My new Substack, Surviving Cancer

I love creating Heron Dance and plan to continue Zen Mountain Journal for a long time. The posts will likely become less frequent though. This is because I have launched a new coaching business, Emerging Cures, focused on assisting individuals navigating serious medical diagnoses. Mostly I will research, on their behalf, the emerging medical science related to their condition. I’ll also search for therapies available in other countries — Canada, Europe, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, etc. — that are associated with better outcomes, and then look for venues in the US that offer those therapies.

AI and Why I Launched This New Business

1. Our lives are on the cusp of huge change. The future of humanity will be determined by artificial intelligence. For good or ill. There is a chance that it will destroy us as a species. More likely, over the next few years, it will dramatically change our lives and mostly for the better. If you doubt this, I would invite you to watch this interview of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a major investor in AI biotech.

   For instance, over the next year, eighty per cent of AI programers will be replaced by artificial intelligence programs. I have coded rudimentary programs in Python, but can now access easily available programs to code for me and complete in under an hour, including revisions, programs that would have taken me months to develop a couple of years ago. Over the next year or two, medical science, now evolving at an astounding rate, will experience an exponential acceleration. I am acting as a bridge into this new world for people who don’t know how to access it and who face a life-threatening medical condition.

   
   My background includes, in addition to using AI for medical research, interview and investigative skills honed during my years running an independent investigative research firm in New York City. That firm did pre-offer due diligence for corporate acquirers, mostly to uncover hidden information that could have a major adverse impact on the viability of a transaction. These skills proved invaluable in helping me survive two cancer diagnoses, including one that was terminal decades ago. More details about my background are available on my website.

   
   I believe this research can profoundly impact the lives of those facing life-threatening diagnoses, as it has mine.
   

2. The unfortunate truth is that Heron Dance is not financially viable and hasn’t been for years. Many days I work 12 hours, many weeks seven days a week. Over eight thousand people subscribe to Zen Mountain Journal and maybe four hundred support it financially. Many more of these supporters are in their nineties than forties.

   
   The Tao tells us to go with the flow. With Heron Dance I’m going against the flow. Some of the problem has been the number of different content experiments and directions I’ve gone in. A friend and long time reader tells me he liked it better a couple of years ago. I think a number of long-time readers feel the same way. There are two problems with that. One, it wasn’t viable two years ago either and I felt compelled to experiment. Another is that I’m a creative person and I can’t do the same work, the same art, the same writing year after year. I need to evolve, to experiment.

   
   It was the number of long time readers who have contacted me over the last six months, knowing of my history with cancer, and describing their major medical challenges that led me to start Emerging Cures. I’ve been offering them suggestions based on my experience but I know I could be of much more help in many cases if I could devote time to studying emerging medical science.

In addition to the new Emerging Cures website, I will launch a new Substack tomorrow, Surviving Cancer. It will explore developments in medical science, survivor psychology and related subjects that have a bearing on surviving life-threatening diseases.

You can sign up for the new Substack here, or on the new Emerging Cures website here. It is, and will remain, free.

You can read more about my coaching services here.

Thank you to all who have supported this work over the years. Your support and encouragement have made, and continue to make, Heron Dance possible.

Roderick MacIver