Finding The Way Home
This blog is first in a series of three that came about one fine evening when causal talk with a close group of people turned into questions about why we do what we do in life — why we create what we create, what kind of relationships inspire us, and what self-realizations change us. It seems to be true that behind every long stride we make, there is a beacon that graciously carries us through many adversities. It carries us with passion and a soothing sense of confidence. In search of what that beacon is, here is the first post — Finding the Way Home — the story behind Hamlet, a social network for glorifying locals (our neighbors) and their passions.
The first concept idea of Hamlet came about when I least expected, and at a place far and away from most of today’s leading technology.
Couple of years ago, after exiting the medical technology company I founded in 2006, I decided to explore some of the places I have never been to and dearly wanted to see. One of those world’s corners happened to be Alaska. You can imagine what Alaska would look like, but once you get there, you quickly realize its vastness is far beyond anything you can grasp: Summer days are endless, rivers are boiling with life, and adventures are awaiting everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. When you open the door in the morning, you can safely assume there is a moose chewing on your belongings outside, patiently awaiting your company. Intriguing and petrifying all at once. However, what surprised me the most were — the people.
By the end of that summer, on my flight back from Anchorage, I came to one clear realization: What made my stay memorable was not the mountains, fjords, valleys, or rivers . . . and I had seen a lot of them. It was the people. It was their passion and their willingness to share that same passion with me — right there and right then. I have eaten homemade food prepared by a local chef, climbed mountains with a local, shared a raspberry stout with a microbrewer who owns a brewery but lives in a tent. I have shared a king salmon dinner with people who spent one entire rainy day with me to catch “his majesty.” I have realized that, it was these people who turned my ordinary set of events into extraordinary experiences. All with a simple act of sharing.
How could have all this happened there, in Alaska? I knew only one person on my arrival, and my old friend, the Internet, has not facilitated anything.
I can’t really say I had an “aha” moment come to me. Strangely, it did not feel as though I discovered anything new at all. Rather, it felt as though I got slapped on the head with a reminder about something I already knew but long forgotten in this world I lived in (and, coincidentally, the world I was flying back to).
Living in one city after another, working with leading technologies, I assumed that I knew a lot. Large goals and broad knowledge were my standards . . . smaller things I assumed to be, well, small — and they were secondary. It seemed as though Information Technology and Social Media has brought us vast amounts of knowledge, expanded our reach, and broadened our horizons — yet, in some other and more subtle ways, has uprooted us from the community we live in, its corners, and peculiarities. As much as we are aware of goings on in the world, we somehow became distant from place and time where our very being breathes and resides, along with the people who we share our community — here and now. The technology is great in delivering answers to general, global questions, such as, “What is the highest rated MBA school?” But that same technology cannot answer question, “What mommy-and-me activities are around, now that the rainy season is here?”, with the same certainty. The former search requires historical data and time. The latter requires another human, another mom, another local, another good intention — and an act of sharing. By the time historical social data and information technology finds the best answer to mom’s question, rainy days might be long gone (along with the free one-day family pass to the Disney museum) or perhaps this one mom might’ve moved to a sunnier state. We develop semi-static websites to fit into the world of search engines, and we never update them again. We generalize stuff into dead categories — best coffee place, best restaurant, best hair salon — not realizing that by the time we get to the place of our “best” choosing, the reasons, rankings and words that brought us there are long dead. Somehow, we became experts in “bigger” quantified picture but dismissed the quality smaller world around has to offer.
Yet however small and peculiar our passions, none of them are dead. They are all quite alive. There is something very significant about that. Because they are alive, their potential in affecting other beings around us and changing their day is limitless. Through an act of sharing, ANY sharing, we do just that. An act of sharing becomes a live seed that carries on and connects us. It connected someone else to me, and I ended up carrying it further, connecting me to someone else. Because these passions are alive, they take many forms around us: It is a passion of a microbrewer toward his beer, a chef toward her favorite dish, a musician toward tonight’s live venue. In its most essential form, it is a mom’s passion toward her child. These passions are so rooted in the present and now, revealing, authentic and real — so very human — we can truly experience them and take them in . . . and then carry them on, to others around us.
The thought came to me: what would happen if we turned technology values upside down, to look more like us — alive. What if instead honoring dead knowledge we celebrated passions living through people around us? If we gave them live voice, how far would that voice reach?
That is how Hamlet came about. Hamlet celebrates people. Here and now. It celebrates locals and neighbors. It celebrates that we are alive. Here and now. It celebrates moms, pet caretakers, theatre junkies, coaches, bargain hunters. It celebrates our smallest and biggest passions so they can reach others and realize some part of their limitless potential.
