The next day’s ride back got a slow start but once we were on the road, we had good conversations.
I found it odd to be in a vehicle with people casually talking about “Barlow†(John Perry) and his two naked 19-year-old nubile young things in his RV at Burning Man and about John Gilmore and Ray Kurzweil (Catherine was a research analyst for him), who they know as friends and not icons of the digerati in the way I have.
I find myself feeling a little strange again, a little fish in such a big pond. Do I have to think of this as schmoozing, as networking, as making friends? Do I want to be in this Silicon Valley network of hugely intelligent people or do I want to work in other ways, creating alternative futures in sustainable ways? Are the two things mutually exclusive? Later, I think. Later I will untangle these threads. For now, it is enough that I am heading back to my love and we have a thousand things to do before we can make it home.