A R C H I V E

America’s 250th anniversary is a cause for celebration and an opportunity to reflect on where this great experiment might be headed.

Those questions inspired the creation of the Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity, not merely to study the future, but to help shape it by bringing together scientists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, artists, and spiritual leaders in pursuit of human flourishing. Over the years, I have explored the forces shaping our past, present, and possible future.

I generally strive to follow Abraham Lincoln’s example by keeping my columns under 300 words. But on the occasion of America’s 250th anniversary, I feel compelled to set brevity aside and share a broader vision of what I believe could become America’s second founding.

Over the years, I have written frequently about the concept of the Fourth Turning. Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe argue that Anglo-American history tends to unfold in roughly eighty-year cycles. Whether their theory ultimately proves correct or not, the pattern is intriguing.

Looking across American history, I notice four recurring conditions that often accompany periods of profound change: major geopolitical conflicts leading to war, disruptive technological innovation, economic displacement among educated populations, and rising antisemitism. All four conditions are present today. If history offers any guidance, we are approaching another hinge in history.

Human civilization has advanced through an accelerating succession of breakthroughs. Stone tools gave way to bronze, bronze to steel, fire to steam, steam to electricity, electricity to computing, and computing to artificial intelligence. Each breakthrough has shortened the time until the next. Human progress increasingly follows a logarithmic curve rather than a linear one.

While Newton revealed many of the governing laws of the three-dimensional physical world, Einstein transformed our understanding of space and time. Today’s atomic clocks, including those maintained at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, make the Global Positioning System so precise that it can often locate us within feet and, under ideal conditions, even inches.

I believe humanity’s next frontier will not be physical space, but the invisible realm explored by quantum physics—a world governed less by certainty than by probability. Quantum science is already reshaping computing, communications, sensing, cryptography, photonics, and materials science. We are only beginning to glimpse its possibilities…

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I want to begin with a confession: I was wrong about Donald Trump.

I never liked Donald J. Trump as a person, but I respected what he had accomplished and believed he possessed something many recent presidents lacked: a willingness to confront America’s adversaries without apology.

In a world where strongmen like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin rule through intimidation and force, I thought America needed a leader who could speak their language. After watching America win wars on the battlefield only to lose leverage at the negotiating table, I concluded it was time for the United States to act like the superpower it is.

I believed Trump would be that leader…

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The Surgeon General of the United States has identified loneliness as one of America’s most serious public health challenges. Mental health professionals increasingly link chronic loneliness to a range of addictions, from overeating and substance abuse to pornography and alcoholism. Human beings are wired for connection, and when meaningful relationships are absent, we often seek substitutes that temporarily ease the pain but rarely satisfy the deeper need.

Making friends and keeping them requires time, vulnerability, and emotional investment. The easiest time in life to make friends may be freshman year of college, when everyone is new, uncertain, and actively looking for connection.

Friends come in many varieties: close, casual, lifelong, fair-weather, and sometimes toxic. In recent decades, our culture has added another category: “friends with benefits,” people who are physically attracted to one another, engage in casual sex, and intentionally avoid the commitment of a romantic partnership…

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The first centuries of Judaism were defined by survival. The Jews built a civilization around a Temple, priests, sacrifice, and a covenant with God. Then, in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple.

Most civilizations would have disappeared. Instead, Judaism reinvented itself. Deprived of a physical temple, the Jews made the human mind their portable sanctuary.

Turning inward, study replaced sacrifice. Inquiry replaced certainty. Learning became worship. For nearly two thousand years, Jews maintained their civilization not in stone buildings, but in memory, books, and conversation.

In 1948, Jews reestablished sovereignty in their ancestral homeland and went on to build one of the world’s most innovative and resilient societies. Having become masters of adaptation, many began asking a different question: how do we live well?..

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Imagine you won the genetic lottery: born tall and handsome into a wealthy family, you go on to create a fortune of your own. Seeking your next adventure, you buy a state-of-the-art sailboat so you can live in style, wherever and however you please.

The safe choice is to dock your boat at a fancy Yacht Club, where other wealthy people keep theirs. You stay in the harbor, use the motor to run errands, visit friends, and enjoy the good life. The highlight of the year is the Fourth of July celebration, when you unfurl your sails to remind everyone who owns the biggest boat in the harbor.

American author John Shedd once said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”

Our protagonist has another option: to sail into the open sea, where there are no guarantees, only changing winds, shifting currents, and endless horizons. In doing so, he discovers that growth begins where certainty ends…

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I don’t know whether Moses parted the Red Sea or Jesus healed the sick, but I believe in miracles, and try to perform a few small ones myself to stay connected to my power.

A digital computer operates by manipulating zeros and ones. A quantum computer operates across seemingly limitless possibilities. If reality is a kind of matrix, then perhaps the present moment is our access point into quantum space — a field of unlimited potential.

How should we communicate with this quantum space? How do enlightened people perform what we call miracles? If our eyes perceive only a fraction of the light spectrum, how do we activate the “third eye” to see beyond what Rumi called the veil of illusion?

Our two eyes look; our third eye sees…

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The only constant is change, and change arrives in cycles.

Every winter, the north wind kills the garden before spring rains breathe life back into it. Civilizations appear to move the same way. Societies rise, decay, collapse, and renew themselves roughly every eighty years. The Bible itself speaks repeatedly of generational cycles lasting “four score” years.

We are approaching the end of a cycle, evidenced by four signs that appear again and again before major societal transformations: war, technological disruption, educated youth unable to find meaningful work, and rising hostility toward visible minorities, particularly Jews.

Today, all four signs are present simultaneously…

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In the past, I have written about becoming a superior man or an evolved woman. The premise is simple: half the population is male or female, only a fraction become true men or women, and an even smaller fraction rise into higher states of consciousness.

In Power vs. Force, Dr. David Hawkins maps human consciousness on a scale from shame to enlightenment. Most people live below courage, trapped in fear, anger, desire, or pride. Men and women begin to mature when they attain acceptance and reason. And beyond even love and peace lies another frontier entirely.

In Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Joe Dispenza argues that human beings are capable of far more than modern society teaches. Through meditation, intention, and elevated states of consciousness, we can heal the body, transform the mind, and access dimensions of awareness once reserved for mystics and saints…

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Last week, I dedicated my column to American soft power in “A Bridge of Hope to Ukraine.” This week, I turn to the harder edge of power: rebuilding American industrial might so that we can once again serve as the arsenal of democracy in a mounting global struggle.

After Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt turned to William S. Knudsen of General Motors to convert American industry to war production. By the end of World War II, the United States had built nearly 300,000 aircraft—at times producing one every 90 seconds. A “dollar-a-year man,” Knudsen proved that America could outproduce all its enemies combined.

Today, the drums of conflict echo again—in Ukraine, the Middle East, and across the Taiwan Strait. This war spans new domains: energy, space, currency, technology, and kinetic force. The arsenal of the future is not tanks and battleships, but guided missiles, drones, missile defense systems, directed-energy weapons, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and fusion energy…

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They say a man can live a month without food, a week without water, but not a day without hope. Viktor Frankl, echoing Nietzsche, reminds us that he who has a “why” can bear almost any “how.”

For generations, America has served as a beacon of hope through her ideals, her institutions, and, when necessary, her power. Yet hope is not sustained by abstractions alone, but must be carried into the world through action.

The stakes are clear in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Far more than a geopolitical conflict, it is a human crisis measured in lives disrupted, families displaced, and communities fractured. Hope in Ukraine calls for action…

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All founding moments begin with uncertainty.

A corporation requires bylaws. A currency requires valuation. A nation requires a constitution. Before structure comes thought—and before thought, philosophers.

The American experiment did not begin on the battlefield, but in conversation. In 1743, Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia to create an environment where ideas could take shape before institutions gave them form.

In 2020, when we set out to build the Highland Institute, we faced a similar question: Who are we, and what do we stand for? We did not begin with programming or capital. We began with inquiry—and called in the philosophers…

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We have seen this movie before.

Since 1979, when revolutionary students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, the conflict between Iran and the United States has unfolded not as a declared war, but as a series of violent episodes punctuated by uneasy pauses.

Operation Eagle Claw, the failed 1980 rescue mission, left eight American servicemen dead in the desert. In 1983, a Hezbollah-linked bombing in Beirut killed 241 U.S. service members. In 1988, the U.S. Navy crippled much of Iran’s fleet in Operation Praying Mantis, signaling a willingness to escalate, but not to finish.

And so the pattern emerged: strike, absorb, pause. Repeat…

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“Know thyself,” Socrates insisted. The Enneagram offers a map, Joseph Campbell the narrative, and life itself the proving ground as I strive to evolve from male to man to, hopefully, something finer still.

Since we cannot see our own shadow, we need a guide.

The mentor appears across time and myth. Obi-Wan and Yoda shape Luke Skywalker through instruction and confrontation, teaching him to face his fears, find his purpose, and trust the invisible forces he resists, until he finally embraces them. Then there are Bilbo and Gandalf. Aristotle offered Alexander not just knowledge, but a worldview that helped him fuse discipline with ambition to bend history before the age of thirty-two.

What unites these figures is not teaching, but ignition. A true mentor sees the unrealized self and calls it forward. This often feels uncomfortable. It disrupts, unsettles, and dismantles what we think we know in order to reveal what we might become…

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Simple ain’t easy. Even a partial fulfillment of Socrates’ command, “Know Thyself”, demands a lifetime of hard work.

The Bible tells us that Moses wandered the desert for forty years in search of the promised land. Beowulf’s journey from fearless warrior to a wise king who faced death alone reveals that true strength is coming to terms with one’s limits and legacy.

Arjuna, the conflicted warrior of the Bhagavad Gita, turned to Lord Krishna not to escape battle, but to understand it, and in doing so, to understand himself.

Rostam, the great hero of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, stood as Persia’s answer to Hercules, guided by his wise father Zal—and sustained by his faithful horse Rakhsh—yet even he could not outrun the tragic consequences of fate and self-unawareness.

Each hero fights an outer battle that mirrors an inner one…

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There is no handbook for launching an institute. While City Club exists to serve its members, Highland Institute strives to channel our members’ collective resources to serve others and, in our own small way, advance human evolution.

Since its founding in May 2020, the Institute has made steady progress. We have established a legal structure, secured nonprofit status, built a team, and attracted generous financial support to sustain our work for years to come. Now, we have begun shaping our identity through our brand, creating a more sophisticated digital presence, and carefully planting ideas we hope will take root over time.

These efforts include launching the Boulder Police Foundation, Highland Institute’s Security Forum, a successful Ukrainian sister-city initiative, positioning Boulder as a hub for quantum computing, and strengthening our culture through partnerships with numerous art and festival organizations. At the same time, we are planning to build a school—Paideia—to educate our teens in virtue…

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We survived another winter. Spring has returned—along with Passover, Ramadan, the Persian New Year, and City Club’s twenty-first anniversary. I am still alive, and for that alone I am grateful. This season invites reflection: to renew old traditions, strengthen friendships, and remember why community matters.

They say loneliness is the #1 epidemic in America. Nearly thirty percent of households contain just one person. Half of marriages end in divorce, and more than seventy percent of Black babies are born to unmarried mothers. Whatever the cause, the social fabric is fraying, and the quiet ache of disconnection touches us all.

As a young immigrant, I knew that ache well as a stranger in a strange land. I dreamed of belonging to a community not defined by race, religion, or blood, but by friendship, curiosity, and shared meals…

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“In the beginning was the word.” In a recent column, I wrote that in Aramaic—the pre-Hebrew language in which Jesus likely communicated—Ab’ra means “I create,” and KeDab’ra means “as I speak.” Some call it magic.

The power of the spoken word reminds us that we participate in creating our reality. We live in a matrix where everything is connected. We are a drop in the ocean and, as Rumi reminds us, an ocean in a drop.

Founded as a modest gold-mining base camp, Boulder has long aspired to become the Athens of the West and the Florence of arts and culture. Over time, it attracted the University of Colorado, Chautauqua, more than thirty national laboratories, and now the Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance arrives at a pivotal moment. The festival faces the loss of its founder and the rapid economic impact of artificial intelligence on filmmaking. Meanwhile, Boulder faces pressures of its own, including a 38% downtown office vacancy rate and declining sales and property tax revenues…

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The philosophical roots of America’s Declaration of Independence stretch back to ancient Israel and Greece—and further still, to King Cyrus the Great of Persia. More than 2,500 years ago, Cyrus built one of the largest empires of the ancient world. Unlike many conquerors of his time, he allowed subjugated peoples to maintain their customs and religions. The Cyrus Cylinder, dating to the 6th century BC, is often described as an early charter of human rights because it records his policy of tolerance and liberation.

Long before Islam, Persians largely followed Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions. In the 7th century, Arab Muslim armies conquered Persia. Over time, Islam became the dominant religion. Yet Persian identity endured. Unlike some other conquered societies that assimilated more fully into Arab culture, Persians preserved their language, literature, and historical memory.

A thousand years ago, the great Persian poet Ferdowsi composed the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a monumental epic that preserved Iran’s pre-Islamic history and mythology. Through poetry, he safeguarded a civilizational identity that might otherwise have been lost…

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In engineering school, they teach you, “The definition of the problem is half the solution.” I have found that to be true in writing as well. Sometimes it takes months to discover not only what I want to write about, but why. Other times, a topic continues to echo long after publication, asking for deeper examination.

My recent column, The Making of a Superior Man, sparked meaningful conversations. Most readers agreed with the premise and conclusions. A few, however, paused at the adjective Superior. They asked, “Why superior? Doesn’t that imply others are inferior? Why not use the term ‘evolved’ or ‘consummate’ instead?”

Others posed a broader question: “Why not write about Superior Women? Or better yet, Superior Humans?”

These provocations struck a chord. Words matter. They shape not only how we communicate ideas, but how those ideas are received. What if I had written The Way of the Evolved Woman instead? Would that have softened the reaction, or sharpened the focus?..

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Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan closed the chapter on World War II. The fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War. For a brief, heady moment, history itself seemed to pause.

Davos became the temple of that illusion. Global elites flew in on private jets to praise cooperation, carbon credits, and frictionless markets. Why build in America if China could do it cheaper? Why harden borders if globalization promised perpetual peace?

That premise is now shattered.

Europe underfunded its defense and outsourced its energy to Russia. NATO became a shield taken for granted. Then came Crimea. Then Ukraine. Sanctions replaced symposiums. Supply chains became weapons. Markets bent to geopolitics.

Last week in Munich, Western heads of state, generals, intelligence chiefs, and defense ministers gathered not to optimize trade but to confront force with force. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech made clear: the post–Cold War holiday is over. America must build a new arsenal of democracy for an AI-enabled battlefield…

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