Hugh Francis, Founder and Coder

Hugh Francis is a self-taught coder and the founder and operator of Garden3D which includes Sanctuary Computer, Seaborne, Index and more.

APOSSIBLE™ is a non-profit bringing psychologists, technologists, artists and creatives together to explore how technology can better support creativity and human fulfillment. In this ongoing interview series we’re discovering what people value, what makes their lives fulfilling, and what kinds of relationships to technology they already cherish.

1. What is a ritual, practice, or routine in your life that is important for your psychological wellbeing and/or fulfillment? Why?

I'm gonna broadly lump my mindfulness practices into this. That includes traditional Meditation—I do a style of meditation called Vedic meditation which is pretty similar to what people refer to as Transcendental meditation, although that's kind of a brand name. Other mindfulness practices that are hugely important to me are Yoga Nidra, which is a type of lying down meditation, a full body consciousness scan.

I also do this type of breathing, called Coherent Breathing. It’s where you breathe for about 5 and a half seconds in, 5 and a half seconds out, and do that for about 20 minutes. Just using your nose. It sort of matches the rhythm of your heart. It’s really powerful for getting into a parasympathetic nervous system space.

I really like the gateway meditations that were funded by the CIA in the 80s. They're pretty trippy, all about projecting and getting bigger than the globe itself. Having an energy that can be all-encompassing. Helping you feel outside of your body. I also do energy healing. So I work with an energy healer in Portland, Oregon. And I also do Reiki.

All of those practices I find to be really important, because they really remind me that I'm not some human sub-process of the planet that is tuned into how society wants me to live. But rather that I'm like a ball of energy and that my body doesn't stop with me or with my skin. It allows me to ground myself in a much bigger and more meaningful reality with the world around me. It puts a lot of things into perspective to remind myself that we have a no proof that anything exists. I think without those practices, I'm not really sure how I would live or how I would be.

2. What is a human-made creation that brings out the best in you? Why?

I'm gonna say a place. My favorite place that's human made is the Russian baths in the financial district; Spa 88. It's just these old baths that are downstairs, really haggard, but the sauna is so hot. It's like a 199 Fahrenheit, and the cold plunge is so cold. It's a completely unpretentious place to go. It allows you to escape from the world and ground yourself completely in your own body.

And the sensations of going between hot and cold like that are another one of those very important moments that force me to be nothing but present. Those few moments that I get to be all the way present without technology is few and far between. So these days I go every Sunday to the Russian baths for that reason.

I’ve in fact become addicted to not having my phone near me, and being forced to experience extreme temperatures. It’s super super important to me.

3. When do you cherish the slow or hard way of doing something? Why?

There's a lot of these things that one must push through. A couple examples come to mind. I really like helping people move house. Not a common opinion, but I quite like having to maneuver a couch up a complicated and tiny flight of stairs with a friend. For a couple of reasons. A, it's good exercise, but B, it's one of these things that really, really means a lot to that person.

It’s so hard to get anyone to want to do that, and it’s a small thing which is great exercise and kind of fun. All things said and done, you feel like you've accomplished something at the end of the day.

So helping people move, moving apartment, is one of those things. I think the other one, and I'm sure you've gotten this one a few times, is when I need to process something, I'll pick a really challenging recipe and I will just cook for like 3-4 hours. Try something new, and learn a new recipe or something like that. Cook something kind of ambitious, try a new technique. Those, again, are these moments of relative presence, or distraction.

It’s necessary mindfulness; thinking about doing things with your hands. That's when I cherish the slow or hard way of doing something.

4. What is something you appreciate or long for from the past? Why?

I remember the feeling of being in university was incredibly freeing. The way that I talk about this period is a time when you can't speed it up. In theory you can, but you can't really. You basically have to wait until you've done your four years and then you can finish your degree.

So provided that you're on top of your studies, all of the time around that time is for want of a better way to put it, guilt-free time. It's time that you can use to experiment, to play, to learn an instrument, to try and make beats, to put on parties with friends, and just do weird stuff together.

That time is few and far between today. It’s really hard to award yourself guilt-free time. There's always something you can be doing to improve your stability as an adult person. That’s a really sad state of affairs. Any play we do today is something where we've probably had to take time off to go do it. And time off is scarce.

Like, I get this feeling when I crack open my synthesizer or piano and I sit and play it for 30 minutes; I don't calm down, I don't have that much fun. I actually find myself getting frustrated with the fact that I don’t have enough time to actually write a good song. I used to never feel that. In university there was enough time. Time was expansive. I could just keep chipping away at stuff and having fun. Now time doesn’t feel that way. It feels scarce.

So yeah, I long for that feeling. I did feel that feeling last year when I studied in Beijing. I took three months off of work and went to this immersive Mandarin program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. All I could do was study Chinese, and this was bliss to me. This was the happiest I'd been in so long. It was five days a week, twelve to fourteen hour days of Chinese. I was working on weekends to get keep on top of everything. And this was the happiest I'd been in a really long time. Just because I had this period of time that is a luxury. I'm sure it's the luxury that people feel at writer's retreats. Potentially. Although there, there is kind of an objective, a personal objective. You have to drive yourself towards it. Maybe it’s more how people feel at meditation retreats…

But yeah, having guilt free time to experiment and not have to be productive in any type of way is something I miss very much so. I also miss Australia, and Australian pub food.