Private commissions
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how I might help you to do that.
Untitled (A Memoir)
by George Elias
"My life, I would describe it as very challenging. I don't think there's anyone walking the planet who knows the whole story of me."
George Elias opens his memoir recalling a moment from just a handful of years ago, it was 2017. He was in his office on the 10th floor of GM Tower in Deane Street, Burwood, flicking his beads around in his fingers, staring out the vast landscape window that offered him a view over Sydney's inner-west suburbs of Concord, Five Dock and Homebush, where he's built so much, where he lives. He's mulling over a suggestion, an invitation just put to him by a close friend; an idea that has caught George on the hop. Whilst the suggestion might be a simple one, for George it is loaded with so much.
"It's funny. A friend of mine, he's from there, from the region - he's here in Sydney now but he was there during the time when Hariri was in Lebanon and the country was flourishing. He said, 'George, Lebanon has changed, you should go back.' I said, 'yes.....no.....I don't know?' He encouraged me, he said, 'you've got to go.' I was very reluctant to go back to Lebanon, after all, it had been 34 years since I'd been "home". I started to wonder how I would feel if I went back. When I think about the reasons I hadn't gone back it was because, I never wanted to go back, after all, the past was back there. However, I knew that I would have to return."
"We can never forget where we've come from. It's deep in our soul, it's who we are, even though we may have set up a life somewhere else. But, when you get scarred you make an emotional decision which can just drives you to take a stand. I'd made decisions and I was standing my it. I was never going back to my homeland, never going back to Lebanon. I'd shut the door. What made me open that it again?"
The Elephant in the Cloud
by Jeremy Harkins
'The Elephant in the Cloud' is a Big Idea book. Big Idea books are incredibly popular. Perhaps it's because the world is in need of some big thinking? The Secret, Sapiens, Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Tipping Point, big ideas books and monster bestsellers all.
Instead of taking the pedantic I know everything approach of a scientist and an academic paper, in this big idea book, Jeremy Harkins tells the story of a search for the truth, a truth that we are all experiencing on a daily basis one way or another, and yet, no one wants to talk about. This is the "elephant' of our title.
"The 'elephant in the room' is a metaphorical idiom, meaning: an enormous topic, question, or issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about, but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous." So says that font of all wisdom, Wikipedia.
There's any number of things to be gleaned from this book that are a big idea. But the overarching big idea of 'The Elephant in the Cloud' is that world has to heed is:
There is too much data in the world, and it's increasing. The cloud is about to fall on us all unless we do something.