Kyle Weaver's Blog

Congratulations, Ky! You’re the father of twins! Who’d have thought that both of your books would be published in the same month?

Yes, well it did come as a bit of a surprise, yet I can’t help but appreciate the synchronicity. After all, they have the same genetic material.  Each, however, has a very different personality.

The Barefoot Warrior is a coming of age novel about a teen who sets out on the path of his own greatness. It’s intense and passionate, naked and honest, youthful and adventurous. I wrote it as a young adult, so it captures the spiritedness of a kid who’s got little to lose and a whole world of possibility to take in. It’s the spitting image of my heart.

The User’s Guide to Being Human: The Art and Science of Self is a nonfiction self-help book written after decades of pursuing the Barefoot Warrior’s path. It’s more of a no nonsense how-to guide for making the most of the natural human superpowers that every one of us is born with—superpowers that we never learn about in school because we’re busy memorizing, taking tests and getting grades.

Take intelligence as an example. Each one of us has one, but how many of us ever learn to unleash its true power? Most of us get fooled into believing that we were born with a set amount of it, so there.

Not so.

When you’re young, intelligence is like a cute little sapling that’s hungry for sunlight. Stick it in a room for six hours a day mostly devoid of sunlight and it tends to harden and get sickly. But that cute little sapling holds the code for a giant redwood. Learn to give it what it really needs and it grows into an awesome and inspiring tower of vitality. It brings out the giant that you were born to be.

I wrote The User’s Guide because it has saddened me all my life to see so many redwoods who never grew bigger than lemon trees. And as for the fruit of their lives…

The User’s Guide has stories in it too, but I mostly tried to keep myself out of this one when writing it. This was meant to be a book about you, not a book about me. It’s the spitting image of my dreams for humanity, and what each one of us can do to make this world a better place by filling it with our own magnificence.

As for the birth of both books in the same month—it seems like a convergence of heart and dream blossoming in the world side by side. Put them together like that and you find yourself growing a whole new reality. That’s what’s happened for me, anyway.

“In this remarkable work, Scott Miller mines the depths of human possibility. With clear and precise instructions, he brings the tried and true as well as state of the art understanding of how to transform our lives.  With story, grace and wit, the author helps us turn the page on our humanity and walk and live boldly with new ways of being.”

— Jean Houston, Ph.D (A founder of the Human Potential Movement, Researcher and Scholar, Author of over 25 books including The Mythic Life and Jump Time.)

“Everyone has inside himself a piece of good news! The good news is that you really don’t know how great you can be, how much you can love, what you can accomplish, and what your potential is!” —Anne Frank, teenage author (1929–1945).

Many years ago I wrote my first book, not because I wanted to be an author, but because something deep inside compelled me to write. I then set the manuscript aside and went on about my life. The conception was accomplished, but there was a gestation period that would have to be honored.

Twenty years later, The Barefoot Warrior was released on Amazon.com

Why did it have to gestate for twenty years? Why did it release after my second book, The User’s Guide to Being Human: The Art and Science of Self?

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who had purchased The Barefoot Warrior. She had begun to read it, and shared that she now understood why many of my closest peeps called me Ky, rather than the other names that family members had given me in my early years such as Jimmy at birth, and then Scott upon adoption. Her excitement filled me with a sense of joy that felt brighter than sunlight. Thanks for that, A.

The force that had compelled me to write The Barefoot Warrior was not about being a successful author. It was about revealing certain aspects of my innermost experiences to the world in a naked and vulnerable way. It took twenty years for me to actually open myself to be seen in such a way. This was a gestation period with a timeline of its own.

Yesterday, I felt seen in a new way. Yesterday a dream came true.

Today, I’m riding a twenty foot wave with joy and delight. Today, I’m on top of one tiny surface of ocean in one tiny corner of the world. Today, I’m totally stoked!

Have you ever had a dream that you wished to fulfill? Have you ever wondered what it takes to make it so?

It had been a long standing dream of mine to change the face of education to support the inner gifts of each student. About six years into developing an alternative private school with a mentor, I noticed the extent to which our students were thriving. Our approach was holistic in nature, which is to say that we did not simply fill young minds with knowledge, but we challenged them to develop themselves intellectually, emotionally, socially, creatively, physically and actively. Their learning was applied to real world projects that affected the lives of fellow citizens. This caused our students to sit at the driver’s seat of their own education. It helped them to fulfill a sense of personal purpose in life.

I began to realize that this form of education should be available to all of our young citizens—not only those with parents who could afford a private school tuition. Next thing I knew, I was creating a public charter school with a business partner, seeking to make this real-world approach to education accessible to diverse populations.

The truth of the matter is, I had no idea what my new ambition would require. In our first year, I worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week with a total of 19 days off. Taking this new role of leadership gave me no option but to see my ambition through to fruition. After all, children, teachers and families were counting on me to fulfill what I had promised. At times, exhausted and ailing, I let many people down. This hurt me to the core, but I did not give up. I took a few months to recover, then came back in a new role more committed to the school’s success than ever before. I had a dream to fulfill.

Ten years after starting the project, our school was named the Charter School of the Year in California.

The fulfillment of a dream requires risk. It requires you to step outside yourself for the benefit of those who are counting on you to give your best. Sometimes you fail, and that kind of wound might seem to cut deeper than a knife to the heart. If you stay the course however, enduring to make up for your lackings and failures, learning all the while, eventual success is inevitable. The rewards trump the heartache. Your persistence serves as the heart of your fulfillment. It carries you through impossibility to actualization. As Thomas Edison once said, “most of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success.”

Do you have a dream that your heart wishes to infuse with the life-giving blood that you carry? Remember this: your heart powers your left foot. It powers your right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Over and over, one step at a time, your heart carries you down the road of your existence toward whatever it is that your are intent on fulfilling. Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in your dreams? Are you willing to fail before you succeed? Are you willing to persist?

If so, I believe in you. If so, I’m not the only one. We want to see you succeed—all of us who have chosen to walk the path of fulfillment.

Go Shining my friend! Follow your dream until you find that it has followed you to fulfillment!

Science devoid of humanity is like food devoid of nutrition. I made this discovery as a young adult, fresh out of college. I was in the field of medical research at the time, and found that I was spending much of my time with beakers, radioactive isotopes, and reports. Unlike the man who led the lab—working with patients on a weekly basis with great passion for his work—I was not interacting with the people whose lives my work would affect.

For this reason, I found it difficult to find my heart in laboratory science where others could. I began to recognize that teaching was something that I had done as a hobby since the age of 14. The thought of contributing to the field of education was becoming an emerging dream.

Before long I found myself developing new schools with mentors and colleagues, and applying the discipline of scientific research to a study of human development. Science had not been a wrong turn for me, but rather, an important step along a greater path.

I thought I’d never teach below a high school level, but serendipity landed me in the position of a Kindergarten and first grade classroom teacher, developing a new school with a brilliant mentor. I was now directly interacting with the very human beings whose lives I was to enrich. This helped me to find a heart in science at long last. I studied the process of how children learned, and what they needed in order to thrive in their education and development.

It was an unexpected gift—to start my educational career with Kindergarteners. After all, young children let you know how you’re doing as a teacher without evaluation forms. If you make a big mistake, they burst into tears. If you’re on your game, they light up with delight and fascination. The self-evaluation process is instantaneous.

My greatest discovery that first year as a teacher was that there is a surprising amount of wisdom to be found in young children. They are filled with wonder for the simplest and smallest things. I opened my mind and heart to that wisdom, and found my life transformed.

There occasionally comes a time when your path in life leads you away from where you thought you were going. Perhaps you’ve passed your prime with a lover, and find that you are now moving in different directions. Perhaps you find yourself led astray from an old dream at the beckoning of a new, greater dream.

As a boy, I had dreamed of touching the world with the music that my bandmates and I had composed. Over time, however, I found myself more and more compelled by my studies of human nature, and my work to create schools that supported people in developing that nature.

The last time I sat down at my drums before putting them in storage, I played so hard that I shredded the muscles in both my forearms. I could hardly lift a glass of water for more than a week.

Now, every time I lift a glass of water, my wrists remind me of my passion for rhythm and music. So it is that an ancient love lives on…

William Abby once said, “Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit.”

I have spent a good portion of my life in the great outdoors, and have similarly found that nature provides great riches beyond the lumber and resources that can be harvested there for the benefit of city life.

I have written two books in the chaparral of Southern California, inspired by the forces of nature present there. I consult with nature almost daily—not only to support my writing, but to deepen my awareness of the life systems of which I am a part. Communing with nature allows me to gain deep insights about life and the challenges or problems that I face at any given moment.

If you think about it, most of the problems that we face are similar to problems that other species must adapt to. Like us, plants and animals gather energy and nourishment. They strive to be healthy. They rely on one another.

When facing a problem, it can be quite powerful to get out into nature with the intent of observing how others species and natural forces adapt to or resolve similar issues. The more wild the setting, the more powerful the results.

Today, for example, in trying to figure out how to get my new business off the ground, my attention was drawn to a bee as it traveled from flower to flower. I noticed that the bee sought only the most bountiful flowers. It pollinated those flowers that had offerings of rich necter.

In observing this phenomenon, it occurred to me that several of the markets I have been targeting are made up of people who want something for nothing. As such, these markets are not bountiful. What if I focus some of my efforts on helping people recognize that as in nature, giving and receiving are integrally connected? To take without return is to decimate your own source or nourishment. To give as you take is to establish yourself as bountiful—true in the natural world as it is in society.

In this nugget of wilderness wisdom, I was reminded that the best solution to a problem tends to be mutually beneficial.

Imagine a strange society where young people spend the first 22 years or so of their lives cloistered away from the real world. They read books, listen to lectures and study all the things that other people have actually done in the real world out there somewhere, and how these people contributed actual skills and talents in the service of their communities, cultures and societies. The young people of this society may work part time to pay for their schooling process, or to pick up a little spending cash for a car or electronic equipment, but this part time work is usually disconnected from the things they are studying about in school.

Imagine now that one day, these young adults experience a rite of passage in which they are set free into real world. “Congratulations, kids! Have at it!”

At first, this freedom can might feel quite wonderful. However, over time, many of these young people find that they are now starting at the beginning all over again, enrolled in the Kindergarten of real life. Where do you meet new friends? How do you write a resume? How do you conduct yourself in a job interview? How do you perform the various tasks that are required of you in your new job? Who do you go to when you need to ask a question that reveals your ignorance? Do you go to the person who signs your paychecks? Do you go to your parents who want so badly to hear stories of your success? What happened to the teachers who were paid specifically to guide you along?

Imagine the culture shock that the young adults of this strange society might experience in their transition from high school or college back into Kindergarten, a shock that might suddenly harden them to the reality of adult life. How might this hardening affect their attitudes and actions?

Now imagine a different kind of society where the Kindergarten and primary school of engaging in the real world is integrated into the traditional schooling process that youths experience. Imagine that these youths—the most energetic members of society—learn to contribute their energy and enthusiasm in their civic participation unhardened.

Which of these societies would you prefer to see your children and your children’s children grow up in?

On the day of my college graduation, I felt a grand sense of having my whole life ahead of me. I had a dream to change the way schools were run, and an instinct read through my journals. Soon, I was compiling years of various entries to form a draft of The Barefoot Warrior.

I was not the only one to experience a sense of freedom and enthusiasm. In watching my path to purpose as it unfolded, my mom too seemed to experience a great sense of liberation. The more responsibility that I was willing to take in fulfilling my own destiny, the less she had to worry about  that.

What if I’d always recognized that I had my whole life ahead of me? What if I had recognized that my feet had been traveling the path of my purpose since the moment I came out of the womb? What if I had appreciated how fortunate I was to have a loving mother, father and sister, and the privileged access to fine schools. How might this increased level of consciousness have influenced the steps that I had taken? How might I have touched the lives of others?

From the moment of my college graduation forward, I vowed to be as conscious as possible with my choices and actions. I vowed to make the best of all that had been given to me, and to contribute those gifts back to the world.

Of course, a funny thing happened. I started over-thinking things, forgetting that every step for better or worse was a step forward. My very intent to define my path soon led me to lose sight of it…

There is a time in many a boy’s life when one particular part of himself enlarges to outshine all the rest. Laugh if you will, but in truth it is no joking matter. Sometimes he finds himself suddenly operating heavy artillery long before his is ready.

Though a rising number of people seem to suggest that there are no real differences between males and females in our 21st Century world, there are two very special organs that hang in a tender sack between a guy’s legs that beg to differ. They produce a hormone called testosterone that bring about specific drives, emotions and physiological activities. They also produce a biological ammunition known as sperm that is designed to be fired through a hardened barrel—not to bring harm, but to coalesce with woman’s wondrous seed to bring new life into the world. It is no wonder that guys like to shoot things. This is an elemental part of their makeup.

Unfortunately, many boys find themselves growing up in an environment where the natural influences of their external gear has no proper place within society to be honored and understood. Left to his own naturally immature devices without the proper support and guidance of a dad or mentor, a significant part of a boy’s development toward manhood is forced into secrecy. Boxers might provide the illusion of freedom deep down there beneath the shame and suppression, but if used improperly—during heavy sports activity, for instance—can bring great harm to the vulnerable gems of male sexuality. I myself learned this lesson on a surgical table at the mercy of a scalpel. The physical damage was undone, but the emotional affects of my ignorance lasted for some time.

This is a call to dads, uncles and mentors. If you have not already done so, it is time to man up and learn all you can about your male hardware and the software that manages it. It is time to get a conscious handle of the emotions and drives with which your testosterone has gifted you. It is time to talk about these things with candor and authenticity in the company of other men. You must do these things because there are boys around you who need your support and wisdom in developing the same. Left to their own devices, these boys may otherwise find themselves in the operation of heavy artillery toward detrimental ends.

Have you ever stood on top of a mountain or at the edge of an eastern shore at dawn and watched the sun rise? If so, did you find yourself in a state of silence, feeling warmed by forces much greater than yourself?

My best days always begin with a sense of emptiness. I take a stand in awe for the apparent reality of my existence as a living, breathing human being. It charges my batteries until I am fulfilled with pure vitality. Then and only then do I begin to consider where I might like to apply that vitality on this fresh and vibrant day.

Moment artistry is a state of being in which you pay attention to the forces at play within and around you, and then move to ride their tides with the grace of a surfer. No matter what it is that you are called to do this day, you hold close to the influence those deeper forces. You allow them to inform your approach to your various doings. The result is that any act you undertake becomes an opportunity to reveal your own magnificence to yourself and to all that surrounds you.

Opening a can of beans with a Swiss Army knife becomes quiet and methodical celebration of  nourishment. Agitating the coals becomes a reminder that there are always red hot embers of warmth lurking beneath a cold, grey exterior. A couple pieces of polished driftwood become a gift that enables you to scoop the warm beans to your mouth. The saltwater waves serve to cleanse your body and carry you about in artful movements. The bus ride to school reminds you that you are supported by a great network of people and city services. Algebra reminds you that seemingly complex operations can be reduced to simple forms. Conversations with friends become opportunities to express kindness and playfulness. These are the makings of a great day.