…just released yesterday. I am very happy (read: thrilled) with how this turned out, thanks once again to the brilliant folks at Citrus Suite (they so “get” my stuff). As many of you know, while I am not anti-technology I do believe strongly in limited screen time. But I also feel that since technology is not going away anytime soon then we need to use it and shape it for the good. And I so am working on creating tools that activate people (instead of turning them in to passive users). It is my hope that “This is Not an App” does just that by turning you into the master of your device. No longer do you have to wait for an app to tell you what it should be used for! Now YOU can choose what it becomes, and imagine what it CAN become, whenever you wish. I always loved the idea of a piece of technology that was formed in the present moment by the user’s imagination. A kind of Borgesian device that transforms into whatever you can conjure up in your mind’s eye. This is as close as I can come at this point.

I am reminded of the words of my magician friend Ferdinando Buscema in his Three Secrets of Magic, (which you, dear reader, should always remember):

1. Reality is not always what it seems to be.
2. Imagination creates reality.
3. Reality is made up of words.

This line of thinking is continued for me by Wendell Berry in his 2012 Jefferson Lecture, (which I am still thinking about every day, I confess that I have a bit of a Wendell Berry obsession of late),

The term “imagination” in what I take to be its truest sense refers to a mental faculty that some people have used and thought about with the utmost seriousness. The sense of the verb “to imagine” contains the full richness of the verb “to see”. To imagine is to see most clearly, familiarly and understandingly with the eyes. But also, to see inwardly with the minds eye. It is to see not passively, but with a force of vision, and even with a visionary force.

I love that phrase “visionary force”. It makes me feel powerful and invincible! And so, let us go out into the world, re-animating and re-imagining every nook and cranny with our own personal visionary force!

(I forgot to add, you can find them here: itunes, android)