A Note from the Author

Dear Friends:

It's been ten years now since I left my very visible career at Microsoft as the industry's "OLE guru," and over nine years since I've been seen publicly in any role related to computers. And, admittedly, I pretty much left without much a trace, leaving many to wonder just what happened to me. Allow me to clear the air somewhat, and share a little about what I've been up to.

A few blog postings here and there have suggested that I ran off and joined some kind of cult or commune, which is wholly untrue. My wife and I did move into an intentional spiritual community, yes, but not one of those give-away-everything-you-own-hippie-love-fest social experiments of a bygone age, or any kind of no-reality-exists-except-ours-and-everyone-better-talk-the-same setup. We kept all our assets and also became part-owners of the community property itself.

Personally, I have zero interest in funky new-age nonsense. To paraphrase Doctor McCoy on Star Trek, "I'm an engineer, dammit, not a priest!" I'm not interested in beliefs. As you can read in Chapter 8 of this book, I had this attitude even being smack-dab in the middle of The Microsoft Faith. I'm interested in what works. I'm interested in truth and direct experience. And I'm interested in individual growth, not institutional hierarchies, power structures, and trying to win the favor of some charismatic leader or guru figure. I had enough of that garbage on the receiving end in my role with OLE!

So why a spiritual community? Well, I've always had some kind of spiritual focus in my life, even when I didn't want to call it that. To put it simply, spirituality means a focus of one's energies toward a reality that's expansive to your sense of self-identity, one that helps you to develop qualities like kindness, generosity, compassion, empathy, cooperation, and service. Call it what you like—Spirit, God, Truth, the Tao, Buddha-nature, Cosmic Consciousness—it doesn't matter. As I say in the Introduction to this book, it's much more about direction than details.

In this community context these last years have primarily been, for me, about this kind of inner work, a time of really exploring an approach to living that's truly centered in spiritual rather than worldly or egoic aspirations. In the process, I also seem to have developed a deeper sense of clarity about many more things than computer technology. (Note that I have not left technology behind. For one thing, I spent a couple of years consulting with Microsoft's legal team on the Eolas case which also forced me to delay any publication of this book.)

It is this clarity that I now once again feel ready and able to share by applying it to a variety of areas. I hope that others will find value in what I offer with this book and many pieces that I'm now looking to write. And because my primary joy in all of this is in the writing and sharing, I'm drawn to publish electronically like this, allowing free access to the material while also offering an option to purchase a bound edition.

Enjoy Mystic Microsoft with my compliments.

Kraig Brockschmidt
Portland, Oregon
2 November, 2006

 

    

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