"John Dalmas - The Second Coming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

ASM: Perhaps we should establish what AAIS stands for.
NEA: Advanced Artificial Intelligence Systems. The acronym, incidentally, is
pronounced ace. It's a major firm in its field.


ASM: After graduating from the University of Toronto in computer science, what
came next?


NEA: I went to work with AAIS as a research assistant on an adjusted workweek,
while going to grad school part-time. AAIS encourages continuing education. At age
twenty I was promoted to research associate, and worked up from there. I became a
vice president at age twenty-five. [Chuckles.] I'm afraid I was a workaholic.


ASM: And you resigned at age thirty. Why?


NEA: The job itself was no longer enough. I was experiencing spiritual changes,
though at the time I didn't think of it that way. I simply knew that I very much wanted
time to do other things. But I still wanted a reliable income, so I continued with AAIS
as a consultant, with the understanding that I wouldn't put in more than twenty hours
a week.


ASM: Didn't that mean quite a reduction in pay?


NEA: Sixty percent. But forty percent left a comfortable paycheck. I'd been living
well below my means since age twenty, developing an investment portfolio.


ASM: So how did you invest your newly won free time?


NEA: [Laughs.] I joined a zen group, and for some while practiced meditation from 6
to 8 o'clock at the zendo each morning. I still meditate regularly. For a time I
belonged to an evening group that practiced dance as worship. And I read:
biographies, history, philosophy, and a broad spectrum of sciences. And religion,
especially eastern religions and new-age spiritual philosophies.


On an impulse, at age thirty-two I took a week-long workshop in NLPтАФneuro-
linguistic programming. Which has nothing to do with computers. And things began
toтАФlet me repeat began toтАФcome together for me. On how I wanted to invest the rest
of my life. NLP is a psychotherapy, and I found it exciting. After that I spent two
evenings a week providing free NLP treatments for street people, at bowery missions
in Rochester, New York. I lived only fifteen miles from downtown Rochester.