Using AI to Imagine the Future Heroic Self. 🪬
How Bing Images lets you alchemize a potent future visualization.
In a certain corner of the Twitter-sphere, memes spread like wildfire…
I jumped on board one of these, using an AI-image prompt in Bing Images:
“Anime figurine of a <describe yourself>. The figurine is displayed inside a box with <insert name/description> text and logo for the box, allowing visibility of the figure, typography, 3D render.”
The results were amazing!
I had a ton of fun playing around with it. Note: this works much better with Bing versus Midjourney.
My prompting started with:
“Anime figurine of 31-year-old male man, long brown hair tied in a bun, green eyes, lean features, strong, samurai-inspired clothing. The figurine is displayed inside a box with ‘Eric Brown’ text and logo for the box, allowing visibility of the figure, typography, 3D render.”
As the meme propagated through Twitter, I watched others come up with creative remixes, adding pets, magical items, or greater detail.
Eventually, I dropped the box and added the spirit of Phoenix Culture, evolving it into:
“Anime figurine of 31-year-old male man, full body displayed, short brown hair tied in a bun, green eyes, lean features, strong, minimalist clothing, dragon tattoo on his chest over his heart. Rounded glasses on his face, trimmed beard, small smile. He has a powerful, elegant, brightly-colored pet phoenix perched on his right shoulder. The figurine is displayed on a stand, full body displayed.”
WHAT!? These are awesome. 😂
What struck me is how powerful this is for self-visualization…
…for accessing the best, the aspirational, and the truest parts of you. Calling them into existence and bringing a more clear vision of who you can be and who you desire to become.
Many of the images I saw made me proud.
It felt like in some weird way it was giving me a third-person self-perspective of how others view me in the most positive light. I also felt a visceral energy unlock in me as I stared back at the person I could become, in a more clear and direct form than the nebulous images and words and vague ideas that exist in my head.
It was at once deeply literal and entirely metaphorical. I have a dragon tattoo over my heart and am building out my Phoenix Culture vision. The dragon and the phoenix, the yin and yang archetypes of natural forces, courting the vital energy of the cosmos in service of the world. But also the real, the literal: my glasses, my style, my beard, eye, and hair colour.
Having something like this, an archetypal version of my self-image, that I could tweak and play with, unlocked a deeper sense of total self-authorship, a desire to become the very person I was busy creating.
Visualized Intention.
Now, I’m carrying these images with me, essentially as my intention for the next year, into the HERO100 and WARRIOR100 experiences we’re creating.
“Why am I doing this? What am I working towards?”
Well, THIS.
ME.
I’m doing these to step fully into the sovereign Warrior, to embody heroic consciousness and to show up for myself, for my family, for Phoenix Culture, and the world.
I’ve got some work to do. Getting stronger, owning my power, growing my hair. 😏 But instead of obstacles, these are opportunities. They are exciting and inspiring, not frustrating nor overwhelming because “I’m-not-there-yet.”
The journey to actualizing this is exciting.
These are my goals, my desires, my self-image. To embody the Sage, the Magician, the King, the Warrior, and the Hero archetypes in their fullness and put them into service of Phoenix Culture, of bringing Truth, Goodness, and Beauty into the world.
But intention without action is just a pipe dream. A fantasy that never grounds itself in reality.
Fortunately, action is coming.
We are on the eve of the HERO100, our 100-day initiation into holistic self-mastery. A journey into your psychic jungle, unlocking the wisdom, power, grace, and courage laying dormant inside of you, and taking bold, courageous, brilliant steps toward manifesting the heroic image that AI helps conjure up.
Understanding Heroic Consciousness.
I’ve heard directly and indirectly from people about hesitations or reservations around the “HERO” framing of the HERO100.
It’s too childish, too grandiose, ‘who-do-you-think-you-are’ sentiment.
But I rest firmly in this framing.
The rebirth of heroic consciousness in the individual is a fundamental necessity for humanity’s more beautiful future to be realized:
“We need a great rebirth of the heroic in our world. Every sector of human society, wherever that may be on the planet, seems to be slipping into an unconscious chaos. Only the heroic consciousness, exerting all its might, will be able to stop this slide toward oblivion. Only a massive rebirth of courage in both men and women will rescue the world. Against enormous odds, the Hero picks up his sword and charges into the heart of the abyss, into the mouth of the dragon, into the castle under the power of an evil spell.”
– Robert Moore: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.
The Hero archetype takes full responsibility, believes it is possible, and embodies courage, purity of heart, and greatness of action.
What exactly is so problematic about responsibility, optimism, courage, integrity, and virtue?
It is not only reasonable to desire these things for yourself and others, but it’s entirely possible to cultivate these in yourself.
That is what the HERO100 is.
It is an incubator of heroic consciousness. It unlocks the dormant capacities of discipline, rigour, courage, spirit, resilience, and power within everyone.
But how do you ground these lofty ideals in daily action? We take the most potent techniques of radical transformation, mix in community and accountability, and create an epic 100-day quest towards it. Cold exposure, meditation, journaling, minimalism, personal rituals, and abstinence.
Ancient and archaic techniques of self-mastery, self-discovery, and self-transformation. 6 disciplines, 1 hour a day, 100 days straight.
That is how you ground them.
And this isn’t just my word. After taking hundreds of people through these, the results and unanimous and resounding: it WORKS.
This is our task this year. The rebirth of the Hero. The resurrection of Heroic Consciousness.
The HERO100 begins on January 14. Doors will close on the 10th.
Let’s do this together, the time is perfect, here and now.
See you there. 🪬 EB.