What would you do if you hit the PowerBall jackpot?
Paul Allen, Idea Man, had several ideas: space travel, mind mapping and music.
What would you do if you had no money at all?
You would day-dream (travel inside your mind), visualize what you would do if you had money (like Charlie Chaplin, leaning out of the window to eat his home-grown grapes) and of course, go on free YouTube to listen to your favorite songs.
Rich and poor, we share the same hopes, fears and dreams.
The yearning to better ourselves.
Some do it the hard way (monk self-immolation, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela prisoner # 46664), others the ideal way (Bill Gates and Paul Allen).
I like the new tech billionaires.
They are more eco-friendly, more hip (recording studio on Octopus, world’s fourth largest yatch).
They got out of the tech boom and bust, while we continue with the real estate bubble.
Now when I hear of construction build-out, I got flashbacks.
Our next frontier lies in understanding the brain, the diseases and how our psychological make-ups (sub-conscious) dictates or hinders our choices.
We barely understood creativity. How one idea sparks another.
Paul’s best line in the book: often times, failure carries with it the seed of success.
Every so often, someone came along, did or said something that made us think .
We thank them for it. We are challenged by them. We build upon their shoulders, and yes their failures.
Paul Allen isn’t the only Idea Man. But he one who puts money behind those ideas he thinks might work. Ideas and action.
All along, he enjoys coding, playing music and reading. A classic American guy growing up in the 60’s: high-tech and high- touch (Jimmy Hendrix). Jam on. Even in between two cancer surgeries. That’s what life is all about.
Always between chapters. Always being rewritten and revised. Always tried and failed, then try again. Idea Man. Action Man.
Thang Nguyen 555 