keep your mind open and your wallet shut...

I do not know how the average joe or average jose makes ends meet today? I do not own a home, barely drive (although the car is on the auction block), do not have kids, am mindful of money, have no credit card debt, and i earn a decent wage....and still find it 'tight'...

I looked up at gas prices the other day at a Shell station I was walking by and just about fell over. the 'cheap' gas was clocking in around a three and a half bucks for a gallon of the liquefied hydrocarbon concoction.

Throw in a Dulce de Leche Frappucino and a trip to the mall and there does not seem to be enough dollars to fill the gap.

It's easy to see we are on a path towards a recession. Despite a recent good quarter for a string of companies and their earnings, when was the last time the consumer was in such a tight spot? Housing woes, a slowing economy with increasing gas prices and a massive trade deficit worsening a budget deficit. You have huge capital outlays going into an unpopular war and stiff economic competition from China and India waiting to jump off the bench and take your spot on the field. Things economically couldn't look any worse...could they?

And that's the obvious stuff. The more muted stuff such as the privatization of public assets such as the 'Indiana Toll Road' by Macquarie Infrastructure group along with the Chicago Skyway' as well as others.

Got $2.5 billion? The Chicago Midway Airport is up for sale.

Cash strapped municipalities are selling off infrastructure and private equity firms are snapping them up. They love the predictable cash flow such assets produce. Is this bad? Who knows maybe they will be regulated and things will work like clockwork, or they'll 'get Enron' on our ass...

The point is that there is so much up in the air. It's really hard to 'keep it all' together these days. To keep things sorted in your mind as you define your mid and long term goals, plan for retirement, decide what to invest in or for how long, how much money you are going to need 20 years from now....

With so much up in the air, my main long term goals include 'stay flexible', 'keep an open mind' and 'be mindful of opportunities'. With so much change on the horizon, the last thing I want to do is get stuck in a limited, one-way perspective on the world.

i am going to have a dream

I once was a lifeguard. It was perhaps the best job I have ever had. I could workout on the clock. Stay in shape. Be outside. And have fun. It truly was a great time of my life.

During one of our 'poolside philosophy' sessions I asked a fellow guard, “What's your dream?”

We are always told in movies and songs to 'have a dream'. To 'never let go of your dreams'.

And I agree. But what is a dream of ours? Are they just fleeting ideas that happen to be a little less fleeting than others?

Where do we dream up these dreams? Are they just unrealistic expectations we have of our life? Or are dreams something very real to nurture and develop?

They give us a purpose. That's pretty important.

Can dreams be dangerous?

Think of the dream of the 'Third Reich'!

AT the time of my 'poolside chat' I really didn't have a dream. I was running on a day to day whimsical cycle that was strung together by a plan created from a societal -hard wired- flight chart that mapped what I was supposed to be doing at that stage in my life. And, believe it or not, it worked well. It was a great time of my life.

But I have nonetheless continued to develop my ideas of my dream. And I do have a dream. But more importantly I have several dreams. Different sizes of dreams and compartments of dreams.

One dream, or idea, I have relates to this blog. I dream of creating a non-profit someday, that develops the concepts of self, experience and role within society that is independent of your job. A internet based center than provides a base of support and identity when one is without a job, which is a major source of self-identity in our society. When a person is between jobs, they are always on their way to getting another job. Very infrequently do they stay in that position. I want to freeze frame and stretch those moments out and give people the time to fully explore that opportunity before they have to 'rejob'. Because this is the time when dreams are born.

Or, sometimes...a time when dreams die...

A job serves its purpose. It provides, obviously, society with services that are needed. It provides individuals with cash flow, structure and a sense of purpose. But everything has a cost, and the cost of a job, that a person must accept, to a certain degree, is the identity the job gives him or her. That's the price we pay. Sometimes the price we pay is a forgotten dream.

Any role or responsibility has the potential of 'robbing us of our dreams.' Anything that is greater than oneself presents that potential, whether it is being a lifeguard, a religious follower, a parent or a little league coach. Any role we play can ultimately 'become us'.

The motivation for picking our role, is what interests me however. I want to lessen the societal pressure in terms of identity that motivates people to return to the workforce for identity.

A dream is made up of a lot of 'dreamlets'. One dreamlet of this idea is to provide a forum for people to discuss ideas as well as learn about finances. To feel more empowered even without a job.

I want to create relationships through an organization that provides identity and lessens that societal pressure. A center that supports people in exploring their individuality through writing and creative pursuits. A center whose mission springs from each individual instead of being crafted and then handed down and shaping the ideas of its members, this organization will learn from the people it supports.

That's one of my many dreams....

the right wrong number

this is great...

i was just on the phone with REI (such a great guy...love the REI) to register for a class...when i got a phone call on my cell. Thinking that it is the guy that is coming by to look at my car (yes i am selling it), REI dude puts me on hold.

Turns out that a girl was on the phone, and it was the wrong number. (for the record, I never get wrong numbers that are english speaking girls...they are usually chinese speaking men...although that has died off...i think the guy that had my number previously was a guy...and...chinese...)

anyhooow...while on hold i thought, "Oh no! I think the class is on the weekend I am going to grand canyon..let me check..."

And so i did...and it was....

So the girl that should have been a chinese speaking man, got me to realize i was already committed...and made my life a little less chaotic...

but now i have to find out when they are offering this class again...maybe taught by a chinese man...who misses a bunch of calls because they come to me...

too slow to market

i thought it would make a great documentary...people living outside of the system...at least I will get to watch it...

connect two

what is a 'connection' with another person? You know what i am talking about? Don't you...Maybe we aren't 'connecting'?!

Is a connection with another person just communicating with another person in a really effective way? Two or more people that share similar styles of communication so that you feel that they 'get you'?

Here's a cheap cheapstreet times 'funercise' for you to do at home? list the three people you have connected with most in your life? are there any common links? why these people?

Did you find more connections when you were younger or more now?

the nth life plus 3

So I think the universe and the human mind are linked in some way. As our minds envision something beyond the edge of the universe, the edge of the universe expands. The universe is as big as our minds accept it is.

a place holder

I love these 'business cliches'. "a place holder' is a big one now.

"oh, that's just a place holder..." What the hell is a place holder?

Remember when 'niche' was being used in a business context? that one was great. I remember Carli Fiorina slinging that one around...

"IN this business ECOsystem..."

I've got to read her book and sympathize with her along with the soldiers fighting in Iraq and the orphans of darphur...

Poor carli...

only a fragment

"Only 41 percent of the adult population works [in France]..."

-Financial Times

gotta grow old...

Birthdays...or mile markers of a life.

Today is my birthday. Tax Day.

No wonder I like blogging about money so much...everybody was talking about their taxes when i was born. The doctor ran out of the room to mail his taxes...

Should've been an accountant...

Anyway, back to birthdays. Funny thing...I never really thought about it until this birthday, but I relish getting older. It's one more year 'in the bank'. One more year of experiences. Bundled up and packaged in my life. I want to be old. I want to be old, retired and wrinkled. I can't wait!

My parents are retired. And I have to tell you. It's the life. I love learning and hearing about life in the 'active adult' community. It is such a great story. As I said...I can't wait!

Each year that passes, is one more year I am closer to seeing how this story entitle, "my life" turns out. I once heard an expression, "if you don't want to die young, you have to grow old..."

I will tag onto the end of that...

"you have to grow old...have no job, live life as you wish, say what you want to say, and throw your inhibitions into the wind!"

soul money

I see Mexican immigrants, probably illegal, hanging out in the Home Depot parking lot. They wait and wait....and wait to find people who will hire them for day labor. Sometimes I see five or so snuggled into a car eating a meal. Or just hanging out chit chatting...looking very content...happy...

We all want to be rich. It's part of our growth. In order for us to look past material success as a path of enlightenment and fulfillment we have to have had wealth. Just like the story of the Buddha. He didn't have humble beginnings. He had opulent beginnings. And realized the path to freedom was not paved with gold. But we must look for that path first.

Many times I have heard very wealthy people saying, "the fun was in making it...not having it..." That makes sense. They had a purpose. A path to follow. Especially if that was their main goal. It seems once they have material success, however, that path may end, but another is waiting just head out of the clearing...one that goes back into the woods of uncertainty...that's the path I would like to get on. But first I have to find some material success..."Did anybody see a path ladened with gold around here?...anybody?...i know it's here..."

sympathy for the devil

Another aspect of the Enron story lies with Lay and Skilling. Both were visionaries. Men that dreamed big dreams. Dreams, that ultimately, were too big for them to control.

Men with those dreams and those visions can all too often get lost in the relation of the thought to its execution. Details become meddlesome intrusions into the fantastic voyage of big ideas.

These guys envisioned and tried to implement movies on demand with Blockbuster. They created EnronOnline, considered to be the first successful online business. It is hard to not admire them for their visionary 'bulls eyes'.

I think that might have been their downfall. Without a grounding element, they became intoxicated with their own importance. I really admire the two for their daring dreams and I find them larger than life fascinating characters. With a little more failure earlier in their careers, they may have ultimated succeeded. And in the case of Skilling, who knows what else remains of his story...until then, however, perhaps even in spite of what else he may accomplish, I think both will forever be remembered as greedy thieves.

low wattage, high return

Ran hits on an interesting idea of energy, money and quality of life. And the link between each. Jeff Vail touches on it from another level. More societal.

It makes sense that energy is of utmost importance to us. Since we harnessed energy in its purest form, fire, we have been hooked with no going back. Sure we can abuse energy, just as we can anything else. But it is vital for humans and our society.

I think the idea of linking quality of life with energy usage is brilliant. That should be in the general matrix of how well a society is run. Right up there with interest rates, economic growth and infant mortality.

When I apply it to my own personal finances, getting rid of my car will free up a lot of energy I have tied up in my personal energy budget. From the money that is in the car, to the insurance to the gas used to run the car. Just the emotional energy I put into worrying about the car being towed.

same space, different people

So my girlfriend, being the entrepreneurial spirited girl she is ("quick, she's giving those away, get some!" i love it) rents out a room.

The guy here now got a job in europe so is leaving. He has only been here for about 2 months or so. Very nice guy.

The guy here before him rented the room for about a number of months. He's since back east but travels a lot for work and is in the area for the next week or so. Very interesting and fun guy... So we are going to meet up.

It's need how these guys have never met and never will meet, but are connected in one way or another. And now are almost overlapping in space...just as one is leaving..the movie 'babel' kind of hit on this...

I really enjoy meeting people and intersecting with their lives and seeing how their lives intersect with others. I do not think you can know or have too many people in your life. Connecting with people is one key aspect to a good life. (not that any life can really be a bad life...)

A friend told me once, you can maintain friendships with up to about 100 people. I wonder if that's true? (Might make for a good screenplay...)

Another aspect to a good life...beer...good beer...

Enron: the smartest guys in the cell

If you have not yet seen Enron: the smartest guys in the room, see it!

Most excellent story. I still can't believe this happen during the recent past. I remember watching the 'ask why' advertisements on tv. I remember reading articles about how the company was the most innovative.

So many 'average joes' worked at Enron. I wonder how many people working at Enron felt guilty about leaving early? Or that they didn't do a particularly good job on a particular project? How many beat themselves up because they took too many personal calls during the day?

the places that scare you

went to my favorite pizza place for lunch (not one of those places that scares me) and popped into a book store on eastern philosophy. A book called 'the places that scare you' jumped out at me and was by Pema Chodron, who is a resident teacher at Gampo Abbey, a Tibetan monastery for westerners in Nova Scotia. My sister told me of this place about a year ago (almost to the day) and I have wanted to go since. It is still part of the plan.

Some things ring true...

The book starts out with,

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye"

too busy to call

I've noticed I have not been calling my friends. I have noticed I am becoming dependent upon email to maintain friendships, because I can email at work....sort of...

Another one of the dark sides of work. You figure you can't make or received personal calls at work. So that's 9 hours of the day gone...Perhaps I'll have to do that more on lunch time?

Then weekends are a real squeeze to call everyone, friends and family, you did not call during the week along with doing all the stuff you want to do...

I want to start volunteering with the homeless...one more thing...

A great book, CrazyBusy, hits on this point. He identifies keeping connected to what is important to you. If you lose your connections, then you yourself are lost. Many of the books ideas ring true...

a herd of choices

I recently looked at a stock I have been tracking. And it's gone up...quite a bit, in the last two months.

I was talking to my girlfriend right after I noticed this trend in this stock (MIC) and she asked,

"Why didn't you buy it?"

And I realized I was too overwhelmed with other stocks I was watching. Essentially, I had to many options. Too many opportunities. And just the opposite happens than what you would expect...when you have too many choices you end up taking none...

Just as fish swim in schools, and prey animals travel in herds. Their many numbers, with each individual displaying similar behavioral traits (must like stocks or items on a grocery shelf or local chain restaurants) the predator's senses get overwhelmed. Perhaps that is why the predator picks the weakest animal. Not that it is deficient, only that it is acting differently so it is easier to focus on...

that's the difficult part of human society. Act too differently and you will get taken out, but the only way to excel is to 'think different'. Finding the balance between the two is the fun part I suppose.

making good use of time

Riding the train is great. At first I thought,

"Wow, I have to sit on the train for 45 minutes 2 times per day...gotta be a better way..."

then it hit me, that time is mine. I am guaranteed some 'me time'. I am now starting to meditate on the train. Something I could never find the time to do before...

mirror economics

I was expecting the business sector to stay strong while the economic stamina of the consumer got winded. I did not expect the housing market of the East Bay to weaken, however. Now in looking at it it makes sense. The East Bay market is essentially spill over from San Francisco. I was looking at the Bay Area as one piece. Actually it is several. San Francisco, South Bay and East Bay. San Francisco has the financial sector and the San Francisco name. South Bay will maintain it's real estate values b/c of the tech sector. The area has such a strong economic base. East Bay, however, doesn't.

the human experiment

This is a story regarding Halle Berry's close call with suicide. I have to admit, I read the article because I saw how hot she looked. But after reading it, I realized how we all go through hard times, even super hot stars like Halle. I thought of Anna Nicole Smith. I thought of the 'downside' of stardom. How we, as the public and society, essentially dehumanize these people to products. How they become idealized and how this affects them and their lives. We often look at one aspect of their lives and think of how great it must be. I for one, would never want such a life. Is is absurd how the public and people talk about the stars and their lives? Perhaps, it gives us all a chance to discuss 'the human experience' and gives us all a common denominator. We can all relate to these stars on one level or another. So in that sense, pop culture, ties us all together with a human link. Even if they are, to many of us, a product...

The following story is from here:

Halle Berry came close to committing suicide after the failure of her marriage to baseball star David Justice, but changed her mind at the last minute, fearing her death would leave her mother heartbroken.

The Oscar-winning actress was so depressed after the relationship collapsed in 1997, she started the process of poisoning herself with carbon monoxide in her car.

It took an image of her mother Judith finding her body to stop her.

Berry tells Parade magazine, "I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming, when I had an image of my mother finding me.

"She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. It was all about a relationship. My sense of worth was so low. I had to reprogram myself to see the good in me. Because someone didn't love me didn't mean I was unlovable. I promised myself I would never be a coward again."]

intuitive clutter

I believe in 'vibes'. But how do you separate the genuine and real intuitive feeling from the other clutter that rattles around in your mind?

the [justin.tv] story goes on...and on....and on...

This sort of thing is becoming more and more and more common...totally links with 'the second life', 'my life bits', and all that stuff...it's interesting, but seems to be very 'ed tv' like...doesn't seem that original, but here you go...just one more dot in the pattern emerging. Blending 'reality' with 'what is reality?'

But I think a far more useful approach, would be professional series for career exploration. the "a day in the life of..." series. Where a doctor, firemen, clerk, accountant, legal professional, lumberjack...etc do this 'justin tv' thing and interested students or people wanting to explore a field can view...instead of just entertainment.

to be honest (and i'm rarely this blunt)...justin.tv just seems stupid...

--------------------------------

ON a different note; where do companies come up with these names? Microsoft has been really good at coming up with names that are cheezy but sound edgy...previous ones, such as 'zune', 'urge' (with mtv), and now 'deepfish'...

The departement of defense has a computer program to come up with names for operatons, such as desert storm, or desert shield, or but i bet microsoft just has a bunch of twenty-something nerds sitting around trying to come up with 'cool' names that just end up sounding...silly...

Microsoft did try the concept of naming something for what it was suppose to do. The 'play for sure' label. Only problem with that strategy is your screwed if it doesn't 'play for sure'.

I think it would be great if the military operation names actually described what was going on behind the scenes. For instance, when we invaded Iraq it would be:

Operation: Line Your Pockets

or

Operation: Big Dick Syndrome

or if we invade Iran it's really simple:

Operation: Oh Shit!

In the movie, 'enron: the smartest guys in the room', there are sound bits of the traders coming up with names for different trading strategies. Many were describing how the company was robbing, errr excuse me 'arbitraging' the state of california...good movie if you haven't seen it...

JFK

No matter how we got here, why we are here or where we are going... To me that is the ultimate puzzle. The ultimate 'riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma...'

(I always thought that phrase came from the movie JFK...great flick...)

Anyway, it's so great...the life...

A friend of mine started a blog...so great, about bike riding... I guess his blog reminds me its about finding something you love and doing it...

I love biking. I bike to work everyday. May be the best commute ever! I look forward to climbing onto the bike when i leave work. Whether it's raining or nice out. I love the SF weather...never know what to expect...I like the uncertainty...

But no matter what this life is about, our purpose in it, how much we have to work...finding joy in something is part of the mystery. And I think joy can be found by letting go and letting the 'currents of life guide you...'. Finding something that gives you 'the ride' you are looking for...

I still have a long ways to go before I am in shape enough to ride with my friends, but it's nice to know it's about the fun...it's nice to know, that maybe life is more of a 'joke, wrapped in a limerick, and served on a woody allen line...'

“

I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.

”

sdr

self destructive relationships have a definite place in human relations. the same factors at play in an individual, the accepting of the universal laws that want them to succumb to the forces of entropy and the energy concentrating forces of life, are at play. these two forces threaten to rattle most relationships to pieces. I think understanding the factors at play, put us in a slightly better positions of mastering them.

the nth life part n+1

So why create a 'simulation' of our world? Why bother? Why would a society create a simulated world such as ours?

I think it is inevitable that we will do this. That means, somebody else must have already done so, increasing the likelyhood that our entire universe is basically a 'simulation'. Which, in a funny way changes nothing while at the same time changes everything.

But why create it...To answer questions and to learn. Our universe was created to study how life evolves and how ideas evolve. We were created for the reason of creating ideas. That is the purpose of our society, accoring to 'the nth life' philosophy, is to think and generate ideas. To create.

Basically, any group or society that created our universe is basically God. But when asked why God would create our universe I never have or can come up with an answer that is logical and satisfies me. Why a somebody or group of somebodies (who would basically be God) would create our universe the answer is so simple and incredibly obvious. To learn. To study.

Doesn't that make sense? Or at least doesn't it make great science fiction? I really think this stuff would make a great story or screen play...kind of a bit of a twist on 'the matrix.'

Perhaps i'll start putting some ideas for a story up here...

the unbearable weightiness of ownership

Okay fine! I am going to evaluate going carless. Having a car-free that is a carefree existence. Here is one more option in my bag of tricks.

I mentioned it to my girlfriend and she said, "Sure. Plenty of europeans at work just share one car."

This is a kind of exciting adventure.

Who knew that getting my car towed would be a great experience and lesson. I am looking at it as I paid a 'consulting fee' and the consultant said, well you could save a bundle if you got the car out of your life. But instead of the consultant writing a report and tossing it onto the desk saying, "there you go...".

They went one step further and took my car! (you have to pay extra for that service you know...and not all 'lifestyle consultants' even do it...i got lucky...)

Some may say that such a positive view on subject matter is delusional. I would say, I just prefer to pull out of any situation what supports what I want to accomplish in this life.

So had a great impromptu night last night. Love the impromptu situations...perhaps the best ever...I think I would like to structure my life to maximize 'the impromptu'. How does one do that?

I spoke with one of my good buddies and had tentative plans, but we kind of left it that we would hook up the following week. But then I ended up throwing the frisbee around with our european roomate we have who is leaving to head back to europe soon. the frisbee was great...great cheap game! Even some cheap little kids joined in. one kid asked, "excuse me sir, can we play?" So we tossed him the frisbee...

Following frisbee it was off to a irish pub for two pints of guiness...(made by Diageo by the way, the world's leading producer of spirits and paying a nice 4% dividend) and an evening of good conversation and live band...can you say, "so great"?

oh, we did drive...but i think biking would have been much more fun...especially if we had a frisbee in tow...

going...going...gone?

So I recovered my car. You know...that thing with four wheels that I never use. That thing, that if it sits for more than 3 days is considered 'abandoned' and will be towed. You then have to leave work, go to the police station and get a 'release form' and then go to the tower and pay $145 for the tow, and $45 for each day it sits in the lot. Which could be quite a long time if you never use your car. Thankfully, mine just sat for a little over a day (thanks to my girlfriend asking, "hey, where did you car go?") But no prorating, you get slammed for the whole day, even if it just sat in the lot for an hour over the 24 hr period.

So this is a legitimized scam. You have to pay to get your own stuff back. Great deal!

I think I may put a sign on my car that says, "I will move my car for $10, call this number....". Otherwise it'll move every 2-3 days. I have to look up the law as to how far it has to move. A foot? 2 feet? There's probably some crazy formula that gets worked out...

"If it's an odd model year, then you dived the year by two...after adding three...and then multiply that by .84 and then call this number to find out the current conversion rates for that zip code to find out how far the car actually has to move."

so great...

Actually, it was an interesting experience. Kind of expensive...but interesting...

So I am going to evaluate going carless. I don't need my car for work. Once you are at that stage, getting 'rid of the ride' becomes really doable....

will keep you posted of my carless adventures...

missing something i never use

Okay, I want to continue on 'the nth life' but something just popped up that I have to write about. I, thankfully, never need to use my car. And it's a nice car...a 2001 civic. But since I can bike and use public transportation to get to work, I never need to drive. Which is a great thing! I hate driving on repetitive routes...like to work...

But I walked outside to check on it...

And it was gone!

So my first reaction was it was stolen.

But then i thought, people on the street must get tired of parking around this car that never moves so they called to have it towed. And it was. I am now on the phone with the police dispach to find out what the dealio is...

so funny, i wonder if it's worth keeping the car...

so great...

an nth life

I mentioned second life in previous blog. I have been experimenting with it. I have upgraded my RAM. I can now explore this world...

I didn't know what exactly it was about second life that so interested me. But I think I figured it out.

What if our world is an nth life of another society?

I know this might sound crazy. But just think about it for a second...

It was/is inevitable that we develop another world in cyberspace. It has happened. Now it is a matter of time before we continue to expand this world. What happens when we add 'artificial intelligence' type technology to these worlds. Would the characters in these worlds think they are real?

See where I am going with this?

We used to think that the known world was a small slice of globe. The rest of the world was flat. then we discovered...not true...

Then we thought we were the center of the solar system? Then we realized helio-centric model was right and so was the German-Pole Copernicus.

We then thought our solar system was the center of the universe...

Why do we now think we are the first to develop another 'world'. Isn't it more likely that we are one of these worlds. Just statisically I mean. To be first in anything you have to be...well...first...you are an outlier. Isn't it more likely you are just a data point in a stream of data points instead of the first...or the last...

spending money to have fun

In trying to save more money I am starting to analyze my spending patterns. Is spending money on just having fun worth it? Perhaps fun comes just in living life? In each moment. In experiencing things.

fed watch

I think the excesses, to use a little 'green speak'...the 'irrational exuberance' of this era, are going to erode little by little. The interesting situation with the sub-prime housing market, regarding which Greenspan is sounding the recession bell very loudly, is one of these 'eroding moments' when our, the american, standard of living will fall more in line with that of the rest of the world's. Once the dollar devalues, the cycle will be near a close. When i say, 'devalues', I do not mean an asian currency crisis of the 90's type situation. It will be a very orderly move towards the exits, with the dollar just going down in value much as an overpriced stock would or will. After all, the dollar and all currencies trade just like any commodity. Until the dollar is more reasonably priced, then expect more turbulence in the markets as this situation works itself out.

I am curious to see what the fed does with the housing situation. I can't remember a time that has been as interesting to watch the fed's moves as it is today. There is so much going on. So many balls in the air.

I personally believe that the fed will let the sub-prime market shake out happen without a bail out. The housing market must come down to fall more in line with other fundamentals. The fed realizes this, I believe. It can do so, while at the same time, protecting the dollar by increasing interest rates or, a more subtle approach by just leaving interest rates unchanged. I think the fed will inch up rates to test the housing waters. The latest inflationary data will be the justification by which they do so. This will also squeeze out some excesses in the stock market.

a new idea?

This blog is trying to find itself. What are the common themes I like to write about? What are the common threads that connect each post. I am not sure, but I am trying to find that out.

One thing the really interests me is ideas and their evolution. It just so happens I was reading the financial times and came across an article on the history of originality and the meaning of originality and innovativeness.

The author writes, "We still labour under a romantic (that is, Romantic) notion of what creativity and originality look like. We picture that lonely figure experiencing a eurka moment and, from nothing, creating something completely and utterly new."

He says, "innovation is a team game, and one in which everyone has much to learn (and copy) from what is going on in the outside world."

He talks about how google is critiqued for profiting off of the ideas of others. I think google exemplifies what defines innovation. Making connections between existing ideas.

Innovation, is not about coming up with something new. But a new view on what already is. A new connection. A connection can be original.

The idea that nothing is original is not very original. But what can be original and innovative is a new process. A new method. A new perspective.

These are great. A nice balance to those annoying 'motivator' posters you see in offices. Check them out at www.despair.com (no i'm not getting paid to say this...I would if i could...wouldn't that be cool...i only wish...can i say anthing more inbetween these parenthesis?)

here to see it...here to feel it...

"If there was a big bang in the universe and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound?"

I was taking the train home from work (so great, no driving) and enjoying the sun setting and thinking,

"hmmmm, if humans weren't here....if life wasn't here...to experience this, would any of it happen or exist?"

Perhaps that's one reason humans exist, is to give testament that this world exists? don't know...but it's definitely one reason! Because if we didn't see it...who would?

formilab

This is a great site. John Walker was the original developer of Autodesk. He is an amazing genius that has 'checked out' of the system, lives in europe now after living in sausilito for a long time. He has developed a great system for losing weight. Check it out.

He has thrown out a bit of a gauntlet as well. If you want to contact him, he says "you will figure it out."or something like that... essentially the pieces to the puzzle can be found on his website....interesting...

Boby Dylan sings to people outside of the mainstream...people that are 'floating'...or perhaps just rolling like a stone.

lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone"

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

pizza my heart

Going with the idle time theme. I was once again at the post office. I had some time to wait again. When i got to the counter to pick up a package the postman let me know,

"wait here, I will be right back..."

S0 I waited.

But my first thought was,

"oh, some idle time. let me grab my phone and text message my friend back..."

But then caught myself.

We, ourselves, are really good barometers for everyone else. Chances are. Your gut reaction or instinctual response as a result of cultural identity will be the same as 99% of the people in your culture. In our cases, western society. So If my initial thought was,

"oh, idle time. I must distract myself and/or be as efficient as possible"

Then, chances are 99% of the american public thinks the same thing.

but going with the thought in my last blog entry. I think we are robbing ourselves of those moments where the brain 'drifts'. And in those drifting moments, kind of like conscious sleep, the brain solves problems. When the brain stops thinking of a problem it has to solve, it often finds a solution...

I guess my point is, don't feel you always have to distract yourself. I'm trying to learn it's okay to let the brain just sit...and idle...

In this case, I just found a great NY pizza place in the south bay so I let my brain drift over the experience again...

I'm a retrenched New Yorker and always looker for a good pie. I finally found one that can compete with the east coast...it was pure chance that I found this place...I have to do a 'resample' to ensure their consistency is there. That's always a fear, find a great pie only to realize it was an outlier. A chance hit. A random shot in the dark that hit its mark...i have a good feeling about this place, however.

So when i go back next time. I hope there is a nice long line. So I can stand in line and wait...doing nothing but being idle....

in other words, "just don't do something, sit there..."

idle time

We often think that idle time is wasted time? Sometimes idle time is the most productive time.

If you are not at your desk, "working" then you are not working...is the common supposition. However, the mind works in mysterious ways. Problems are sometimes best solved when we stop thinking about them.

recession proofed

Greenspan speaketh againeth

I am going to diversify into Linden dollars currency markets...

the possibilities

I am really pondering the potentials of second life.

What if you could run through scenarios in your life and play them out in a "model you" scenario.
The technology is not there yet. But what if second life was a model of your life?

You could run through various situations and see how they play out. I have many questions regarding second life.

Is there a stock market? If so, can one get a seat on the exchange?

Can I mention my blog to people in half life. Get to know their characters and interact with them in 'this world'?

Is that in and of itself crazy? That I need to refer to this world as...well..."this world"?

So this is a whole new realm to explore.

and it makes sense that it would evolve when you think about it.

We discovered the 'new world'. That is north america....it was a whole world to explore and 'develop'. Now the 'new world' is old. Played out and used up and fully exploited...time for something new to evolve...

It makes sense that we would develop real estate, markets, and opportunities in a world that only exists in cyber space...i love it...

"is this really in our world?"

gimme a second

I am very intrigued by second life. I created a character. This world is the future. Whatever you feel about it. Whatever your thoughts. Second life is the future. To be honest, I cannot believe we are witnessing this event unfolding in front of us.

Remember how gradually the internet became a phenomena that became indispensable to your life? This is second life now.

I have big plans for my second life. Big plans. I have ideas with which I want to play with within the second life and I am very interested in the philosophy of second life in our first life.

I got a comment regarding second life as not being the first....second life type game. I am sure that is true, but I also feel this is big...and evolutionary

check it out...

PS Now I may have to upgrade the computer I just got...

amazing people

I really do enjoy talking with people. Getting to know people. Getting to expand my life experience through getting their perspectives. I think the more people the better. Everyone can give you their perspective on the world.

I think of the three blind men in the room with the elephant (get your minds out of the gutter).

Each one gets a different perspective on what an elephant looks like. One man says as he feels the tail, "Ahhh, it's like a snake..."

Another one touching the massive leg and says emphatically, "NO! This animal looks like a tree."

The last one says, "What are you guys blind! Oh...anyway, this animal is more like a spear!" As he feels the smoothness and pointedness of the tusk.

Life is like the elephant. Each of us the blind men. By getting to talk to each blind man, we get a better picture of the whole picture.

My girlfriend and I had our friends over last night. I got reacquainted with their perspective. It's a great perspective! I am really lucky to have friends that I aspire to learn from. I am lucky to have friends that I want to be more alike.

I have really cool friends!

I think we have forgotten, as Americans, that conversation is a source of entertainment. Of bonding with great people and just talking is a wonderful experience. It has been a source of entertainment that has kept us busy for ages. Before TV. Before movies. Before books even.

We had conversation. We had each other....

getting comfortable

We went to an used REI gear sale yesterday. And saw nothing of worth, so I bought nothing. Good.

Went to best buy and bought a new computer...Good?

I think so.

Sometimes it's so hard to tell good purchases from bad. In this case I bought the cheapest desktop I could find. $364 for a 1.8 gig. Not bad. With keyboard and mouse. They then gave me a giftcard with 50% of the value of the computer to the tune of about $180 bucks. Which i used to buy a thin monitor that was open boxed so knocked down to $90. Which leaves me with about $70 (after taxes on the monitor) to play with.

Then i bought a $20 computer desk...

So now I have a cheap street command central operation. It's nice, getting comfortable, but also a little scary. I am trying to find the sweet spot of 'stable but flexible'.

a mortgaged house-of-cards

Dodging a recession induced by mortgage industry bad loans is going to be tough especially when you factor in fluffed up overseas markets, an unstable dollar, over leveraged American consumers and tense political pressures around the world that are unfriendly to American interests.

get a life!

Do you know what an avatar is?

Sounds like a middle eastern word to me. Ali Baba and the quest of the avatar...

Virtual worlds are expanding at a rapid rate. One getting a lot press is second life.

This concept really got going with The Sims. Remember them? I don't know why the sims on line isn't out competing second life, but there it is...

Nonetheless, this is great stuff. I think this technology, as it gets better, is going to blur the lines between reality and virtual. In some individuals I am sure the line is blurring already. But the great thing, is maybe the line is meant to be blurred. Maybe society dreamed up the distinction in the first place.

This 'second life stuff' may be a great tool in helping us realize that 'there is no self' except what we project onto the self. Perhaps technology will help us orient ourselves within the spiritual universe much as it did in the physical universe. In both, we are not the center of that universe. The physical or the spiritual...

I wonder how many Christ or Buddha avatars there are in second life? Perhaps I will join second life and do what I always wanted to do...join a Buddhist monastery...

Which would buck the trend. Apparently there are is a lot of 'sex' in the second life. Perhaps it should be called, 'sexond life'. Cheezy I know...couldn't resist. See if I said that in second life you could punch me and not 'pay a price' in the real world.

But, I think your actions in second life (even though I have never experimented with it) will still have an impact upon your well-being. When you think about this 'game', it's very powerful and interesting stuff. I am not sure what it all means, but you can be sure I will be thinking about it...

the flip side to sdb

There is a flip side to self-destructive behavior (SDB). This time from the perspective of international politics...

Sometimes when attempting to act in one's own best interest, one's own best interest is undermined.

For instance, I was just reading in the San Francisco Chronicle that the US as a destination for foreign travelers is dropping and, obviously, so is that share of money that they spent here. We are being hurt as a collective nation (the nation is really a bigger version of one's identity...it's the next level up if you will) as a result of our choices as a nation which were made in what was thought to improve our standing.

I think this result, the fact that foreigners essentially have a distaste for us, is normal. It is the equivalent of an obnoxious individual in a room full of people declaring in a slightly drunken stupor on his own self-glorified success, "I'm going to get first in the buffet line, eat what I want and when I am done all you other pimps can eat what's left over!".

Who would want to sit at this guy's table? You? Me? I'll think i'll pass...

in favor of self-destructive behavior

I was at a party where everyone was smoking but me. As I was driving home I started to think,
"Why do people purposely do things that seem to undermine themselves and their own efforts? When people smoke, spend money frivolously, or even hurt themselves. Or when people just live very unhealthy lives, why?"

We often think, "What idiots!"

But, self destructive behavior (SDB) makes sense...

We know the contradictions involved in just living. SDB is a manifestation of that contradiction. It is the human coming to terms with the non-living part of themselves. The part that has to deal with the universal law that all clocks run down. The part that says, "if i want to let go and accept the laws of the universe, the laws that want to pull the very energy that give me life apart, then I have to accept the strings that hold my life together will sometime come undone..."

SDB is logical on some level...I think there is a better way to embracing the laws of the universe, but SDB is not 'logic'd' out. It just emerges...but why it emerges now makes sense to me...

job impermanence

I still have my job, but I anticipate for the day or time when I don't. I went through not having a job and attempting to be job free. I still think that is a good insurance policy. Developing your own means of self-sufficiency outside of the job market. When one becomes too dependent upon a job, a person gives up too much autonomy and control over their own destiny.

What is it about a job that we want?

A job should be a means to an end. A stepping stone to something greater. If you stop in a job, more mentally (that is get attached to it) than physically, you will either get screwed because you became dependent upon it or (if your job is stable) you will become bored and feel "is this it?". The best strategy is always look at a job as temporary...

not to look at it as a 'permanent' job...

'stable but flexible'. this concept sums up my approach to living now...i think selflessness, positivity, creativity, resourcefulness and flexibility are traits i most admire in others. and keys to a good life, i believe...

I think humans innately like to work. It's not the work part. I think it's the control or actually lack of control we have over our destiny is what causes dissatisfaction in the workplace.

A job can be one of the most dangerous aspects to a person's feeling of contentment and self-worth. I think of the movie, About Schmidt. In the end, what did he have? It's dangerous too look to a job for identity and/or worth. To look to a job and say, "I did this!", is asking to much of the job. But that's what we want to do as humans: create, build, leave a mark and we mistakenly look to the workplace to provide that.

I think that's one reason why people blog. One reason why I do. Even if I am the only person who reads it, that's okay. The ideas are out there. I feel I have imparted something to the universe.

I read a story many years ago. I can't recall the name. I was in Malaysia at the time and talking to a friend. She was really upset about man's destruction of the environment. I told her about this story I had read, even though I flipped it around and cast the message of the short story in a different light to illustrate a different point that what i think the author intended.

The story started with the last few seconds of the life of the last man left alive on the planet. He was dieing just as his society had died. In the last few breaths of his life, he made a mark...the mark of an "X" on a rock. He wanted to leave a mark of his existence. The story goes from there about how his "X" quickly was weathered away, and how eventually all the buildings and great monuments of man crumbled and succumbed to the earth and the universe by storms and earthquakes and geologic activity. How eventually the mark of man and his society, society's own "X', was erased from the face of the planet, and the universe. It was sad when I read the story.

But here, in Malaysia, my friend was upset about man scrubbing out the environment. That we were removing the "X" from that of other species. So I told her the story to illustrate that nature did prevail and survive in the end.

I don't know if it made her feel any better...the story is kind of depressing, isn't it?

It is interesting to think about though.

I visited the twin towers about four months before 11 september 2001. I walked up to the base of one of the towers and placed my hand on it and looked up and it's imposing and gigantic presence and thought in awe,

"Wow, these things will last forever..."

Four months later they were smoldering ruins.

Time and time again, we are reminded of how temporary things are. And yet we think of our jobs as being...

Permanent...

be very scared

Sounds like a very overly melodramatic title doesn't it. Forbes describes how shaky things are right now in this article by that very name.

Remember how life was just 20 years ago. what about 30 years ago in the US. We weren't this opulent.

I think we are on the brink of a global depression. Why would Greenspan say there is a high likely hood of a recession in the US? What would motivate him to say that?

cheap street credo under construction

You have heard this stuff before...

I am not my job.

My self-worth is not connected to my net-worth.

My job is there for me, I am not there for my job.

I will not spend money to meet emotional needs.

Well, I have heard it all before too. But I have never made it my own. That's about to change. I am going to develop my own cheap street credo. End result?

Freedom!

I know freedom is a state of mind, because some days I am closer to it than others, even though very little has changed in my life. Funny thing is I am closest to freedom, when external physical dependencies are the least! IN other words, I have the least stuff in my life...

remember SARS

Remember SARS?

Remember how China tried to cover up that they were even having difficulty dealing with an outbreak?

Now replace SARS with a crack in the economic fortress of China. What if China was an Enron of nations?

I know there are a lot of what if's, but what if it's true?

sauced by apple

okay, my brand new ipod i thought i was getting when i returned my bad apple. well, i suspect it wasn't brand new because it died two weeks later.

I just brought it back to the apple store again and they issue me a 'new' ipod. My girlfriend was really funny. I was at the 'genius bar' already when she came in and she said,

"what are they doing? giving you another dead one?"

really funny...

so we wait and see.

But i realized, apple has it's own secondary market in returned ipods. when you bring your ipod back before the end of the warranty period (1 year from date of purchase) you get a 'recycled' ipod or factory refurbished ipod. aka one that was already brought back. you enter in the secondary ipod market.

i think they make these things with such tight tolerances (i mean they are pretty small) that their failure rate is pretty high. the only way they can keep costs down is to recycle these things.

it's pretty smart...now if only they served beer at the genius bar...

hungup on outsourcing

I was just reading an article in Fortune magazine on a wire hanger manufacturer in Monticello, Wisconsin. The company was founded in 1917 in Peoria, Ill by a guy named Laidlaw. Until recently, it was one of the last companies making metal coat hangers in America. The jobs were unusually good paying for people without a high school degree and included health insurance for a family for $192 per month. It was something...something pretty good...

The company will or has packed up its machinery for shipment to China. The company was employee-owned but decided to outsource. The article goes on to say:

"Why Laidlaw's American employee-owners would think wise to invest $2.8 million to shift production overseas is not clear, but it get even weirder. In 2002 some of Laidlaw's domestic competitors petitioned the US government to impose a tariff on Chinese imports. Laidlaw wrote checks to lobbyists totally $441,000 to try to block it. President Bush killed the measure. Whatever your feeling about free trade, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Laidlaw's employee-owners became agents of their own demise."

I feel bad for the employees. It just seems sad...

It seems the surge of resistance against outsourcing has passed. But the trend is continuing.

I suppose we have accepted there is no use in swimming against these currents in the changing swells of global economics. You just get tired. Putting up resistance to forces that are bound and determined to make change is fruitless.

Trying to stop the tides is a good analogy. You can't stop the tides, but then again why would you want to? To continue with the analogy, if your house is built too close to the shoreline, move your house. Better yet, make your house float. Stay flexible. Be resourceful. Enjoy the challenge. Look ahead. Your house doesn't have to float forever, just long enough for the tides to change or for you to find a new house...

Outsourcing isn't going to last forever. Rather than fight it, make it work for you. On both ends. ON the outgoing economic tide that is pulling capital and labor away from American shores...and when the time comes...the incoming tide that will return many of the efforts we are now sending to China...

Outsource what you can of your own during the out tide. For a while, before joining peace corps, I was joking about outsourcing my family. It was a great rebuke to the republican/free market support for outsources, while at the same time promoting and standing behind good old fashioned American family values. Find a nice Indian woman to make a nice mom to my kids and raise my kids in India. Mail money over. Everyone wins. I import my American family experience via pictures, emails and cell calls. I joked but, to a certain extent you can outsource aspects of your life...

For instance, try and land a contracting position here in the states. Something which requires intellectual capital. But that needs a American to tap into the funding spigot. You act as the conduit. The eyes and the ears. The data gatherer. Send the 'data' for processing overseas.

Next time you speak with an Indian customer service rep, give him your own sales pitch. You already know he can speak English. Ask him or her,

"Hey, i have a personal business. What's your email. I'll send you some 'test' data and see how you analyze it."

Start a consulting business and find your own Indian outsourcing partner. It's combining globalism and 'localism'. You and an Indian working side-by-side. Both benefiting and cutting out the middleman. The middle man in this case is the multi-national corporation. Make life work for you. Make outsourcing work for you!

Eventually, during the incoming tide. Many jobs and resources that left the country will return. When cheap Chinese labor dries up. When Chinese standards of living rise dramatically, be open to opportunities that reemerge domestically.

Additionally, think of how you spend your money. Think of how multi-national corporations think. Apply the same logic to your own life. If consumers employed the same tactics as corporations, we would be a force with which to be reckoned. If we employed the same cost saving efficiency protocols a company such as Toyota employed, think of how much money you could save.

Right now, business has a singular focus. To efficiently tap the consumer, you and me, for all that it can. It mounts an all out assault for our resources. Business benefits from our inefficiencies because we are distracted by things like...say...living a life...

I think it is jut a matter of time before the 'efficient consumer' movement emerges. There is and has been no organizational, all-encompassing push for consumer efficiency.

One could make the argument that consumers just naturally are efficient. Always looking for the best deal. Which is true. But that is like saying companies just naturally are always looking to make a profit and do it naturally. However, look at the changes that has happened in the last 50 years in the business world. Business has gotten smart. Implemented technology. And new organizational models. The consumer has sat still. To use another analogy, business is utilizing modern weapons while we, the consumer, are still fighting a war of attrition. Witness the evolution of the MBA.

Perhaps, consumer efficiency and tactics will evolve. Perhaps their will be an MBA for consumer efficiency. A Masters in Consumer Efficiency, an MCE, which will combine an MBA and consumer advocacy non-profit interests?

Until then, the ability to look for opportunities and for empowerment rests with you. It is sad that the employees of the hanger company seemed to sink their own ship. I do not understand what happened to them or their intentions completely, but it is nice to think that maybe we can learn from their fate and maybe...well, maybe...outsource some lifeboat construction.

yesterday's measure of a man

The traits and qualities we, as a society, will value in people tomorrow will be drastically different that what we value today...sort of. The qualities we will want in ourselves and our children are changing...

Thousands of years ago, the measure of a man was vastly different than it is today. However, I am sure the ability to relate to others, a sense of humor and a general resourceful were as respected then as they are today.

Today's man is most identified with what trait? Intelligence? Smarts? Genius?

Is that the defining mark of a successful man?

People that are smart often like to point out that they are smart. Often by the ability to recall facts. Know things about stuff (that sounds smart, don't it?), and be able to understand concepts quickly.

These traits will be useless in tomorrow's world. Think about it. These traits will be as useful as the ability to spell is today...

Gordon Bell, a researcher at Microsoft that is based in the bay area (I didn't even know the company had a research center here..show's how smart I am...), is showing us what the not too distant future will mean for human intelligence. The man, for the past 30 years or so, has had his memory outsourced to a computer, called the mylifebits project. (Fast Company November 2006) It's brilliant. Every email, saved. Every vision, photographed. Every document, scanned. Every conversation, recorded. All of it archived and accessible via computer. He can free us his mind for creative problem solving.

The true mark of success in the future?

The ability to think creatively is what will be one of the most desired traits of the future. The artists will decide our fates. Those that can socially network. The people that are least like machines...

Mr. Bell (a great character in The Paper Chase..."You're all a bunch of PIMPS!"...great line)...anyway...getting back to Mr. Bell, it will be a matter of time where your life experiences are stored on your home server. All memories. Nothing will be forgotten. Draw up any photo. Any memory. Any thought that was recorded. You will have access to all the information that has ever been thought, written or conceived.

How does one survive in such a world? How does one compete?

a change in direction

If I am not 'anti-system' what am i?

What is 'droppinng out'?

Can I love my job and still question the greater purpose?

Can I be anti-system and enjoy what I do as a 'productive' member of society?

Well in terms of this blog, loving your job can be detrimental to your readership. While I enjoy 'connecting' with other people in a new way (this blog), and i hope people find something of interestert here; I, in the end, write this blog for no other reason than just to write it.

So with my new spin on employment, I feel some of the pizazz some readers found in the blog is gone. The bottle of coke is a little flat.

Funny thing is I did not choose this and it is quite a surprise to me as well. I really think we just live out our lives, and respond to situations as they are presented to us fully letting go to enjoy the experience that is presented to us. That is how I am living my life more and more each day.

I am letting go of preconceived ideas of how my life (or blog) should turn out or become. Maybe that is ultimately the most system living you can undertake. To determine before hand what you want your life to be and then 'become that', without 'letting go' to discover what the intersection of life and your soul create.

When you do so, when you let go, there is no fear. There is no fear because there is nothing to fear. You have no end point to achieve, therefore no sense of fear of loss or failure.

I compare it to when you are sitting in a room. For no apparent reason you get up out of your chair. The second you get up out of the chair, a ton of roofing tiles lands on the chair, crushing it. You would have been dead, had you thought, for a fraction of a second, whether you should move. I suppose I believe in intuition. Follow it...

Even if it is just getting up out of a chair...

I know that makes me a bit of a contradiction. I obviously love to analyze. But I am also very intuitive. I like to analyze and philosophize as a leisure time activity, for fun. But when it comes to living my life I am trying not to analyze. I am trying and learning just to live, intuitively.

can't believe this...

I can't believe I am going to write this...

I love my job...

I see my job as something that let's me do something that I wouldn't normally be able to do, give me new experiences and do something positive. It's great...

hmmmm....i guess everything has a cost. If i like what i am doing on the job (although I get frustrated from time to time and i will probably vent here), i think the cost is not have creative juices flowing about the positives of the alternative lifestyles to work. so i've struck a balance...

i'm going to live like a 'floater', that happens to have a job...should the job evaporate (which tends to happen from time to time) i want to remain nimble and responsive enough to take that as an opportunity to try something new. explore. venture out...

this way "heads i win, tails i win"...can't lose...

so great...

it's the "stable but flexible" strategy...

one phat muffin

So I took a break today from work and walked outside to a scone/coffee cafe. It's a really little place. Just enough room for two tables. Really small tables. She, the owner, actually had muffin tops for sale. Just as in the seinfeld episode. I couldn't get over it. I thought it was very funny. She, on the other hand, very matter of factly thought i was a buffoon for being amused by something so ordinary as muffin tops. I was asking questions, and she seemed annoyed that I was asking, so I stopped. (they actually make muffin top pans...just so you know...and in australia it means something completely different)

Anyway, I asked her,

"How's it going"

She said,

"It could be better"
(implied here, was...."Better now that you stopped asking about those F*%#ing muffin tops!"

So I said,

"Yeah, it seems it can always be about...10% better..."

Which got me thinking as I left the matter-of-fact muffin maker..."maybe better is just from where we sit in the center of our own universe?"

Just as in our 'real' universe, from wherever you sit, it appears to be the center. I think it has something to do with everything moving away from you (but i think it call all be explained through the magic of the muffin top).

But maybe the same idea applies to 'better' for our lives. There is always a better out there. Just out of reach. And we are always grasping for it. We thought just having muffin tops would get us there...it hasn't...maybe a better car will do it...nope....more money?

"If only I won the lottery....think of all the muffin tops..."

senior stinky and almundo

To get a little more goofy than normal, I was thinking about a kids book. It would be fun to write.

The adventures of Senior Stinky and his sidekick the cactus, Almundo (instead of El Mundo).

They would go around the world helping kids and their family's deal with economic injustices, imbalances and just 'falling through the cracks in today's global marketplace. After all, the world is a pretty big place and so the cracks can get pretty gigantic!' Through their adventures, kids learn about world finance, global economics, differing standards of living, environmental impacts of economic activity, poverty, wealth, stocks, markets...and basically money and life and a balance between the two.

Of course there would be funny antics (always has to be antics), such as Almundo 'popping a balloon with his thorns' type humor...almost self mocking...

Senior stinky's background is not known and the audience learns a little more about him in each adventure? Is he educated in economics? Why is he doing this? How did a cactus become his sidekick? Was peyote involved?

Anyway, just a side project that will never get done because there are so many to do...but it would be fun...(that's something I love about the blog. Instead of the idea occurring and wisping away, it's fun to at least write down a smattering of ideas...)

and then say adios...

one bad apple

I have...had an iPod. And it gave me the sad, pathetic icon you see here. So I went to an apple store, signed in on the concierge desk (located on any apple in the apple store or you access it from your home computer) to get an appointment time. I did get an appointment for an hour later at the "genius bar".

Apple really has created a cultural identity. Whereas with most things corporate, people are really put off. But Apple has swung that the other way. They have identified themselves as anti-corporate. Anti-system if you will. Remember, the 'revolution' ad? Very smart.

But no matter how cool the company is, the stores are and the industrially-designed slickness of the computers (they are now Apple Corporation, by the way, in case you missed the latest in apple news), I still had a pathetic iPod face, an hour wait and wait a second...is that it? Sometimes we can make seemingly simple annoyances which result from a comfortable life seem like a crisis. I'm waiting to get an iPod fixed...let's not make this out to be more than it is...I was lucky just to have one. Even a broken iPod...with a sad face...I could me in Venezuela now...wondering "how things are going to turn out..." (and my life there would be fine as well...)

I have it easy. And I know it...and not just because I have an iPod (the iPod is a bit of a means test however, if you have an iPod, chances are most of your basic needs are being met...)

That said, I have gone through moments of pain, loneliness and isolation. I came back to California for a temporary job some months back. I thought I would get a cheap room in the city, enjoy the city and enjoy life. So I got a room, checked in and realized I was wandering lost in the mire of life and looking around for a friendly face. I had a girlfriend in the area that I enjoyed spending time with (who I am happily spending time with today), but wanted to stand on my own. Not depend on her. But one night in the room, waking up early and being asked, "are you cool?" as I made my way to the train through the streets...at first thinking, "hmmm, what a cool guy he's wondering if I'm okay". Then being asked again,

"You okay man?"

I realized..."OH! These guys are drug dealers. They want to know if i want drugs...hugh..."

I felt empowered just to have this realization (pathetic I know), and at the same time it made me a little nervous...and feel a little more lost...

Anyway, what does this have to do with a broken iPod?

There was a song I was listening to at that time that reminds me of that time called, "hate me", on my iPod as I sat on the train staring out the window. Thinking,

"Where am I going.
What am I going to do?"

Then that song comforted me. The song made me realize other people feel this way as well...isolated from time to time...

Now the song reminds me of the feelings I was having then.

The feelings of isolation.
The feelings of being alone.

And, the funny thing is, it feels good. That's the strange thing about those moments in life. After they pass I am happy I had them. They made me look inward, and 'get dirty' with my feelings...they connect you with other people that go through the same thing. And we all do...

But many of us do have it very easy and very good. A very high quality of life.

So now, I was waiting to find the fate of my iPod. To find out what apple does with rotten iPods. Do they have a little memorial service? An Apple 'iPod grieve consultant' meets with you and works through what's on your mind? I did not know what to expect. But I was having fun...

But, expectantly, after a long wait, pondering all of the moments I had gone through with my iPod, I was called to the 'genius bar', by a guy that really did look like...a genius in a pierced nose, pierced ear and 'punk'd' out sort of way (that's how genius' look today...don't they?) and he started asking me some questions in a really cool, apple sort of way...

Before I knew it, he was handing me a new iPod. A fresh, organically manufactured and blemish free, brand new black iPod...

and I listen to it now (some great guitar by John Williams, the magic box)...pondering all the silliness that I ponder...and having fun...

buddha or bust...just another modern book with a schnazy title and a catchy subtitle?

I just finished reading Buddha or Bust . It is a book which stemmed from a National Geographic article the author wrote about the world-wide historical spread of Buddhism.

This book and modern popular writing is a lot like blog writing...like '...this here ole blog.' Essentially the idea is formulated and then written down. I think his writing style is a response to the manner in which people want to read. In most non-fiction today there is little or no art to the writing. Even fiction, in my opinion such as The Da Vinci code, is sometimes hard to read. What would the real Leonardo think about the book? Especially in contrast to something like Oryx and Crake. Which just flows...beautifully...

That said, I did enjoy a lot of Perry Garfinkel's book. The parts in the book I enjoyed the most dealt directly with his life story. Well...I suppose...the most 'bloggy' parts. He had some ideas, which he finished with, that gave me pause to think. He wrote about why we do not question when we are in the moment.

"Often, so caught up in my own head, I drive by similar scenes here and take no note of them. But through my new door of perception, the ordinary took on extraordinary significance. We were perfectly content, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be. Questions come from dissatisfaction, from doubt and uncertainty, from thinking there is more to the picture than what you see in front of you. But to be fully in the moment, in such an altered state of satisfaction, is quite enough. Even the journalist, "stripped of his questions," can let go of his identity. Until that moment passes. As it did that day."

I like that passage. To me the idea is ironic though, because I feel one of man's defining characteristics; one of humanity's most endearing and lofty traits is the ability and act of questioning. Without it, without the desire to grow, we are less than human. Questioning comes from a desire to be something greater. To reach a higher level of being. There's the rub. The contradiction. That in order to reach enlightenment, to be free of desire, one must desire to be free. There must be hope and a dream of something better.

It seems we are all in prison. But a man with a dream and a desire and a plan on getting out of prison, is a free man indeed. And that man has a purpose...and hopefully a rock hammer...

But in order to do so, one must question.

Garfinkel talks about enjoying the moment. About not questioning, about just being. But that appreciation of the moment, can only come when one knows and understands that the moment is going to pass. When one has questioned the impermanence of things.

great stuff

For a reinstatement that there are alternatives to the normal workaholic American strategy for making a living, check out the simple living network link to the right.

In particular, review:

un-jobbing: the adult liberation handbook.

and Affluenza...this is a program that question the american dream and its values. Produced by PBS!

This is great stuff guys...

And the classic, Your Money or Your Life, which struck a chord with me when I first hear of it. My freshman year in college when the authors were on Oprah. Go figure, Oprah, spreading a word that is counter-culture. I also really enjoyed reading, "How to survive without a salary" by Charles Long.

The movement away from The American Dream is and has always been there. There have always been a group of people discontented with the value system of the majority. That would be me, us and people who actually enjoy reading this stuff.

The thing is...what we are seeing now with such movies as 'an inconvenient truth'...is that the values of desire and the majority have been and are putting our lives and our planet at risk. It's just not a matter of survival, but of quality of life of that survival...time for a change...

screwEDD

I went to the post office yesterday to mail my appeal of my appeal for my unemployment benefits. It seems I mailed one of my claim forms, a form you have to mail every 2 weeks in order to claim benefits, from NYC. Apparently EDD, Employment Development Department, AKA the welfare office, has somebody employed (a good way to keep the economy going along during those slow times) to inspect post marks. This person or persons did a great job! They caught my claim form mailed from NYC and I did not report in to EDD telling them I would be in the NYC area. This triggered a 'phone interview'. (did I just warp back to middle school..."where's your hall pass..")

So I had nothing but problems trying to justify to the EDD people that I was actually unemployed and looking for work. The hardest work I have ever done was trying to get money for not working. Their mission, however, became clear. Their purpose, their mission is not to provide a safety net for you or me in case we lose our jobs. No. Not in the leastest.

It's to ensure we stay controlled, socialized and of prepped for the work world. We stay fit for work, which essentially means being a system tool.

Which is fine. I accept I have to play this game for a while. It just took me a while to learn the rules. Now I am trying to 'win' my back pay by making a strong and convincing case. Which really is...actually...fun...

That's really how I see working, and making money now. It's a game of immersion into the world of capitalism and work. The game is being played, why not see it for what it is...a game....get in it, and have some fun?

I think just being aware is the first step towards winning it.

Anyway, I was at the post office and the LINE JUST WASN'T moving! I was very surprised at myself for getting antsy and annoyed. I thought, "wow, must be work. I have much less time now, because I am working. I still have to get a bow tie, and my girlfriends brother is coming to town...Why won't this Damn Line Move!"

I was shocked. I thought I had the Zen Line Thing covered.

So I used the game strategy. I thought, "hmmmm, well let me see if i can turn this around and just be Zen about this situation..."

Low and behold, everthing got better. I relaxed and my external world seemed to get better. I just enjoyed the line. The people around me. I enjoyed the fact that I had to be there. That I had the opportunity to relax and do nothing. Then, would you believe it? The line started moving...rolling....pushing forward. Before I knew it, I was at the front of the line, thinking,

"oh man, i'm gonna miss standing here and doing nothing..."

breeding cubicle monkies

So we are selecting for people that do not question. For people that do not mind the status quo. We are, our society, is selecting for people that will 'buy the party line'.

Think about it.

The people that don't want little kiddies are not going to put their wrists out and say,

"shackle me with another pair of golden handcuffs please!"

That said, the people that don't mind slaving away for the lexus RX wage-slave machine are the one cranking out the little rug rats.

Perhaps I am taking the easy way out. I could camp out in the woods, raise a little farm of my own puppies and tell them to:

"go forth and question everything."

But that's a little impractical.

Therefore, I am back to my original argument, there will be no need for social control in the future, because the social control will be build right in.

Just like, how everybody eventually sits in the same seats, in the same rows after the first day of a college class. Without "designated seating"...

free cigarettes

What does this mean to you? That is if you are not a tobacco industry executive.

We are amazing. We humans. We are struggling against our bodily and physical limitations to no end. We are even attacking those very things inside of us, that are a part of us, that keep us locked into this physical world of yearning, craving and desiring.

We are working to free ourselves and our spirits.

One of the questions that comes to my mind, however, is this. If we free ourselves of many of the physical restraints that keep us controlled, then what will keep us controlled? Is our society's goals actually in alignment with those of the individual's spirit?

If those that desire power and control of the world, knew that many of the issues society is working on today will free us from control, would things be different?

the middle way manager

So I am getting ideas. I just don't have the time and sense of order and routine to write them down. I will have to do that.

When I was deciding to join Peace Corps, I was also thinking of just traveling around the world. I wanted to go and study Buddhism somewhere. I decided to go with Peace Corps. My thinking was I have always wanted to do PC and they pay for my trip. That was the deciding factor. That costs were covered.

I am glad I went, learned and discovered things.

But I still have a strong desire to learn more about Buddhism concepts. I still want to take time and go on a retreat. I was thinking about doing a 10 day retreat and one cannot help but start adding up vacation time, thinking about work, thinking about your obligations that commit you that prohibit you from following your desires. In this case, my desire to to study buddhism to learn to control my desires.

But this got me thinking. Why cannot my work day be a surrogate for a day at a monastary? The monk's day is highly regimented. So too is mine. His day is focussed upon self-discovery. As is mine. His on mindfulness. Why can't mine?

To a certain extent a monk is fleeing the negatives of modern society and seeking sanctity in the halls of the monastery. In the words of my girlfriend in reference to the Buddha and Dalai Lama, "It's easy to be liberated when you have someone cooking your meals and taking care of you." And she's right in one way or another. When one is free from external responsibilities, perhaps it is easier to focus on forgetting the self.

In life I am trying to turn a potential negative into a positive. Into a strength. That is what I want to do here. If I bring this concept into the forefront of my mind, then it becomes a real factor in my life.

Now I am no longer wanting to run to a monastery to pursue an elusive concept of what I think I might find, but bring it into my everyday life.

Buddha put forth the idea of The Middle Way. Is this not the most middle of the ways in today's modern world?

institutionalized purpose

I know I want freedom. Free Time. Free thoughts. Freedom to travel. Freedom in my relationships...I know how I would spend that time. I know I would have purpose in my day. Even if that day was spent lying about pondering lying about and what lying about means. I find purpose in my thoughts alone.

And there's freedom in that...

Have you heard people say things such as:

"Sure it's nice to lay around for a week. But then I start getting bored and I can't wait to go back to work."

I find this thought so interesting.

Work, in my mind, is a means to an end. A way to generate the resources to not have to work. To explore your soul.

To many people it has become a defining purpose for their lives. In this case, and in my opinion, work has become counterproductive to the individual.

Most people want a job they can lose themselves in. A job that captivates and interests them such that the day 'flies by' and they have no recollection that they just spend eight hours of their day doing a specified task for money. Or it so challenges them that they spend another four hours past quitting time working on that case or finishing up that brief. But in the end, if work is a distraction, when work ends...what do they have? Have they grown?

I prefer to actually realize I am working. To say to myself, "This is not bad. I realize what I am doing. I acknowledge what I am giving up. What I am gaining. And, if I am lucky, that my efforts are contributing to a 'right livelihood'"

In short, I want my work to feel like work. I am seeing it with my eyes open and saying, "I accept this fate. And I am growing my purpose and exploring my soul through it."

"now you don't wanna out live your money...do you?"

I found a new financial planner. Here's his strategy. You tell him how much money you have, how much you want to spend per year and then he gives you a lifestyle to ensure you don't out live your money.

"okay, you have $100k, want to live off of $20k per year so you only have 5 years to live. I am going to put you on a 3 pack a day smoking habit, bacon and eggs for breakfast, you're going to start hang gliding as a hobby, and you're going to start 'rail walking'. That gives you a 99.9% probability you will be dead in 5 years. And you get a nice pay off from that term life policy I set you up with to take care of your loved ones."

He's capitalizing on the extreme life planer. The person who can leave nothing to chance and wants to be able to plan for everything.

the 80/20 relationship

This is a post I had written in November but just never posted it out of fear my girlfriend would see it. But 'living in a vans...' recent post reminded me of this...(and I just showed my girlfriend...bomb defused...)

Many human endeavors and pursuits are motivated by the opposite sex for sex and approval from that sex (just thinking about sex makes me....can't...think...must...get...sex...)

Okay...sorry...back on track...

Most of our motivations for system behavior are by one of our most basic desires. Sex. From bombing a foreign land, to making lots of money, to working out...Sex. It's very powerful. And not just the act of sex. But the approval that comes from women. That motivates men. That's what motivates male leaders of companies and countries to 'strut their stuff...'

I mean, look at a picture of Joy Bryant. She's sexy...playful...wow....

or this one

and how can you not want to go system? Once again desire. If you can tame the desire you can look, admire and appreciate beautiful woman. When you just look at woman that you don't know you can appreciate her physical beauty. Just as you can appreciate a work of art. All women are beautiful! True...

The joy of beautiful things can be separate from the possession of beautful things. I think of how dictators have pillaged the great musuems of the world as Hitler did. Possession can be a dangerous thing...I think back to the post on 'the Zen System'.

Anyway...for a man...all woman are potential mates. (A friend mentioned this to me a while back...most excellent point). All woman have that special ability to satisfy 80% of a man's needs. Just a woman being a woman is a wondrous thing. The only thing a man is tinkering with in his selection is that remaining 20%. Granted, that 20% can have a profound effect upon your happiness and well-being. But just accepting a woman as herself meets most of a man's needs. He will stop searching, be satisfied and realize the true beauty of the woman in his life...once you see that beauty, there will be no need for any other...and that's the true Joy! (sorry, I love these cheesy little 'wrapups' to my posts...)

That said, (this is the update to the post) the modern man/woman relationship has changed. The social thread is definitely evolving and we are experiencing it now. I have noticed in my previous and current relationship that women resist compromise. They are resisting firmly today the traditional puritanical role that they played in American culture. That is good. I think woman have been oppressed in modern society. In a primal society they had different means of exerting leverage. We are now seeing that play out in today's relationships and why 50% of marriages fail. They fail because that model is not working. If the current approach to relationships was what we 'were supposed to do' then would we have a 50% failure rate? If something didn't work half the time (isn't that equivalent to flipping a coin) wouldn't you redesign your process? And of the 50% that stay together, how happy are they? Modern society has provided us with an oversimplified and compartmentalized version of what a our roles are supposed to be. The male/female relationship is no different.

we are so screwed!

This is worrisome. Grab your bars of gold boys and girls...

Our entire economic system is balancing on the head of a pin. And the pin resides directly upon this issue.

"May you live in interesting times..."

primal needs, modern man

So I think our society and communities need, should and eventually will be structured according to primitive tribal standards. What people need to lessen the feeling of alienation and aloneness we feel today is a sense of community that is lacking. Today friendships are based mostly upon entertainment. As friends we entertain each other. Entertainment is fun, but essentially hollow and empty. The human animal needs more and the structure of most communities today fail to deliver.

We are so busy trying to insulate ourselves from the business of living that we have forgotten how to live. This is not a solution one person can solve. There is not a solution that one person can implement based upon lifestyle. The overall problem that our society has focussed on is predictability, stability and control. None of which really meets the basic, primal human needs we have, such as community, sense of purpose and fun.

a knocked over post

Sorry for the lack of posts. I am sure I have missed writing them more than you have missed reading them.

I have undertaken a new project.

A job.

Thus, no time to post. AT least until I equilibrate. And so I have removed comments. A casualty of lack of time. One less thing to deal with..

As I have said, I have missed posting much more than you have missed reading I am sure.

So I have taken a job for the reasons most people take jobs. What would those be?

Hmmmmm.... let me see. Well...money. That would be one. And let me see...what else...to contribute to the betterment of society and the propel the human race forward. Yes...yes, indeed.

So I have taken the job for the obvious reasons. But I have my own reasons as well. To continue this idea. To continue delving into my soul. To continue my self discovery. The job is one more tool to do that. That is the hypothesis I am testing...and...at the same time...make some money while I am at it...I am curious what aspects of my life will change and how. Social, health, creativity...views on money...will I be happier?