If you look up the word “genius” in the dictionary maybe one day you will find a picture of yourself. It is something to strive for at least if nothing else. I haven’t done anything remarkable enough deserving any high accolades, but it is a starry-eyed fantasy of mine to one day accomplish a feat of great significance. It does make for a good daydream on a long Sunday afternoon. Nevertheless, I have always had an attraction to the idea of genius. What is curious about the idea is how people think of geniuses. When they do, they often think of someone who is extremely brilliant, with an incredibly sharp mind, and awkward tufts of hair. Still I think it can be argued that most geniuses were people simply not willing to ignore a really good question. Moreover, geniuses are often inquisitors and people often obsessed with viewing a problem from a ridiculous number of angles. Looking back it seems most of the world’s brilliant achievements started with a very simple process of discovery and radical inquiry.

Questioning and inquiry are states of mind I have tried to cultivate in myself and encourage in others. To be inquisitive means for me to have a specific kind of attention towards the world. It means to gaze or wonder about life’s circumstances and to break out of habitual ways of seeing. If we view the facts of our lives and take meaning and purpose to be rigidly defined, we definitely have lost some value in our experience. I am of the position that as Heideggar once put it, “questioning is the piety of thinking.” To purely adopt beliefs without critically engaging them is to dash out opportunities for personal growth and deeper understanding. To exercise our natural power of introspection and to examine the world more intensely, opens up the opportunity to see with more complexity what is truly astonishing about it. The life arts laboratory thrives on this “sacred” idea of inquiry and radical attention.

All people have the immense power to think free and epic ideas. We are, by our very nature, designers of life and creators of anything culturally possible. My hope with this website is to share in a community that bravely carves out new experiential frontiers and is invested in the creation of culture over the passive consumption of it. What do you think? Are you with me? Are you with me? It’s never too late to join.