A 'Window' of opportunity

Microsoft is releasing its newest member of the Microsoft windows family. The evolution of the Windows platform encapsulates the idea of evolution within the technology world which encapsulates the idea of evolution of ideas. I think technology improvement and innovation is how our species is evolving. Forget 'survival of the fittest'. The idea 'died out'. It wasn't fit enough. Humans now are no longer subjects of their environment regarding evolution. It works too slow. The only biological evolution going to occur to the species will be through the hand of man via bio-technology such as gene manipulation.

Back to Windows...

So Vista is a continuing improving product. But it can be better. Microsoft is struggling with keeping others from being 'peeping toms' and peering into Microsoft's Windows. Microsoft is attempting to keep the windows closed, locked and the shutters drawn. That's a Mistake!

Microsoft needs to think of windows as an open market place. Let the user choose between Yahoo, Google and Microsoft search technology. Let the user choose between open office and office. Microsoft needs to remove the resistance that all others are pushing against. An enemy cannot defeat a resistance that does not exist.

Microsoft needs to see Windows as a fulcrum point, where commerce pivots on their turf. They profit no matter who the user chooses to use to research what to buy Aunt Zelda for her 58th birthday. Microsoft can continue to battle for domination of the digital living room. That battle can still be won. But to continue to maintain a strangle hold on the desktop is a losing proposition. Indeed, it doesn't even make sense anymore.

The company Bill Gates founded also has an opportunity to make a contribution to the betterment of the world.

One example, a recent Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Muhammad Yunus for his work with micro loans in his country of Bangladesh. Microsoft could develop the opportunity to work with Grameen Bank (who is implementing Yunus' micro credit loan system) in expanding the operation and movement of capital from the wealthy nations to the poorer. For instance, is it outside of the realm of possibility that Microsoft could bundle within its “Window's Marketplace” OS an interface that allows users to 'invest' American dollars to a micro credit fund that will allocate its resources to the poor? Investors have the opportunity to read about various projects and funded opportunities. Essentially making a Joe System a potential Micro Venture Capitalist (MVC).

These things are possible. We just need the desire...the will...to implement change within the system.

Back to an earlier concept of system shift.

Just as nature detests a vacuum. Humans detest a system vacuum.

We may and will have transitions from one phase to another regarding systems. But a system void will not occur. A system shift can be subtle, just as it has been to the current role of American power and ideological projection throughout the world or it can be unnerving. Such as the system transition into the new world of modern financial markets which was 'necessitated' following the depression. Or it can be jolting...

A Richter type scale can be developed, to measure such changes. This scale, much like log scale of the Richter based upon the amplitude of seismic waves, the 'system shift scale' can be based upon the number of displaced lives relative to the earth's population for a scale of relative change.

I like to compare these system shifts and evolution of ideas of our systems to punctuated equilibrium. Such that long periods of time will pass where very little happens, and in relatively short periods of time, a great many changes occurs.

I believe it is very unlikely that any given individual will experience a dramatic system shift just based upon the relative time societal systems are stable relative to the small number of years an individual is given the chance to experience major system instability or transition (the individual's life span).

a life of work

Finding temp work that lets you work for a few months at a time...a few months to 'float' and
back and forth. The thought of a life time of 40 hour weeks stretching out before me like a never ending highway is too booooooring...

I'm on the cusp of returning to the world of fulltime employment. And I don't know if i like it. The thought of a regular paycheck seems appealing, but to what end? What are we working for...the number? I don't know anybody that LOVES their life of fulltime employment...I think it is done more out of fear than passion...

A life of house sitting, odd jobs and travelling around seems much more appealing to me...

A numbers game...

A best selling author, Lee Eisenberg, wrote a book called, The Number. Mr. Eisenberg describes the pursuit of 'the number' as “How much money you will need to secure the rest of your life.” He asks:

Do you know what your Number is?
Do you know how to think about it?
Do you know what you want to do with it?

I think these are all important questions. But the idea itself seems overly absurd. The concept of 'The Number' has put too much emphasis on a number equalling the sum of your life. A number has become the purpose of your life. In the constant pursuit of this number, have we forgotten ourselves?

He mentions there seems to be a trend toward finding more of a purpose in life in retirement. I have seen this phenomena. People spend their whole lives working to retire. They like their work. It gives them a purpose. It may be their primary reason for being and prived a life with percieved value. An entire working life never develops an identity outside of the number and work. If one identifies with work so much that it crowds out other identifying traits, then what does one have when the work is done?

Even if you do not particularly like your work, you put some much time and effort towards it that it begins to define you. The movie, “About Schmidt” hit upon this. So great...see the movie...

But getting back to the number. Do you have a number?

If a very wealthy quirky crackpot wanted to conduct an experiment with your life and offered a check for the minimum amount of money you would need to never work again...what would that amount be? The emphasis is on the minimum. If you inflate the number...if you 'pad' the number our wealthy benefactor would know and strip you of your endowment. So the number must be a minimum you need...what is it?

Slightly different scenario. If you could collect a minimum amount of money...say $15k/year for the rest of your life with Cost of Living Adjustments, but you could never work again for financial gain, would you take the deal?

After all, perhaps freedom is the most extravagant luxury of all...

System Shift

Civilizations rise and fall, but there is always a system. Our current system (if you just want to consider the 'Good Ole US of A' as our system) is just the latest in a series of system evolutions. While this USA 1.0 is here now, it will change...it will evolve. There will always be a system. Humans cling to systems. We cannot avoid them. Even if we have a total system collapse.

Wall Street chokes, the financial markets shudder, clutch the chest, and collapse from one too many glutton-burgers, thereby throwing us into a new dark age. Be advised, a new system will emerge. It is inevitable.

Our system, our technologies, our ideas. Our ideas undergo the same evolution that species have undergone for millions of years. Only much faster.

Our current system has supplanted that of the natural world. We have created our own “ecosystem”. Instead of trophic levels and transfer of energy between trophic levels, we have capital structures, financial markets and transfer of currencies between them.

Am I cheer leading for a system collapse? No.

Do I think a system realignment is impending? Yes.

Does the human spirit need a system collapse for a 'breath of fresh air'? No.

I think it is the human role to fight for meaning within that system. The system that imprisons us also gives us the necessary equal and opposing force to find ourselves. Just as a physical prison removes our physical freedom and may force us to develop our spiritual freedom; the societal control established to control human freedoms provides us that same opportunity. To develop a freedom independent of the system.

I applaud, admire and believe 'civ-bloggers' are providing a necessary perspective on our current societal status. That 'system joe' who finds purpose in toiling to generate wealth to support his BMW, is better off if he reads a blog about our society ending as he knows it. Our BMW-driving-system-joe friend can have a system collapse on a micro or a macro scale.

Micro collapse: Joe gets fired from his job due to poor sales (something completely beyond his control). Joe goes home and tells his honey of a trophy wife that things are not so good at the office. “But how is this going to affect our lifestyle”, she asks.

Or a

Macro collapse: Currency markets start moving away from the dollar, the dollar gets revalued downward, and Joe's portfolio hits the skids (something completely beyond his control). Once again, Joe is left holding the bag...and his wife is wondering if her bag will say, "Neiman Marcus" or "Walmart"...

Adopting a different world view (something completely within his control) would give Joe a purpose beyond the job, beyond the car (sorry joe...the BMW...) and beyond his portfolio.

Civ-bloggers play a role. A change is coming...A system realignment is in the air.

“Hey Joe, can you feel it?”