VoiceLog-2026-06-23_Hood-River-Salt-Cave
VoiceLog-2026-06-23_Hood-River-Salt-Cave
I'm sitting in the Hood River salt cave. One year ago I finished this project. I had five months box breathing with a respirator as I put 260,000 cornstarch packing beads glued on to the walls.
I'm a maker. I made a cave. And I'm thinking: for thousands of years humans have transferred a story to someone in the future that they would never know. It's somehow built into us. It's somehow a call to adventure that everyone seems to get, but not everyone seems to fulfill.
Yeah, it's akrasia. Knowing the right thing to do and not doing it. It's frustrating for some people. For others it's a whole life of dodging consequence, of lying or fabricating or making things up or being self-centered. But for those that are authentic creators, you make something from an unction. You craft from a moment of inspiration. You mimic what you feel deeply inside.
Just as I look around and see the cherub wing on the wall in a 3D sculpture, or the basalt crystals hanging from the ceiling mimicking the Columbia River gorge, or the rocks all around the perimeter having come from Steve at the stone yard as a donation. Things come together that are outside of one's control when you're fully committed to making something. I think all makers know that.
It's part of what W.H. Murray said regarding full commitment to an outcome when there's no way back—that's when Providence gets involved.
So this article is the first proper test of the Intelligent Netwear Lattice, where this voice recording is transcribed, researched across the internet for its long-tail SEO fit. Forrest does the intake, Arnie does the writing, Cody does the formatting, Sid pushes it out to the server, and in the middle there is Picasso who makes the imagery. So I've crafted a pipeline. It started twenty-nine years ago.
And so the point of my story, I think, is to put this cairn with the polymath evidence as encouragement—that three decades is not too long of a wait for your vision. And that it starts with the story you tell now, using your voice, scratching on the cave wall, telling someone in the future that you'll never know that they shouldn't quit. Just as Glenn Douglas told me why the butterflies flew with me. Don't quit. Tell your story. It's that important. As a maker, you know that. Following the way I began.