Why I Wrote The Invisible Algorithm

People have asked me why I wrote The Invisible Algorithm. I didn't write it to convince anyone of anything. I wrote it because I needed to organize forty years of questions into something I could finally understand.

For 40 years, I collected thousands of small observations about attention, awareness, fear, decision-making, climbing, endurance, and what it feels like to be alive. I never knew how to arrange them into a coherent architecture. They were scattered pieces of a puzzle I couldn't quite assemble.

Writing the book wasn't an exercise in teaching. It was an attempt to organize decades of scattered observations into the most coherent framework I could build. Somewhere in that process, I realized I wasn't simply writing down what I believed—I was discovering what I believed. By the time I reached the final page, I understood those ideas more clearly than when I had begun.

The book became less a collection of thoughts than an architecture that finally made sense of forty years of questions.

I also knew, from the very beginning, that this book would not be for everyone.

The Invisible Algorithm asks questions about how we experience reality and how awareness learns. I expect some readers to connect with it deeply, others to disagree completely, and many to decide it's simply not the kind of book they're looking for.

And that's okay.

Keeping those ideas to myself would have been safer. Publishing them was an acknowledgment that understanding grows through conversation, not isolation.

One of the values I've tried to live by is to live bravely.

To me, that doesn't just mean climbing mountains or taking physical risks. It also means being willing to say, “This is the best understanding I've reached so far,” knowing that people may disagree, criticize it, or point out flaws I hadn't considered.

If an idea can't withstand honest criticism, then I want to know why.

So I don't fear thoughtful criticism—I welcome it. Not because I expect everyone to agree with me, but because the search for understanding is more important than protecting my ego.

Whether The Invisible Algorithm ultimately resonates with ten readers or ten thousand, I hope it starts a conversation. If it causes someone to look a little more carefully at their own experience, or if it challenges my own thinking through thoughtful disagreement, then the book has already done something worthwhile.

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do isn't to defend what we believe.

Sometimes it's simply to say, “This is what I see,” and be willing to listen to what others see in return.

Six Ascents of Mount Humphreys

When I came to Flagstaff this summer, I had one goal in mind: use Mount Humphreys as the foundation of my training.

I didn't rush back to the summit. After my hip replacement, I spent the first few hikes turning around before reaching the top, simply to see how my body responded. Each climb was less about reaching the summit and more about rebuilding trust.

Eventually I began climbing all the way to the top.

My first full ascent took about six hours and twenty minutes. With each successive climb, the time came down a little. I wasn't trying to set records. I was trying to find a sustainable rhythm that I could repeat.

For every ascent, I used nasal breathing as my governor. Rather than chasing a pace, I let my breathing determine how hard I worked. If my breathing became strained, I backed off. If it stayed smooth, I kept moving.

The result surprised me.

My fifth and sixth ascents were separated by five days. Over a hike lasting more than five and a half hours, the difference in total time was only twenty-seven seconds. Even more interesting, my average heart rate differed by just one beat per minute.

Those numbers aren't remarkable because they're fast. They're remarkable because they're repeatable.

To me, they suggest that nasal breathing wasn't simply limiting my effort—it was regulating it. By allowing my breathing to set the pace instead of my ambition, I arrived at almost exactly the same performance twice.

The mountain wasn't asking me to go faster.

It was asking me to become more consistent.

For me, this was strong evidence that nasal breathing served as an effective governor for pacing. It didn't guarantee a perfect performance, but it consistently guided me toward a sustainable one.

That may be the most valuable lesson Mount Humphreys gave me this summer.