"Welcome to the 'childhood dream age': let's embrace it". David Lipschitz's Letter in the Cape Times on 30th January 2017

So tonight (Thursday 26th January 2017) I attended a talk on our energy future.

The crowd was young. New people. New dreams. In a modern "co-working space".

And yet the discussion was the same as my generation have been having for the past 15 years.

Who will pay for nuclear energy? Why do we need it? Do we need the dinosaur industries that need base-load power? If we have a decentralized grid, how will the poor get their free electricity?

The same discussion. The same fears.

And yet whilst we myopic South Africans stay trapped in our insular world, people like Elon Musk​,​ who escaped these confines, are inventing our future.

It is one of electric vehicles, massive storage systems, 80​% fewer cars, no servicing requirement​s​, no parking garages (a huge opportunity for the poor to move into the city centres), a massive reduction in the need for fossil​-​fueled power, self-driving cars, no need for petrol stations.

We are heading into a massive change over the next 15 years. Nothing can stop it. The tipping points are near.

And the opportunities are immense, not just for the rich. But also for the so-called "poor", who have an immense latent talent.

We are in an age that I call "the childhood dream age". Finally our children's dreams, and our dreams as children, can be reali​s​ed.

It is a dream come true. If we fight it, we will lose. If we embrace it, we embrace a world where machines, not human machines, do the physical work, whilst the mental work gets done by super​-​brainy humans.

The​ Industrial Revolution's education system needs a complete overhaul. The answers are simple, but not easy to implement, mostly due to inertia​, but also due to our habit of not listening to our children.

And every single human on this tiny planet is a super brain, a super computer, able to do more than the biggest most powerful machines that we can invent.

For millennia we have hidden in work and in war whilst ignoring the depression that seeps through our society. We finally are at an age where we can focus on ourselves, where everyone will finally be equal, and where opportunities will abound to "fix ourselves" and bring the ​Messianic Age that we have dreamt about for eons.

Will we continue with the same conversations we have had for as long as we can remember?

Will we continue to ignore the tide of change and bury ourselves in work, and in our fears?

Or will we be children again, inventing and being a part of a future that we have always dreamt about?

I look forward to our new conversations and to everyone being able to enjoy the abundance that we have on our planet, together.

David Lipschitz
Milnerton

Need for nurturing. David Lipschitz letter to the Cape Times published Friday 13th January 2017

I called the letter: How to get rid of the fires and bring the rain

Photo from UnSplash: Morgan Sessions

Imagine growing up in an environment where you are told that everything is "common sense".

Imagine growing up in an environment where you are asked, "why don't you know that?"

Imagine you have a friend who says to you, "you should have known that!"

You feel insecure. You worry. You develop anxiety and maybe even become depressed.

There are so many depressed and anxious people in the world. Anxiety and burn-out are so prevalent that Arianna Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post, has left the Huffington Post and started an online service called Thrive Global. Thriving is defined as prospering and flourishing.

When reading books about Einstein and other famous people, one finds a common thread. Einstein played with magnets and iron filings as a kid. When one moves a magnet through iron filings, the iron filing move around and create patterns. Einstein was fascinated by these patterns. Einstein's parents didn't tell him to go and play with his friends. They bought him more magnets and more iron filings! I have read so many more stories of people who are "doing well", who were given this special mentoring by their parents.

I am lucky to have this special mentoring in my relationship with my wife and with my peers and colleagues at work. We nurture each other and we become "better". Imagine how different the world could be if we would fix this part of our relationships in our families and with our friends and colleagues.

If we nurture each other and bring out the best in each other, even if someone's best isn't specifically interesting to us, or we think they could do better as an all-rounder, even though they are really good at a particular part of our (should be their) lives, then an opportunity opens to heal each other.

This healing energy will pervade our world. Our friends, our animals, other people, other animals and nature will feel this presence and these special energies, and the rain will come.

It might not happen overnight, but if we don't try, we won't know. So, today and every day, let's nurture (original text was: "let's fight the fires ...") and find the good things in each other, and let's bring the rain.