# Pioneering Spirit 

> "If we can summon up the spontaneity and creativity of California, we can transform what is a breakdown into a breakthrough.” - JB

**Published by:** [Pioneering Spirit](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/)
**Published on:** 2024-03-13
**URL:** https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/pioneering-spirit

## Content

Dear Reader,Fourteen ten years ago I took a road trip up a California coast with a couple old friends. That physical journey mirrored another as I got very curious above a place I call home.California has a fascinating history that really isn’t told in school beyond the hokey missions kids build in third grade or maybe a field trip to pan for faux gold.This place is where the future happens first, America’s coming attraction, obsessed with the young, the next big thing on the horizon.Somewhat paradoxically that fixation on the new seems to increasingly blind us to bonafide frontiers. Instead we seem to spin in circles making the same mistakes. Boom and bust baby!After my trip ten years ago I wrote an epic (in style) poem. With a few more adventures under my belt, I thought it’d be fun to pen another.My sincere hope is that it offers some inspiration for another path for addressing the problems we face — or at least shredding all the gnar as you surf the interwebs today.Cheers!PASing us the epic of California, Muse,speak through your hills, your surf, your skiesGuide us as we take our cruisethrough the mists of memory and time.The bold words by the state capitol implore“Bring me men to match my mountains”No one can deny that Shasta or the Sierras soarChallenging the worlds best to meet their mightLike Queen Califia whose amazonian warriorswore gold while riding griffiths,living “very near the Terrestrial Paradise”Californians’ achievements echo into eternityOr at least ripple across the interwebs these dayswhere one surfs a superhighwayAnd pays homage to the high prophet Steve, who gave away Jobs,etching “designed in California” onto every magical device.Great artists sign their workon the boulevard of broken dreamsSharing stories immortalized intofifteen minutes of fameLured first by tall talesof gold literally littering the streamsUnbelievable, impossible,more far fetched than an island of amazonsAs the reports kept coming in,what felt like fiction turned into factHundreds of thousands rushed to stake their claimfrom across the globeEvents condensed human historya city transformed from squalorSan Francisco grew from tents to America’s tenth largest city,close to where it ranks todayFrom primitive pans to moving mountains with water machinesthe obsession with gold built denim empires and fortunes from pickaxesAn intoxicating Dreamwhere anyone might make their pileBoom begot boomAnd millions kept comingTo stake their claim, carve a mark,“undertake the expedition”As the words once read in the state capitol displaying Columbuswho miscalculated the distance to Asiaand tricked the local tribes with a terrible truthThat he needed gold for his affliction of the heartWould the First Californians buryall the gold awayif they only knew whatRuin that useless metal would bring?Death, disease, oblivion for an entire way of lifeThe last whom simply called himself IshiThe Yahi word for man,Since no member of his tribe lived to introduce himOddly we do not celebrate such an indomitable spiritlike we do the frenzied search for a useless metal,really rather odd when you reflectAlmost as if Columbus’ affliction was real.Consider the first humans who actually discovered this landthose persistent pioneers who journeyed vast distances on footImagine trekking across miles and miles of icewith only a few furs and fat fueled fires to keep you warmPerhaps as we look to the next frontiers,not the same ole bits and bytes and devices that delight(until they distract us into self destruction),But the wide open whitespace ready to be exploredWe might look to that itch to explore new landsTo be the first to look over the next horizonGuided by nothing more than one’s wits and the starsAnd also remember it takes a tribe to get anywhere farOr if we insist on echoing the gold rushWhy not look to the actual ArgonautsNot those who set sailed in search of gold in 1849But those who actually build and create and discoverLike the globe trotting heroes from ancient GreeceTodays Argonauts come from distant landsBring unmatched skills to bearAnd beat tremendous odds to accomplish something never done beforeThey come from the four corners of the compassYet somehow many still call California West of the WestWhile surfers look to spot waves rippling East from JapanWaves outrunning words from long forgotten worldsCalifornia’s always been first a fable, a myth, a dreamthen found bits and pieces in the hardscrabble soilYet the story has gone a bit stale,a bit too twisted in the same loopsThe Gold Rush again and again,a boom, a bust, a boom,The Great Exception acting the Great Adolescent,immature and refusing to own up to its responsibilityContrast beautiful visions of a new tomorrow: the LA River restored!pretty pictures sitting on a shelf for decadeswhile San Antonio and Seoul actually fix their waterwayA sad state for a city made famous by a water engineerIn a state that set the standard for visionary public worksThe world’s first tripartite system of higher education!The State Water Project can be seen from Space!Monuments to a bygone era of excellenceThe obvious truth is, despite our best efforts, we’ve grown flabby and complacentOur zillions of overlapping governments create impossible complexityJust try to figure out what the local public health orders actually meanLet alone how to figure out how to build a new home here“Blow up the boxes!”Shouted SchwarzeneggerBefore the armies of inertia trapped the Governator like GuilliverTo get a different result, we need to think outside the boxDo we even need a department of horseless carriageswhen everyone’s popping into driverless podsAnd the real databases that govern our liveshave cute names that rhyme with McDougalhttps://krystof.litomisky.comA Look at the DMV That Is, and the DMV That Should Beby Krystof Litomisky on A couple of months ago, the rear license plate was stolen off my car during the night while it was parked outside of my Los Angeles apartment. Only the rear license plate was stolen; the thief was likely after my registration stickers, which wouldn't expire for almost a full year.Yes it’s trite to compare Sacramento and Silicon Valleyand sure self driving cars are always just a few years awayyet where is the vision for what comes nextHow do we actually achieve all of California’s great goals?https://medium.comHow ending traffic in LA will save the world (or the opportunity for a breakthrough in global...This week California Governor Brown will host the historic global climate action summit with other global luminaries this week in San Francisco. The goal is to show the overwhelming groundswell of...Global climate action now!Environmental justice and equity for all!A bastion of progressive valuesYet where is all the progress? When will we actually practice what we preach?https://www.usnews.comCalifornia Struggles With Economic InequityThe Golden State hasn't improved its economic mobility since 2010, according to a new index.Dreams of home ownership more and more out of reachpoverty on the rise punctuated by rampant homelessnessproblems piling on problemsWith a new virus creating a long overdue reckoning...May we use this long pause as an opportunity for a much needed look in the mirror..Is not now the time for bold action?..To venture unafraid into the new world transformed by Covid?..To go forth and boldly build the world we wish to see...The late, great Jeff Lustig put the matter eloquently when he said:To take a few stabs at some pragmatic #zanyidea (™ by @vr00n )…...Maybe, just maybe we should stop pretending that in person meetings at obscure times are the best way to engage the publicMaybe, just maybe we should not go back to pretending 30 students sitting quietly in a classroom is the one true formula for their successThis plague year has put such examples front and centermany more aboundIsn’t it time that California the great adolescentfinally grew up?Maybe, we might remember this time aroundthe truth that pioneering anything newgenerally requires both individual actionAnd a village to raise the proverbial new childMaybe we might finally act on all those plans and proposals put forward during California’s last big bust a decade ago, only to be put back on the shelf when the boom returned.Maybe this time we might fix the root causes of that California government so convoluted, complex and completely incomprehensible and frustrate so many common sense solutions to our problems.[That quote is from A New California Dream, a curious little book that you should totally check out that just so happens to be by yours truly]The state of politics today only underscores the urgency of Royce’s invocationa philosophy Governor Brown invoked in his inaugural addressand which has only become more aproposAs more and more challenges pressHuman augmentationNuclear winterClear eyed about the challenges aheadremembering where we’ve beenand knowing it takes a tribeWe might summon the courage to burn the proverbial wagons and find another awayPerhaps we might even look beyondthis narrow patch of soilto go forth andPioneer a New California in the open sea or far away amongst the stars###(Or maybe Elon already has a different name picked out for the first city Mars)

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