for being what it is. But as we get wiser over time, we discover that reality can also be viewed through the filter of what is, what was, and what should be.

The opportunity to filter a current moment in time through those simple parameters enables us to learn how to take things in stride, reduce our internal suffering, and project brighter times ahead.

I don’t think there has been a moment in my lifetime in which all of humanity has been trying to leverage these filters in order to get to a brighter future collectively. To change our collective reality.

Some people are suffering considerably more than others right now as a result of COVID-19 and predicated upon how close or how removed you and your family are from those experiences, shapes your perspective as to what we are all experiencing.

I don’t usually spend time on the neighborhood app but as I am signed up for it to be aware of what is happening in my neighborhood, I happened upon a thread in which a few people in Bel Air were sharing an outraged perception that Ralph’s in Sherman Oaks had an employee who passed away from the virus. There were murmurs of litigation and flat out arrogance that triggered me to enter my own response sharing how grateful I was that these employees were in the store and facilitating my ability to shop right after the virus hit. I reminded them that the reality was that this woman in the bakery who passed away was someone’s daughter and I am sure she brought great joy to many peoples’ lives through what she did in the bakery, no different than Kobe Bryant. For them to overlook the fact that this poor woman lost her life by working in a supermarket, if that’s what happened, was a major tragedy in other people’s lives and perhaps my neighbors could be a bit more compassionate in their perception and a little less self entitled when contemplating reality.

There are a lot of tragedies happening as a result of this virus… both physical and financial and all of them lead to suffering. My note for this Monday is a reminder that whatever degree of discomfort you might be suffering through this chapter in history, perhaps it might be wise to take part of it in perspective to enable you to eventually transcend the suffering and emerge into the next chapter of your life.

We all have so much to be grateful for, sometimes starting your day on a note of gratitude can be the single most valuable tool for allowing you to march forward into the chaos and help establish your strength.

I am very grateful to have you in my life, in my reality, this is why I take the time to send these. Wishing you a very happy Monday?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How do you see reality as being perceptual?

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Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and it comes to the point where it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it’s unnecessary. – Eckhart Tolle

When is a light sentiment, no longer light?

When the rest of the world seems so overwhelming that every extra smile counts.

The confusion, fear, apprehension, stress and massive distraction layer can be overwhelming to all of us.

So I thought that my Sunday quotation today would be an invitation to all of you to consider spending an extra few minutes of your life today going out of your way to make someone else smile. Send them an old photograph of them that you treasure, a funny meme, a link to a video on YouTube that will make both of you feel joyous.

In the end, it is not the content that matters, it’s the effort on your part to go the extra distance to make another human being feel warm, cared about, and appreciated.

With all of the insanity that we are navigating our way through, I cannot help but feel that a few extra generous helpings of warmth and appreciation will go along way.

I was talking with a friend on Friday who expressed that “I hit my button and this quotation goes out to all of you with a single press.” I explained that that would create a group thread that would be untenable for everyone and shared that I send these out one at a time to each recipient. They asked me why I would take the time to do that every day?

That answer is simple.

Because I can.

Make someone smile today, it’s one of the single best investments you could ever make in yourself.

Wishing you a gorgeous Sunday❤️

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What was the last thing you did just to make another person smile?

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Be the reason someone smiles today.

The power to stir another human being’s emotions is so appealing to the artist’s personality. I think that variable is certainly one of the core motivating factors of any artist whose work is for public consumption.

I know that one of the great attractions to making films from my perspective is the opportunity to hold an audience in my hand (metaphorically) and alternate between a range of emotions from laughter to fear to joy to sorrow and back again. That is the kind of power that I crave.

I have always felt pride in the fact that the right piece of music or film or television show or even the right commercial can make me experience it through the fish-eyed lens of tear-stained eyes.

I treasure that quality within myself because deep inside it bonds me to the artist who was able to accomplish that and makes me feel great joy that their artistry was so powerful, moving and persuasive as to trigger my emotions.

Itzhak Perlman is so incredibly talented and his performances are truly breathtaking. My note for this Saturday is to share that great artistry must always be supported by society because artists with real power are most able to tap into our deepest emotions and allow us a tender moment of being human.

Wishing you a tremendous day. Step out of your shell and enjoy the sunshine. The sunrise at the beach this morning was magnificent?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What power do you exercise to positively stir another person’s emotions?

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The thing is that I always consider myself lucky that I can actually cry listening to some music. – Itzhak Perlman

There are so many moments in life in which we are at a fork in the road. One pathway goes to a very potentially safe haven in which we repeat what has always been done in the past.

But at each one of these forks, we are also offered the opportunity to contemplate the road less taken… which requires a choice to evolve.

Evolution is not necessarily fun, easy, even desirable. Sometimes it’s just outright mandatory. While our specie does it’s best to contemplate how we survive this crisis, there is more than ample opportunity to consider new paths of evolution. During our lockdown, I have read many accounts of how people have spent their time and one of the stories that connected with me was Newton…

Over two miraculous years, during the time of the Great Plague of 1665-6, the young Newton chose to evolve as he developed a new theory of light, discovered and quantified gravitation, and pioneered a revolutionary new approach to mathematics: infinitesimal calculus.

I’m sure he would have rather kicked back on the couch and eat ice cream while watching Netflix, but that wasn’t his option. Instead, he dug deep within, and visualized his contribution to the world which would last for centuries thereafter.

Wishing you a very luminous weekend. Stay safe❤️

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Evolve or repeat? The choice is yours?

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You are being presented with two choices: evolve or repeat.

If there is one consistent aspect of humanity, it is the unwillingness to continually accept what is as being what will always be. But you can never change things by fighting the existing reality.

Homo sapiens are determined to evolve and change the entire world with them. It is both the strength and the core weakness of our specie.

As we collectively emerge from our caves and reawaken into the reality of the world we left behind, there will be many things that are just as they were and there will be many things that are going to change. It is just the nature of life.

Buckminster Fuller with Kenneth Snelson created the geodesic dome… A spherical shape that was able to sustain far more pressure than other structures.

These kinds of thought processes arise out of necessity and catapult humanity into all sorts of new chapters and new experiences and a new reality.

I am very excited and optimistic about the future as I believe there are many of us who are readily producing the next chapters. A fear of change is normal, but it is impractical because if there is one thing that is consistent, it is change.

So while freedom comes from being at ease with the certainty of uncertainty, there is a liberation that arises out of a collective hope that we as a species on this planet have new visions that will take us past this chapter and allow us to look in the rearview mirror at this moment in time as yet another blip that catapulted a giant evolution in the right direction.

Wishing you a very happy and productive day?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: If you could make any one thing much better than it is currently, what would you pick and how would you improve it?

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You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. – Buckminster Fuller

It seems as if the United States is coming to a precipice of having to choose and thereby make a decision between saving an economy or saving a fragile segment of society.

It is not only an unfair decision to put anybody into, but it was also an unnecessary one born out of lack of preparation and an irrational determination to fracture governmental organizations which have been in place to protect us in the event of these kinds of medical disasters, while simultaneously acting like ostriches with their heads in the ground ignoring all advanced warnings and eliminating the valuable early days of preparation that our country might have taken.

Now, we are left in complete and total reaction mode, having lost our first round of proactivity and any ability to choose our proper course of response, in favor of a desire to erase prior accomplishments of the public servants who came before this administration‘s tenure.

Turning a page means being more cautious about bold next steps whereas closing the book is taking a righteous irreverence to the world around oneself and doing selfishly only what serves the individual.

If wearing masks in public can substantially compress the amount of infected people, is it such a large price to pay for everybody else to work together to squash this alien force that is doing its best to kill segments of our society? I personally do not think so.

If you have elderly or frail people in your world, do you see them as expendable in favor of a healthy stock market? Would you choose to intentionally sacrifice another person in favor of an increase in the DOW? I doubt that. I don’t think turning a page is going to be the long term requirement, but I do believe closing the book on erratic and irresponsible behavior starting with our top leadership in this country is a mandatory decision for the long-term survival of the people of this country.

I’m sure I’m not making friends by being outspoken. Some might even think that I am part of a deep state. I am a patriot that believes in the country and loves the people of this country even if they do not completely see the world through the same set of filters and values as I…that is the power of the United States of America. A large body of people who identify with the constitution of the United States and who are willing through legal discourse to work together in progressive paths of new solutions, new decisions and innovations.

I miss the world that we left behind as much as anybody and wish very much to be able to choose to go right back into it. But if somebody is asking me to choose to wear a mask to help create a certain degree of safety for the society that I inhabit, I see that as an easy decision and a small price to pay.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you think? What would you choose?

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There comes a time when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book.

I picked today’s quote for a host of reasons. The foremost one is that we are clearly living in the Twilight Zone right now. The humans are kept in cages, the animals are coming down from the mountains and wandering in the cities. We are all talking to each other using electronic devices when what we really want to be is face-to-face.

So at face value, it was a nod of the head to Rod Serling. But in taking the time to turn this into a quotation it really gave me pause to consider how much this one particular quotation impacted my life. I was young when the show was on first run and it was by far my favorite show. It sparked something in my imagination that nothing else had ever touched.

I think when an artist finds that epiphany that transcends them into completely new territory, it is one of the most magical of all human experiences.

When you read the quotation verbatim, it stimulates an evocative concept that is alluring and mystical.

The Illusion Factory was able to engage with the Twilight Zone franchise twice over its many incarnations and it remains to this day one of my all-time favorite intellectual properties. I just did not want to actually be living in the Twilight Zone!!

So on this beautiful Monday morning, here is to originality and creativity and imagination. These are three of the most valuable assets that I have ever been fortunate enough to possess. Wishing you a very successful and fulfilling week?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you ever awakened and felt like you were in The Twilight Zone? If so, why?

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It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of the imagination. – Rod Serling