I will always remember being about the age of six on the train in England with my family and looking down the aisle behind me to see a little boy about my age in a row of seats all by himself with a backpack. The train started to move and I looked back again to see that still, no one was with him. He was riding the train alone. Later he pulled out a string cheese snack and with great intent pealed a little strand down to the bottom but not all the way off, so that it was hanging there, dangling. He preceded repeat this until the snack was now transformed into a dangling squid which he bounced around in the air as if acting out some skit. Every time I eat string cheese since seeing this boy alone on the train I go through the same motions of transforming my snack into a squid and while doing so I think about that little boy. I like to think he was running away, starting a life free of the structure of family, school, society… I will always see myself as that little boy, a kid running away from the world with just his imagination to keep him company.
I have experienced a huge amount in the past year. I have no doubt in my mind that it began when I started to believe in myself. I truly believe now that you create your own luck and that it all begins with your mental state.
Imagine wearing a small stylish piece of technology on your head that can record your mental state throughout the day: happy, depressed, frustrated, engaged, etc. Now imagine at the end of each day you could search for the happiest moment you experienced and re-live it by playing back the point of view video that the same device captured. Imagine your doctor has diagnosed you with clinical depression and you are able to search through your mental state data for the moments you experienced the most depression and view the video of the minutes prior to determine factors that could be triggering this. Imagine using EEG to interface with heads up display technology like Google Glass and you will be imagining my dream of the technology I hope to bring to the world. I will be spending my summer in the Orlando, Florida area developing EEG and Eye Tracking software for a company looking to break into the NeuroMarketing field. My first steps towards realizing this dream.
Stephen Swartz has been a friend of mine since high school and I have not since met anyone with more pure talent than himself. We studied percussion together and I was consistently blown away by his musical prowess on any instrument as well as his improvisational creativity. In this day and age when it seems like we are being overwhelmed with new music from laptop producers, I believe it is my duty as someone involved in the music industry to search for and recognize those artists who are putting their heart and soul into their work. Stephen is one of those artists. Google Stephen Swartz Bullet Train and you will see for yourself. Enjoy.
I am always looking to connect with people and learn more so please feel free to reach out to me. If you are in the Orlando area this summer lets meet up and grab coffee! I would say a beer but I am still 20. ;)
Fellow | Kairos Society Founder | Party Cartel, LLC President | JMU Society of Entrepreneurs
Cheers,
Eric Walisko
Harrisonburg, VA
@ericwalisko
[email protected]