John R. Miles

The windows of attentional maturity, opening us to see deeply.

The roof of shelter, where presence becomes a safe place for others.

Those elements are powerful.

They are real, but in a world flooded with choices, they can remain separate, strong in isolation, but vulnerable when the winds come.

Without this mix, the structure isn't just quiet, it's structurally unsound.

unable to hold across time or weather life's real pressures.

So we begin here with the mix.

We shift from stacking stones and solo ambition to blending them in communal harmony.

The ingredients in our lives are our experiences,

relationships, convictions, and daily decisions.

Lime represents the sharp binding conviction of personal values.

Sand is the grounding texture of shared beliefs and collective wisdom.

Water is the flow of choices that brings everything together.

The alchemy happens when we honor the proportions.

allowing collective intelligence to guide the blend, sacred values to add the necessary grit, and trade-offs to decide what stays and what must be set aside.

Because if we don't, if we ignore the proportions and just chase every shiny object, we fall into what Alex Emus and I discussed yesterday, the winner's curse.

We overpay for elements that actually weaken the whole.

We think we're building a legacy,

but we're actually just collecting a pile of expensive, unbonded stones.

To avoid the curse, we have to stop theorizing about the mix and start the work of the join.