Unforced
Exploring what it means to live well and developing systems in support of it.
Who I Am
I'm Aaron G. I'm a dancer, a builder, a communicator. I love living and I love connecting, and I feel inspired to live as fully as I can.
I was born to two amazing parents, Joe and Becky. They gave me a beautiful life and a beautiful foundation. I've lost both of them to cancer, and so that in many ways motivates me to live for all of us. I feel like I carry three lives in one body.
My dad Joe gave me the word Unforced. He was a Tai Ji teacher and a builder of houses — a man with a great eye for angles and aesthetics and for living well. He wrote a book called Too Much Fun Dying to Stop Now while living with terminal brain cancer, and in it he pointed again and again to this way of being: that things unfold in their own time, unforced. My mom Becky was a math teacher and a deep lover of the earth and of gardens. I am very much their son. More about Joe →
I live in Boulder, Colorado. The mountains are my home now, though my roots stretch back through Ohio and Oregon — college towns, academic spaces, places where curiosity is welcome. I have a background in computer science from Case Western, a master's in Ecopsychology from Naropa, and I'm finishing a master's in Creative Technology & Design at CU Boulder.
Aaron means mountain of strength. Gabriel means God is my strength. I've also been given the name Hanuran Surya — joyous breath shining like the sun. Now I prefer to simply use Aaron G, and sometimes enjoy spelling it Aaronji. Aaron has a connection to breath for me too — I hear it as air in.
What Unforced Means
Unforced is about being in harmony with life and with nature. It's about listening to the way nature moves and attuning to that. It's about recognizing that we're a part of nature — so when we harmonize ourselves with nature, we're also listening to our own nature.
Unforced is about understanding who we are so that we can be our natural expression. It's not about being passive and just letting it all happen. The Taoists call it wu-wei — not forcing.
I learned unforced from my dad, Joe. In his book, he wrote: "With interaction, all possibilities open in a unique way that allows for creative energy to flow naturally, unforced, in all directions simultaneously."
What I've come to understand is that this isn't just a personal philosophy — it's how living systems actually work. Self-organizing networks don't push the river. Life unfolds through relationship, through connection, through participating with what's already moving. When we stop forcing, we start belonging. Deeper exploration →
What I'm Bringing Forth
Parachute exists because our thinking is fragmented. The fragmentation in our tools is affecting the fragmentation in our thinking. I've spent ten years searching for a tool that actually helps me think — and now I'm building it. Parachute is open, local-first, voice-first extended mind technology. A connected tool for connected thinking.
Woven Web exists because we need to find new ways of being together. It's a communal learning lab exploring what it means to be alive together — holding deep curiosity in consciousness, connectedness, and communication. We don't claim to have the answers. We're finding them together.
wovenweb.org →A media project exploring a different relationship with technology — looking at new technologies that actually contribute to living a more balanced life. It's about recognizing that technology emerges from our human aliveness and can enrich our experience when we understand it as part of who we are.
Read more →I'm a student of Tai Ji, and occasionally a teacher of it. This practice connects me to embodiment and flow, and to my dad who first taught me to dance this way. I study with Chungliang Al Huang and practice with my stepmom Laurie, continuing a lineage of movement and presence.
Coming soon — an organization devoted to supporting the emergence of what wants to be born.
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