Before covid, before the meltdowns in elections around the globe, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but probably not before conspiracy theory, I was sitting with a couple of close friends over coffee, chatting about the state of our community.
We were in a small coffee shop known for its eclectic, laid-back ambience. My first visit to this café was in the late ‘90s when a spiritualist asked me to help her develop a workbook for her then controversial methods of healing. Back then, I imagined a café where poetry was read on Friday nights with finger snapping approvals and the distinct smell of weed wafted in the air.
Flash forward to 2018 and not much has changed.
It was still a feeling of anti-system.
The feeling of a place that was more in keeping with the hippy movement I grew up with in Oregon. Philosophy books and alternative history books lay on the old coffee table in the corner, with two couches that looked like they came from my parents’ 1980s living room. An old barber chair stood in the corner like an off-beat throne.
We sat in the corner with our coffees, sharing a table with a chess board left in mid-game. My colleagues are two men whom I respect for their intellect and insight, and we would often talk about politics, metaphysics, personal well-being and so much more. My wife called us the “Problem Solvers of the World” because the topics ran the gamut from interpersonal to geopolitical.
One of the men looked at me with all the seriousness of the moment and asked a question that haunts me to this day.
“Do you think the world is really run by a small group of powerful elites trying to control all of us? Like a conspiracy theory?”
The query came out of left field that day. It wasn’t what we were talking about.
Do I think the world is run by a small cabal of elites, like a conspiracy theory?
I looked at him and said, no.
And I believed it.
“No. If you are asking if I believe there is a small group of elites, sitting in a darkened room, rubbing their hands together in synchronized fashion, plotting and planning the fate of the globe. Then, no. But….
I was once told everything before a ‘but’ is irrelevant. That is the truth.
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But…. I’ve been to trade shows and business expos where people from around the globe come together to discuss trends and growing their business with strategic partnerships and purpose; even doing it amid their rivals.
Let me set up the scenario.
You fly in early with your team to set up a booth to display your business wares. Participants gather the first night for an opening keynote speaker, usually someone with insight from outside of the industry, but still relevant. You listen to the newest ideas. The most innovative trends sweeping business in general. You go to bed that night, your mind swirling with the new things or ideas introduced. The next morning, you gather over breakfast, shake a few hands, and see another minor keynote speaker, once again expound on innovation. By then your mind starts to reel.
“How can I/we take advantage of this new information? How can we win?”
You then go from one breakout room to the next, taking in new information. And each time, you sit next to a different contact from somewhere else. At lunch, you sit with associates you may have met at the last expo to catch up and discuss thoughts about the new information. Then it’s all repeated that afternoon. By dinner, you’re discussing the exciting trends you plan to explore. Soon, you’re building a web of people who all see the same answer. After dinner, the main keynote speaker comes out to upbeat music and standing applause. You are all in the same head space. The tone is set. You’re all doing this!
Whatever “this” is, conspiracy theory or not.
“This” was presented in such a compelling and enthusiastic fervor and is what you are all going back home to implement. You cannot wait for your plane to leave so you can get started.
Immediately. Because if you don’t, you will not only be left behind, but you will not be part of the innovative in crowd. Before you know it, almost everyone who leaves the conference is on the same page, moving in the same general direction.
Oh sure, there are a few people who buck those trends. There are a few outliers who don’t keep up with the times. But as an assembly, you leave with the same mass movement in the industry. All with the genuine good intent to help our organizations improve.
That was the answer I began with my friends. It was my experience in industry. But I added to it.
Did I think governments and global organizations are any different?
No. The G7, the G20, the governmental think tanks and organizations that gather for ideas on societal improvement all do the same thing. They gather at these conferences; they learn new thoughts from speakers who talk of the newest trends and yet may or may not have any knowledge of how damaging their one-dimensional trends could or will be on a population.
Or maybe they do and just don’t care. It doesn’t make a difference either way. The fact is, there is not a small group of elites, sitting in a smoke-filled corner plotting control of the world.
There is, however, an open forum where the cream of the crop in politics, industry and international dealings sit, sharing trends that impact the future.
No conspiracy theory. Just open dialogue driven to passion, all moving in the same direction, collateral damage be damned.
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I sat on that conversation for a long time. Still do in fact. But that day, it reinvigorated a fire in me. By the end of 2018, I dusted off a manuscript I started in my 20s. A manuscript that was really a donut. It had a beginning and an end with nothing in the middle. That conversation gave me the middle.
I had an idea that came from a career of 10 years working in numismatics about ‘evil coins’ that interrupted the lives of normal people.
But what if these coins had been affecting the lives of people for centuries? What if they had been influential for eons?
I researched. I found trends of despots and world changing events. History showed me that fact and fiction could be interwoven with what ifs. Lots of them.
History provided a plethora of facts that made me wonder.
What happened at Masada? Why did the Crusades last so long? Was King Arthur real or fiction? How did William the Conqueror win against the odds? How did Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Hirohito almost succeed?
Am I on to something?
A few people who are in the middle of reading the first book keep asking if the coins themselves are real. That is how I know.
When people question, “did that really happen?” you know your fiction is working.
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Fact or fiction? Sometimes the facts are so outlandish, they feel like fiction.
Isn’t that what makes a good story? The merging of real and imagination into something magical.
Fact or fiction?
Conspiracy theory?
You decide.
