Brian N. Hewlett, Ph.D. (Dr. L.I.F.E.)

Born and raised by two foster families in urban Philadelphia, Dr. Brian Hewlett aka “Dr. L.I.F.E.” was publicly educated from Pre-school until receiving his terminal degree in the Sociological Sciences. Working in primary, secondary, and higher education has led to his passion for open access to education for all and breaking down structural barriers that present limitations to life chances. This passion led to the establishment of a foundation and ministry dedicated to lessons promoting limitless ideas and free environments (L.I.F.E.) and acts advancing communities all over the world. The Foundation is currently focused on the removal of limitations to the arts for persons with disabilities and others as well as on supplementing care for families dealing with loved ones suffering from Brain Cancer and research to help eradicate this terrible disease. Using festivals and other gatherings as a platform to speak with community members, Dr. L.I.F.E. offers L.I.F.E. Lessons that focus on sacred knowledge and practices that help shift human consciousness, cooperative practices that produce more for communities through cumulative resource management and exchange, and self-directed enterprise that ensures communities break the chains of dependency fostered by capitalist models of economics. Look for the forthcoming dramatic comedy project “Hallowed Harmony” created by Dr. L.I.F.E. and his activist co-creator Kyle Wagner that highlights the conscious transformational movement and the associated soundtrack that features popular festival music and visual artists.

Workshops & Presentations

  • Curing Capitalism with Cooperative Enterprise and Currency Models

    90 min | Altar of Air

    As the ship of capitalism sinks we see more and more problems based on the underlying ideology of extracting resources from our communities leaving them desolated and decimated. In this workshop, we confront the issues of resource depletion and the diminishing of social capital related to direct exchange, the foundation of the current capitalist system in the US, and offer the benefits of general delayed exchange found in cooperative community and self-directed enterprise models that promote economic development based on the benefit of "We" rather than "I." Given the centrality of non-secured "fiat money" as currency in current economies throughout the world and how that fiat currency is closely tied to debt creation as it masquerades for secured "commodity money," we use an alternative digital currency model that is designed for trading industries like festivals and farming to compare the cash-based system and the system of resource pooling to examine benefits in terms of actual resource accumulation and the determination of value. This workshop focuses in-depth on illustrating these systems, examining their origins, discussing their effects on various communities, and shedding light on which is most beneficial for sustaining communities in the future. This workshop will be of importance to business owners, sustainable systems professionals, and any resource manager.

Media

Festival Locations:

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