This Blog is Moving to a New Location
1 month ago
Saturday, October 3, 2009
This Blog is Moving to a New Location
Hi, and thanks for stopping by! In order to save time and consolidate our creative efforts, we're moving all future postings to our web site at:
Friday, May 1, 2009
Money Is Time
Here's the opening to an article I never completed on the role of time in the economic interactions between society and the individual. Still, it is an interesting enough concept to share here.
Money Is Time
You've heard the truism that "Time is money." It is also true that "Money is time." Imagine someone said to you, "If you work for me for one hour, I'll work for you for two hours." Seems like a poor deal for them. But that is exactly what happens every time a ten dollar an hour clerk hires a twenty dollar an hour repairman.
Our society is built on the attempt to create an objective standard for just about everything. We have been so successful at this that we have squeezed out any consideration of the personal or subjective meaning. Although objectivity may allow us to illustrate the value of goods and services, it is only through subjectivity that we can truly understand their worth.
The great objective leveler, Capitalism, is based on a foundation of supply and demand. In order for an economy to grow, demand must increase. It is often wrongly assumed that demand means a desire to purchase or possess. While this may be true in a collective sense when lumping consumers into a group, it is not true for the individual.
We don't just buy what we would like to have, we also buy to bring ourselves relief from what pains us. In fact, a modern industrial capitalistic society has evolved to create angst by encouraging debt. In this manner, the population buys much more than it desires and the economy remains healthy. But for the individual, relief is short lived as the additional debt remains much longer. The greater the debt, the more anxiety; the more anxiety, the more the motivation to purchase. Ultimately a debt/anxiety/purchase/debt spiral is created which drives the individual into despair even as it fuels demand.
In a sense, at a personal level we have become victims of our own success in creating an economy of plenty for all. In this book we shall propose a new model of the economy: a model that describes the flow of our transactional lives rather than the structure of our transactions. Along the way, we will offer a number of new ways to measure, manipulate, anticipate, and leverage the time in one's life so as to have the time of one's life.
Money Is Time
You've heard the truism that "Time is money." It is also true that "Money is time." Imagine someone said to you, "If you work for me for one hour, I'll work for you for two hours." Seems like a poor deal for them. But that is exactly what happens every time a ten dollar an hour clerk hires a twenty dollar an hour repairman.
Our society is built on the attempt to create an objective standard for just about everything. We have been so successful at this that we have squeezed out any consideration of the personal or subjective meaning. Although objectivity may allow us to illustrate the value of goods and services, it is only through subjectivity that we can truly understand their worth.
The great objective leveler, Capitalism, is based on a foundation of supply and demand. In order for an economy to grow, demand must increase. It is often wrongly assumed that demand means a desire to purchase or possess. While this may be true in a collective sense when lumping consumers into a group, it is not true for the individual.
We don't just buy what we would like to have, we also buy to bring ourselves relief from what pains us. In fact, a modern industrial capitalistic society has evolved to create angst by encouraging debt. In this manner, the population buys much more than it desires and the economy remains healthy. But for the individual, relief is short lived as the additional debt remains much longer. The greater the debt, the more anxiety; the more anxiety, the more the motivation to purchase. Ultimately a debt/anxiety/purchase/debt spiral is created which drives the individual into despair even as it fuels demand.
In a sense, at a personal level we have become victims of our own success in creating an economy of plenty for all. In this book we shall propose a new model of the economy: a model that describes the flow of our transactional lives rather than the structure of our transactions. Along the way, we will offer a number of new ways to measure, manipulate, anticipate, and leverage the time in one's life so as to have the time of one's life.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
TRUE LOVE AND THE MARS SOJOURNER
Quite simply, we all want to be loved for who we are. But each and every one of us is so afraid of being rejected for our true self that we create a "pseudo-self", a surrogate peronality that we send out ahead of the real us to test the waters. We make this ersatz person similar enough to ourselves to gather data about how safe is the social climate, but dissimilar enough that if it is rejected we don't feel as if we have been rejected. Just like the Mars Pathfinder mission, the rover goes where humans are yet unable to tread. The problem is that while this works fine for everyday use such as in the business place or with casual friends, True Love can only occur when the unspoken essential qualities of one person line up the those same qualities in another. Alas, those are the exact same qualities we consider the essence of our "selves", so they are the very ones we hide to avoid rejection of the real "us". We can be happy in life without exposing our hearts to risk. But if we really want deep, fulfilling, satisfying emotional love, we will never achieve it until we have the courage to walk the face of that planet with our own feet, not with our robot servant.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Organizing Your Life, Part 2
My daughter responded to the previous post with a suggestion that perhaps she should keep lists in order to organize.
Here is my response:
I, too, have always been dissatisfied by lists. They are two dimensional and therefore only cover the problem like wrapping paper - lists don't actually take the smelly trash out to the curb.
I suspect the 3-D chess set organizaton system that works best varies among different kinds of people. So, your best method of organization may not be the same as mine.
For me, I erroneously tried to separate the practical necessities from my personal desires to organize things initially into those broad categories and then sub-divide from there. But I have come to realize that I am primarily an emotional creature, not a logical one, and therfore (for me) there is only one big category called "life".
For me, it turns out that I don't need to separate the practical from the emotional as a means of ensuring I watch the bottom line. Rather, if I organize things according to my heart - what is most meaningful to me, the practical value is already factored in to that personal impression of priorities.
In other words, when something actually "needs" to be done, it rises up in my desires as well until it reaches the top and I do it. I don't think this would work with a lazy person, but I've never been that.
This simplifies things greatly for me. Here is what I do....
I have an oversize "desk blotter" calendar on the wall, and several pads of super-sticky post-it notes to put on the wall.
The calendar organizes the time in my life. The post-it notes organize the space.
Any time-sensitive item or appointment I have goes on the calendar where I can easily see it and have room to write a bit about it if necessary.
Any project or goal of interest goes on a post-it note (with a little description as necessary) and gets put on the wall next to the calendar.
With the calendar, I can see what's coming. With the post-it notes I can see what's waiting.
Each day, I look at the calendar to see if there are any requirements today or things coming up that I should begin to prepare for.
Each day I look at the post-it notes and re-order them on the wall according to how I'm feeling at the moment, putting the most compelling things (be they practical or emotion) at the top.
Some events in the calendar require post-it notes to be created. Some projects in the notes engender calendar entries for activities on certain days.
In this way, by separating time and space yet letting them impact one another, by keeping them side by side so they can cross-talk in my mind, by having both visible in a single glance, and by blending all the elements of my life into one list rather tha separating practical from emotional, I find myself constantly eager and motivated and enjoying the passing of each moment, busy or not, being productive or engaging in fun. And all of this without overbearing weights of responsibility, obligation, or that pesky work-ethic that used to supercede all pleasure, but does no more.
Here is my response:
I, too, have always been dissatisfied by lists. They are two dimensional and therefore only cover the problem like wrapping paper - lists don't actually take the smelly trash out to the curb.
I suspect the 3-D chess set organizaton system that works best varies among different kinds of people. So, your best method of organization may not be the same as mine.
For me, I erroneously tried to separate the practical necessities from my personal desires to organize things initially into those broad categories and then sub-divide from there. But I have come to realize that I am primarily an emotional creature, not a logical one, and therfore (for me) there is only one big category called "life".
For me, it turns out that I don't need to separate the practical from the emotional as a means of ensuring I watch the bottom line. Rather, if I organize things according to my heart - what is most meaningful to me, the practical value is already factored in to that personal impression of priorities.
In other words, when something actually "needs" to be done, it rises up in my desires as well until it reaches the top and I do it. I don't think this would work with a lazy person, but I've never been that.
This simplifies things greatly for me. Here is what I do....
I have an oversize "desk blotter" calendar on the wall, and several pads of super-sticky post-it notes to put on the wall.
The calendar organizes the time in my life. The post-it notes organize the space.
Any time-sensitive item or appointment I have goes on the calendar where I can easily see it and have room to write a bit about it if necessary.
Any project or goal of interest goes on a post-it note (with a little description as necessary) and gets put on the wall next to the calendar.
With the calendar, I can see what's coming. With the post-it notes I can see what's waiting.
Each day, I look at the calendar to see if there are any requirements today or things coming up that I should begin to prepare for.
Each day I look at the post-it notes and re-order them on the wall according to how I'm feeling at the moment, putting the most compelling things (be they practical or emotion) at the top.
Some events in the calendar require post-it notes to be created. Some projects in the notes engender calendar entries for activities on certain days.
In this way, by separating time and space yet letting them impact one another, by keeping them side by side so they can cross-talk in my mind, by having both visible in a single glance, and by blending all the elements of my life into one list rather tha separating practical from emotional, I find myself constantly eager and motivated and enjoying the passing of each moment, busy or not, being productive or engaging in fun. And all of this without overbearing weights of responsibility, obligation, or that pesky work-ethic that used to supercede all pleasure, but does no more.
How to avoid depression and frustration and get moving again.
My daughter is without a pressing goal for the first time in her life. She just got her second degree in college, took a trip to Hawaii, got a new job and got married. All of a sudden, she has nothing to externally motivate her and yet feels bogged down.
She asked for some advice, and here is what I sent her:
Life appears to get more and more complex the older you get because you are balancing the maintainance of all you have experienced with all you are drawn toward in the future. You get pinched in the middle (the present day in which you live) because the past obligations and familiarities start to hang around you like Jacob Marley's chains.
You then feel both increasingly hobbled in your attempts to move forward and also drawn backward from concerns of the here and now.
This leads to sense of futility, perhaps even fatalism, as you ponder that it is only going to get worse.
Therefore you lose motivation and as a result find yourself bored, aimless, or both.
The key to overcoming this mild form of depression and anxiety is to organize, as strange as it sounds.
Analogy - if you crumple up a ream of paper you get quite a pile. A few of these and you can fill a room. Each experience we have is like a single sheet, crumpled in the living of it. In our 20s, we have accumlated such a pile of past experiences (and future dreams) that there is prescious little room left in our minds for our own self, our personality, our thoughts, the ability to live in the here and now.
But, if you flatten out each experience and reassemble them into the condensed form of the ream, but since they all have writing on them (your memories and desires) you organize them into a book with chapters and a table of contents, suddenly you find that there is more and more room in your mind, the past and future seem manageable, and your motivation returns with an accompanying banishment of boredom.
Emotionally, picture this clutter as if it were a hoop dress from the Cival War era. It makes any kind of movement difficult and inefficient. It even prevents many kinds of activities (both physical and mental) completely. But if you unfasten the skirt, you can push it down around your hips and step out of it. Once out, you can put it behind you - visible and available should you need to re-enter it, but no longer encumbering your mental freedom the rest of the time.
Organizing your mind, your life, to save space, ultimately results in a renewed sense of ability and hopefulness, more motivation to build on those, and far more elbow room in your own heart and mind, ultimately resulting in a life that feels not only as if you have banished the doldrums but have exiled clautrophobia as well.
She asked for some advice, and here is what I sent her:
Life appears to get more and more complex the older you get because you are balancing the maintainance of all you have experienced with all you are drawn toward in the future. You get pinched in the middle (the present day in which you live) because the past obligations and familiarities start to hang around you like Jacob Marley's chains.
You then feel both increasingly hobbled in your attempts to move forward and also drawn backward from concerns of the here and now.
This leads to sense of futility, perhaps even fatalism, as you ponder that it is only going to get worse.
Therefore you lose motivation and as a result find yourself bored, aimless, or both.
The key to overcoming this mild form of depression and anxiety is to organize, as strange as it sounds.
Analogy - if you crumple up a ream of paper you get quite a pile. A few of these and you can fill a room. Each experience we have is like a single sheet, crumpled in the living of it. In our 20s, we have accumlated such a pile of past experiences (and future dreams) that there is prescious little room left in our minds for our own self, our personality, our thoughts, the ability to live in the here and now.
But, if you flatten out each experience and reassemble them into the condensed form of the ream, but since they all have writing on them (your memories and desires) you organize them into a book with chapters and a table of contents, suddenly you find that there is more and more room in your mind, the past and future seem manageable, and your motivation returns with an accompanying banishment of boredom.
Emotionally, picture this clutter as if it were a hoop dress from the Cival War era. It makes any kind of movement difficult and inefficient. It even prevents many kinds of activities (both physical and mental) completely. But if you unfasten the skirt, you can push it down around your hips and step out of it. Once out, you can put it behind you - visible and available should you need to re-enter it, but no longer encumbering your mental freedom the rest of the time.
Organizing your mind, your life, to save space, ultimately results in a renewed sense of ability and hopefulness, more motivation to build on those, and far more elbow room in your own heart and mind, ultimately resulting in a life that feels not only as if you have banished the doldrums but have exiled clautrophobia as well.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Immutable
There are only two immutable truths given to a soul: Things exist; I exist.
For the span of your life, though all else may change or pass away, these two truths will remain.
If you build your beliefs and your dreams upon that, though they may crumble or be washed away, the foundation will remain, upon which you can build new beliefs and different dreams.
The past is only an echo; the future, a mirage.
Though the present may reflect the echo or resemble the mirage, all we really have is this moment and this thought.
Melanie Anne Phillips
March 21, 2009
Noon
For the span of your life, though all else may change or pass away, these two truths will remain.
If you build your beliefs and your dreams upon that, though they may crumble or be washed away, the foundation will remain, upon which you can build new beliefs and different dreams.
The past is only an echo; the future, a mirage.
Though the present may reflect the echo or resemble the mirage, all we really have is this moment and this thought.
Melanie Anne Phillips
March 21, 2009
Noon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)