No One Left Behind

When I was younger, I hated school. The curriculum, the schedule, the food - everything was so fixed and inflexible. I wasn’t just bored, I was trapped. There was no room for creative flexibility, curiosity, or just having space to let your mind explore. It felt like a straight jacket coddling my soul. It was mocking me.

There are a lot of memories from my past I tried to forget. I had issues making friends and never really found my core friend group. I was a classically trained pianist, who also played drums and cello. Think Yo Yo meets Animal from the Muppets. I wanted to play bass, but I was too short. “Play cello," my instructor said. It had the same strings, just an octave higher - and a little bit smaller. 

I also wore copious silver bracelets and rings with Kokopelli figures on them. This was in an environment where my high school looked like a J Crew catalog exploded. There I was dressed like some musical shaman wearing offbeat jewelry, iridescent copper dress shirts, and stretch tuxedo pants. Looking out the windows pondering the nature of existence.

I yearned so much for change, that I swear - my mind bent time and actually made the minute hands on the analog clock in the classrooms move backwards. Every class period felt like an eternity. That’s the equivalent of seven lifetimes in a typical school day.

When I finally graduated in 2000, I went to art school. The transition felt like my soul just had an exorcism. The liberation was palpable. Like taking your first deep breath of fresh air after being trapped in a stuffy attic. Finally I had other interesting misfits to explore weird ideas with. Everyone had such novel talents and interesting backgrounds. I was finally home. After each semester, there were effortless waves of personal growth. Old versions of me molted away faster and faster each year.

About halfway through art school, I got into media theory and random esoteric concepts. I found one word I will never forget - quintessence. Quintessence was the fifth element in medieval times: earth, water, wind, fire, and ether. Or the most concentrated essence of a thing - your individual essence. This is what I was searching for in myself. I really had no idea who I was or what I stood for. My spirit felt like a frankensteined patchwork of fractured copies from other “cool” people in high school. 

Somewhere along my creative journey, I came up with a concept called algirhythm. I was taking interactive classes and learning about algorithms and heuristics. Algorithms were precise solutions to very specific problems. Whereas heuristics were quick and dirty solutions “close enough” to wider ranges of challenges. I was searching for a way to tune myself back into my true nature, that was also replicable for others.

Algirhythm was a play on the spelling of algorithm. “Algos” means “pain” in Greek. The “o” in algorithm symbolized the patterns or loops we got stuck in. Why was it so easy to get stuck in painful loops and patterns? How do you break out? Why is no one immune? Maybe this is what it means to be human.

Algirhythm was about tapping into your unique quintessential essence, your natural rhythm or frequency. When you did that, I thought - the solution to any problem presented itself. Almost as if you were in sync with your natural resonance, life flowed effortlessly around you. Maybe this is what manifestation was all about. 

Algirhythm started as a concept, and I used it as a pseudo company name for many years. I use the term loosely as there isn’t a clear “who it’s for” and “what it’s for” I am solving for with my consultancy. Today I’m a product designer, ethical hacker, astrologer, entrepreneur - and none of those things at the same time. I’m just me. I think this is what everyone struggles with today. The radical acceptance of who they are in their truest nature.

The goal of algirhythm was always about helping people identify what resonates (rhythm). Then teaching that person how to connect that true nature with their intuition and individuality (the “i” in algirhythm). That is the only way to thrive and maintain your individual essence in this exponential AI driven world we’re hurtling into. Each of us has an innate carrier wave of creativity to tap into - and that is precisely what each of us is afraid to truly unleash. But if we could, the world would be better because of it.

Today there is so much change happening that people can’t keep up. It feels like change is snowballing and accelerating faster than humans can integrate. I’m not sure if algirhythm solves what it means to be human, but it definitely feels like a solid jumping off point. 

As long as you resonate with your quintessence, the solution will always present itself. When you’re in resonance with your true nature and the world around you, that’s when magic happens. That to me is what makes life worth living.