Chip Conley

The data is daunting.

I spend more time in my head than I’d like to admit. Yes, I may come across like some self-actualized guru, but truth be told, I’m often a man on the verge of a nervous breakthrough.

“A new set of faculties seem to be coming into operation. I seem to be awakening to a larger world of wonderment - to catch little glimpses of the immensity and diversity of creation. More than at any other time in my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planets and the sky above. And now I have the time to enjoy them. I feel that old age sharpens our awareness.” - Polly Francis

"Keep your options open."

In the past, I’ve suggested that our body is a rental car we were issued at birth. While we didn’t get any choice in the color or model, we do have some control over how we drive and maintain the vehicle.

Since starting MEA in 2018, there are two articles that have described what we’re doing better than anything I’ve ever written and both of them appeared in The Atlantic magazine (I’d suggest you get a subscription).

A good friend (and MEA alum) recently sent me this observation:

Baja California Sur, where MEA is located in Mexico, is by far the least populated state relative to its land area in the entire country. Because we’re in such a rural place, we have so much beauty to behold.

Let's face it, we didn't structure society to connect with people from other generations. CoGenerate founder and co-CEO Marc Freedman, who is teaching at MEA this fall, calls it "age-apartheid." You go to school with people your age, work for forty years with people roughly your age, and then live in a retirement community or nursing home with people the same age.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Futurist Alvin Toffler (more than 50 years ago)