EDM

Front & Center

Music massages the mind.
Live music brings the body in-tune.

As the mind and body respond to a beat, a pulsing pattern guides us to euphoria. In that state, we access elevated areas of the mind. Music anywhere can provide a version of this, but the loudest line is when we’re front and center.

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Listen to EDM when reading this. Visit the Museum on BenMcDougal.com to get a jump start from the author’s wild filmmaking.

Showing up for live music is half the battle. Once you’ve arrived, grab bottled water and float around the venue to expose a variety of views. This takes practice, as wading in a crowd is an art form. As we trap time with content, these pit stops are also a chance to capture angles that set the scene for storytelling later. Securing drinks at a busy bar, spotting an odd perspective, finding a way into VIP areas, and vibing with strangers is all part of the performance.

With the venue scouted, it may be time to push. Your destination is the madness that is front and center.

Find an entry point and wiggle in. There’s no rush. Be considerate, but you will need to get physical, so don’t be surprised when you’re thrown a frustrated look. Before anyone can get angry, dance with these strangers. Share space and give anyone a reason to smile with conspicuous kindness. With that position fully admired, keep moving.

As we maneuver toward front and center, the mob tightens. Once the main act arrives, it’ll be harder to achieve front and center. Time bravery wisely. Arriving early is easier, but you’ll have to survive longer. Wait if you want, but then the push will be harder. As we cut through the crowd, look for party people shorter than you, creases between groups, or wait until someone expires and then take their place.

When you’ve landed front and center, there’s no room to move within this nucleus of humanity, but there’s nowhere else we’d rather be! Stay strong. Feed into the flow that surrounds you, trap time with stable content, meditate for teleportation later, appreciate outlaw logic, and ride this euphoria to a full escape.

Push to feel the front gate if you must, and always stay here longer than you should. When you’ve sensed absolutely everything, begin your descent. Shimmy straight back to remain centered as you politely let others move forward.

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Music decorates time.

It’s impossible to sleep after experiencing front and center. At home, use the earned insomnia to stitch a story together. The faster you tell this story, the wider it will spread when everyone wakes up looking to relive their own euphoria. There’s nothing that compares to being the artist onstage, but this is a very active way to spectate. 

Extra gears and resources are required to arrive, find, and hold down the front and center, but that’s obvious. Two less apparent attributes help fans feel this dazzling splendor. First, a certainty in knowing you belong. This boldness may need to be faked at first, but with repetition, pure confidence comes from grasping the radical effort required to get here. Along with knowing we belong, honest self-awareness ensures we know our own limits. How wild can we live when it’s safe and so easy to conform? Push beyond your limits, but there’s no time for short-term mistakes that leave a long-term burden.

As we age, co-pilots are harder to find, so test yourself with solo missions. The lightness is liberating, but beware. When you consistently create content, you may land a media or even an onstage pass. If you manifest this heaven on Earth, poise is tested. Remain affable, make all feel appreciated, and know you are not the show. Be a daring shadow, embrace every single second, and ship the art to feel euphoria all over again.

Brewed From Within
#104 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago

Pebbles

If we keep building, everything eventually connects. Imagine another live concert experience The melodic arrangement is not random. It’s a story that builds.

Before any set starts, everyone hopes the popular hit will be played, but when? Seasoned pros deliver their classics, but know how to stack tiny pebbles to keep the crowd teeming with anticipation. With each hint, the crowd goes nutty, and as the hammer drops, the place shakes. We’ve all enjoyed live music where sequenced sound brings everything together. Impeccable build ups remind us how to stay juicy.

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Turn up the volume.

When delivering your best becomes a habit, it’s easier to remain consistent. Persistence deepens loyalty, connection leads to more connection, and trust leads to more trust. Within such abundance, an appreciation remains on tap for what you’ve achieved in the past, while also brewing intrigue for whatever is next. This converts work into play, and as we dance to our own beat, more individual notes merge to define our song. Over time, we play more songs that become the pebbles in a wall that’s unmistakably you.

Brewed From Within
#105 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago

Replicants

Technologists and futurists have long imagined interacting with replicants. We’ve seen them in the movies. There’s no single definition for what a replicant might be, but it’s not C-3PO from Star Wars. Our replicants will be an artificially intelligent, bioengineered entity that has consciousness rooted in the human (or machine) it originated from.

This humanoid will index everything the originator ever created, map the complexity of their network, understand internalized versus externalized thoughts, have empathy for how the author matured over time, and gain contextual insight from storytelling to form a foundational identity. This identity would find purpose from a digitized consciousness, maintain essential rules, feel a mirrored personality, act the same even when nobody was watching, and stay updated without an altered foundation.

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Days feel long, but years fly by.

Replication should remain a choice, but capacity to interact with our past and future is expanding. Think of how we take photos. Look at the media being captured at any concert. We already use the moment to remember the past. We speak to holograms, watch animals play video games with their brain, grow synthetic realities, and experiment with infinity through the math and physics of big and small.

As the bandwidth of technology reaches escape velocity, what’s stopping us from pressing the record button to store every angle from every moment? At that speed, how can the linear evolution of humanity’s intelligence fuse with the exponential trajectory of machine learning? Even when it’s possible, do humans want such a reflective future?

Thinking about futuristic interactions can summon a desire to amend the way we spend time. Would you live your life differently knowing future generations may interact with your replicant? Therein lies why most of us don’t like the idea of such a daunting, forward-focused souvenir. If we’re always performative, authenticity is lost. Consistency, which most want in business, becomes a drag, and choosing less randomness, never breaking the rules, and pretending life is show would result in mental distortion and altered actions.

Constant attention is less fun, and making mistakes keeps us wild, but might we be less careless if the plan was to leave a replicant behind? This exercise might be less about technology and, instead, using replication as motivation to fully appreciate how every byte counts.

Brewed From Within
#86 📖 Technology

By Ben McDougal, ago

Neon Future

The deep future is the totality of realized dreams. It’s the culmination of how humanity continues to interact. Cultural temptations lurk at every turn, but if we dodge divineness, the neon future will shine bright.

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Great minds think alike.
Greater minds think differently.

As leaders (like you) guide us through the unknown, a provoking question that connects with the genre of this book is, does everyone have an entrepreneurial spirit?

It’s surprising how many say no, but one hopeful response includes a thoughtful caveat: Perhaps everyone has a creative spirit, but those who are able and willing to tolerate risk unlock the opportunity to decipher an entrepreneurial lifestyle. Along the way, technology reduces the need to turn knobs all day, and instead, helps us focus on what all the turning knobs accomplish. With this advancing capacity, more people can scrutinize their own creativity.

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When progress leaves past ideas vulnerable, opportunities await.

Together, we’ll ride the rolling waves of technology. Each wave may be different, but all remain significant and our lasting ambition ensures the next wave will always come.

This ambition honors the luxurious time we share and activates technology with integrity to stretch our true potential.

How we interact with ongoing innovation will determine the shared direction of our kind. It’s up to us to generously interact with a sense of abundance, to creatively leverage technology, and to guide us toward that future. This neon future is entirely unpredictable, which presents an open invitation to be absolutely extraordinary.

Brewed From Within
#89 📖 Technology

By Ben McDougal, ago