It is a privilege to be Carly’s friend and guide. She is obviously not an honored guest, a celebrity or foreign dignitary, but she deserves being treated like one, with that same heightened level of care, empathy and respect. To do so takes time and attention. Being present is increasingly rare today. The earth is spinning at more or less the same speed, but inside we humans, psychologically, the world is not the same at all. Ten years ago, in 2007, we crossed a tipping point. Human consciousness was jump started into exponential acceleration. Most now carry a mobile computer in their pocket or handbag that buzzes, beeps, and flashes pictures, grabbing our attention, 24/7. Every time it does, we become less attentive, less present, less sensitive to what is taking place here and now, in and between ourselves and our honored guests. Imagine being deep in the Congo and discovering that your guide is oblivious to what is happening, standing there, enchanted, staring at the palm of his hand. “Wake up,” you say! “Be here now!” That is what loving and caring for Carly does. She wakes me up.

What if the way we treat our child is the way our child will treat the world? And what if you and I are not all that different from other parents so our child is like theirs and that is the way the world will be?

Around the 12th to 14th c. B.C. Hermes Trismegistus proclaimed, as above so below. That which is above is the same as that which is below. “Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos. The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man, man is the same as the cell, the cell is the same as the atom, the atom is the same as... and so on, ad infinitum." Human behavior is fractal by nature. A fractal is a pattern that repeats at every scale. We create the future by the way we behave now. Wow! Each of us is responsible for the way humanity is and will be. Everything we do matters and Carly Elizabeth doesn’t miss a stich.