Why Solu is a composed-in-the-moment, always-on, internet-based ToneStream and not simply a device-based app (ie, something that can work independent of internet connections, etc.): my current take on this! And, why we and Solu are just plain NOT NORMAL.
And guys, this is such a long post—thank you for indulging me because I have many thoughts about the how and why we have developed this “product” in this way. There is nothing more important than getting this work as right as possible. I am grateful to all of you who are helping by listening, by weighing in, by being here at the foundation of Solu.
Many readers may not be familiar with me—I am Michael’s partner and remain in the way-background development for Solu.
I will begin with a story.
Once upon a future time there were some people, living very futuristically. They gathered one afternoon at a café for a meeting, a place of shining metallic walls and tables. The sun shone through tall glass windows while music played from unseen speakers. After placing their order with the joke-telling robotic server that had rolled up beside them, they pressed a button that was built into the table. Solu began to play, and they adjusted the volume using the same button. It neither interfered with the music or their conversation, and they allowed it to play throughout their meeting. Several other tables had pushed their buttons as well.
After lunch, the group broke up. One hailed a car home (was it a flying car? Maybe…) and inside Solu was playing quietly. The rider made a call on a wrist phone to report on the meeting, and as they spoke to their colleague, a stereo-effect happened, almost inaudibly, as the ToneStream in play back at the office perfectly synched with the car’s Solu ‘Stream.
Later at home and gathering for dinner, the family sent a message to both sets of grandparents—one in another country, the other set in the next town—as well as a message to their eldest daughter away at school, to turn on Solu for a few minutes if they could. As the table is set, the Tones stream about the house and all listening know that the grandparents and daughter are also listening, sharing their common moment that requires no words and no proximity. Then they eat, they watch a show on their amazing new 3-D hologram television, and head off to bed. Some listen to Solu while reading, some go right to sleep, one teen and his remote girlfriend have it playing for each other on their devices as they text, between sharing music.
In their world, Solu is so normal that nobody even thinks about it—it’s not about meditation or mindfulness or striving to get calm; it’s more of an available resource for connection to self, and all else—the ToneStream serves as a constant anti-divider for humanity, as regular to everyone as their clean drinking water and their breathable air.
And, of course, everybody in this story lived very very happily ever after. The End.
The moral? We, you and I, are in the prelude to that Happily Ever After. We are building something that is, in some ways, ahead of its time, but perfectly timed to be that. Solu is intended to grow into and with new technologies, an invention for sound and healing that is not meant to stay confined within the parameters of what we can imagine today.
The world in which Solu is launching is a world unarguably in a great deal of pain and confusion. Though Solu looks and seems like an app, it is not really that at all—it is simply parked within today’s technology to begin its mission. It uses what is available now, today, to let people begin the process of uncovering their truer selves, to unburden themselves of stress, to discover unseen connection and gain awareness that they are not alone. It is my contention that only good will come from a collective effort of this (new!) sort.
The Stream can/will/does fertilize positive group-mindedness that is motivated not by Solu but by nothing other than one’s own personal, positive growth, coupled with their own interest in using this new tool. When you feel better, you exude more confidence, friendliness and stability—world-changing for you and everyone and thing that you encounter. In other words, when you feel better, the entire world is in fact better with you, because of you.
And, you, the person reading this, is incredibly important to this work. Each and every listener is building this with us. The ToneStream is nothing without the minds and spirits engaging it—the very sounds are what they are, based entirely on the listener as the filter. Each of us experiences the sounds uniquely for all sorts of reasons: our history, our equipment, how we hear, where we are, who we are, all of which is in flux too. As more people listen, common themes are expected to develop (relaxation, focus, connection, calm), yet it will always remain personal as well.
At the risk of being too esoteric (my general state lol), we are in the creation of something symbiotic here—I want everyone who uses this Solu, for little moments and long, to understand that they are involved in something that is finding its voice and shaping its own future. This is something well beyond imagination.
Together, Solu and we listeners, are something like the ingredients that come together to make a cake. The individual components, like the flour or the eggs or the sugar, are completely necessary to the end product, and also will never be able to go back and be what they were before. Let us all eat this cake, please, and with pleasure.
If you feel today to be even a little supported in your life through the use of Solu, it is a step toward stability for everyone. This is a cause certainly worth shooting for.
But really, why are we going for something of this scope, a commodity that, even more than our n.o.w. Tone Therapy System, defies normal description or product categorization?
Because: this is what wanted to be built. We began with a future idea of what could be, not with a modern-day version of mindfulness and meditation. There is nothing normal about this quest.
Now back into today for a moment:
Michael and I spoke about what it means to bring this never-before-created Stream to people through their devices, with all the inherent limitations that come right alongside the capabilities. Internet, wifi connections, bluetooth, ios and Android, computers and phones and tablets. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. There is a lot of room for imperfection and flaws in that tangle of technology, technology needed in order to carry the perfection of the Tones to as many people as possible across this globe. Gah!
Just now I heard a click occur during my listen, then two, then the Tones proceed on without incident. The technology we must use as platforms to deliver this NEW experience is not perfect. But it’s not so imperfect, either; just like me. Just like the world. Works in progress. It’s doing a pretty good job already to give me sound that is playing for me in my life, as I go about doing what I want to do.
With the grand scope in mind of where Solu will go, the sounds cannot be today squeezed, for convenience, handily onto phones and other devices in the way of meditation and music apps—if we are committed to building it as this Stream of sounds, we are equally committing to the trust that the world is going to catch up and invent all the technology necessary that will carry the Tones beyond to everywhere and anywhere.
As closure, I’d like to share a dream I had months ago:
In the dream I stood in a remote location, sunny and primitive, a wide vista of dry land. It was far from the world of modern conveniences. My hand went to a metal orb-like pendant, about the size of a golf ball, which hung from my neck on a long silver chain. It was like a globe made of two halves, with a middle connecting band that was movable. I started to spin the band round and round, and this generated a vibration that powered the little globe—suddenly Solu’s ToneStream spilled forth from within the object.
I was far from wifi, internet, and any source of power, but the pendant was designed to make its own power when the middle ring was spun, and it then picked up Solu which beamed from a satellite. Do not ask me how this is ever supposed to be made, but also don’t tell me that it won’t be possible. A connection-product for everybody, which is how I see Solu, might have to find interesting ways to be available to, well, everybody. Don’t you agree?
I’m quite sure that when you work inside the future, the present doesn’t always hand you just the right tools for the job. But to begin building what can eventually be a Stream available to humanity in general helps you get resourceful with whatever is at hand.
Trust trust trust. It’s the best ingredient that we use and share in this work. Take a look at the early landing pages of any of today’s online giants (Amazon, Google, Twitter) to remember what a beginning looks like. And to think, what we hope to offer throughout eternity is actually coming in almost fully intact from the the start. That’s a little bit of the miracle that Solu is, right there.
Thanks for being here with us, bending time and sound and mindfulness and inspiration into something much more livable and beautiful, each moment.
: I must stand by my examples because they somehow outgrew the others who started alongside them, and my plan for Solu is to be just that: on outgrower. But, one that builds sustainably, impactfully, and becomes the force of personal and global expansion in the strength of positivity. Such a force can only radically shift the current giants toward something nicer. And this can only begin with a shift toward more niceness within ourselves.