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“Digital freedom stops where that of users begins… Nowadays, digital evolution must no longer be offered to a customer in trade-off between privacy and security. Privacy is not for sale, it’s a valuable asset to protect.”
Stephane Nappo

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“Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.”

Edward Snowden

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Data privacy is a hot issue for a couple of reasons both based on the foundational thought we, the people, keep getting fucked by our own data. Basically, other people make money off our data by them using our data to get us to spend money. How fucked up is that? Beyond that there are some real pragmatic issues that with all of our data floating out there beyond our control it can be used in some quite nefarious ways. All that said. Some people with integrity are attempting to change it all. The majority of this discussion is focused on regulation, i.e., regulating how companies gather and use our data.

Here is the problem. While most of us care, we don’t <and, more importantly, a bunch of the big tech boys who gather & use the data, don’t actually care>. For a variety of reasons any time people are offered opportunities to try and manage their data, they don’t (or certainly don’t to the extent that would enable some larger structural changes to how much data is accumulated and used).

I speculate this mostly happens because our personal data is one big black box of shit that most of us feel like we have zero control over, sense we may actually benefit from sharing it – on occasion gaining some convenience – and the penalties for sharing don’t seem to be so bad.

Basically, we’ve given up believing we can control, not clear on benefits of limiting, or even understand, pragmatically, what occurs when we tighten our data privacy. That trifecta encourages most of us to just do what we are doing and just sit around and bitch that evil technology companies don’t have any ethics.

To be honest. Even I, who knows enough to be dangerous about privacy and data, when I see the terms and conditions I very rarely accept because I don’t know what it will cost me. What I mean by that is by limiting something I assume it will limit something else. Its kind of like limiting cookies or certain website features, you get less popups (sometimes), but ease of website use seems to get a little wonky. Just to be clear. It is quite possible I am either conflating causation and correlation or even that because I actually took an action, my mind is creating an expected response (which isn’t really there). But. Maybe that makes my larger point. Because I don’t exactly know the consequences my mind will create them, they will most likely be negative, and that doesn’t exactly encourage me to do it more often in the future.

So.  How do we get people to care? How do we get people to think it will matter what they accept or reject will deter the powerful unseen “tech” from doing whatever they want in the blackbox?

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“Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there’s no difference between what is and what could be.”
Chuck Palahniuk

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Let’s think about an indirect approach.

People have to see the value, before caring, before doing anything. So, I have some thoughts on how to nudge the mindset.  I believe there are two indirect things that could affect people’s mindsets.

1. Origin ID.

Its not flashy nor does it appear to be directly related to communicating the importance of data privacy, but in my mind, it begins to establish some validity to one’s own data within the black box. In other words, if all of a sudden, I know for sure the data that I am receiving (information is data) is valid and not some bot, well, then all of a sudden I start thinking “hey, mine has been evaluated and is valid too.” Its an indirect way of establishing some value proposition. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that, collectively, it also begins establishing some shared sense of truth (or truthiness) and that is an excellent foundation for establishing my personal value within that shared sense of truth.

The internet world needs to clean up its validation origin act and this seems like a good place to start the data privacy ballgame.

To be clear. I am relatively sure the moment we validate origin ID (proof everyone is human and verified ID) someone with less than good intentions will subvert the system, but anything has to be better than the current anarchist system. In fact. Maybe that is my last point in this idea. Creating a system that doesn’t feel like anarchy, alone, furthers the concept of data privacy by suggesting it could possibly be controllable. I think this idea is attainable in a reasonable amount of time. The trick to this one is who is trustworthy enough to not only validate but have some records of everyone’s origin ID. My gut tells me blockchain technology offers a viable solution, but someone smarter than I would have to noodle that.

2. Business use (with employees).

This one is trickier than Origin ID but, in my mind, if businesses can show an employee that their data has actual value in their own personal progress/growth within a business it becomes a platform for understanding how their data has value in a grander narrative. Maybe think about this as ‘if I can show on a smaller more personal case study than communicating a larger case study is the logical next step.’ Personally, I think its nuts that a business does nothing with data of their employees to better understand, better develop and better assess each employee’s potential growth opportunities. I think its even nuttier that it doesn’t happen in organizations talking about “digital transformation.” I mean if you are going to create a digital infrastructure wouldn’t you want to connect it with, uhm, the digital imprints of the people/humans who will be optimizing that infrastructure? And, yet, while I think its nuts, I also think this particular idea is years away from being implemented.

** note: I actually have outlined a Knowledge Distribution business model where AI-driven information flow is customized and tied to personal data of each employee suggesting it is something like a Human Nanofactory and offered something called ‘technology-distributed information’.

In the end.

While the world desperately needs a globally coherent plan of action for data privacy, it will not happen until the people of the world actually care and want it and will actually do something when given an opportunity. Along that point, I bet if you asked 100 random people they would (a) probably think data privacy is a good thing and, simultaneously, (b) have it number 101 on their list of 100 things they need to be thinking about.

I say it that way to make the point that this is actually a good equation for the future of data privacy. The ability to make something more important to someone increases exponentially if their existing mindset is that something is most likely a good idea. All we have to do is to make them care and, in my mind, it should begin by making their own data more tangible to them. Like, origin ID and the business they work at showing how their data can be used. Look. I am sure there are hundreds of better ideas than the ones I offered but I feel relatively confident my ideas would go a long way to getting people to care. So just think about it.

================= 

“Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that exists for its own sake, that assumes its own shape. But of course nothing in the modern world is allowed to assume its own shape. The modern world is the corporate equivalent of a formal garden, where everything is planted and arranged for effect. Where nothing is untouched, where nothing is authentic. 

“Where, then, will people turn for the rare and desirable experience of authenticity? They will turn to the past.

“The past is unarguably authentic. The past is a world that already existed before all the other shapers of the present day shaped today’s world. The past was here before they were. The past rose and fell before their intrusion and molding and selling. The past is real. It’s authentic. And this will make the past unbelievably attractive.”

Michael Crichton

======================

Well.

I am not a past guy and I believe “authentic” is one of those words that is currently being abused in a variety of definition-type ways, but, I would offer a reminder to everyone that if you want something authentic it is actually the past <I will expound on that in a minute>.

Let’s just say that it always surprises me a little when people start bitching about the other people who seem to be yearning for the past. While I am certainly not a past-yearner lets’ see what a past yearner sees:

Everything is uncertain in today’s world.

You have no idea who to trust.

There is a struggle to trust anything.

Facts seem to no longer be black & white

Truth now has an alternative version.

Common sense doesn’t seem common.

Opinions look much like facts & facts get confused with opinions.

Simple, or simplification, doesn’t seem that simple anymore.

Add in that all of those things are occurring in a world in which we are increasingly encouraging people to think of everything as “all or nothing” <a zero-sum world>.

This all drives a lot of people to find any fucking semi-solid lily pad to stand on that they can find. And what seems solid, seems certain, and seems authentic, well, is the past.

Ok. That said. On to my ‘expounding’ comment.

No. We may not remember the past well or correctly. In fact <research> we typically do not remember it correctly <choosing to remember the things we like & discarding the things we don’t want to remember>. Yet, in our minds, how we do remember it is as certain as anything can be in this world.

*** note: Daniel Kahneman discusses this in “the riddle of experience versus memory.”

And, yeah, aspects of this can be skewed into a generational/age thing if you wanted. In a world of increasing uncertainty the young, who have less to hold on to with ragged claws & look forward to ditching a lot of the existing shit so they can develop their own shit, leave the past behind <sometimes flippantly> .

In a world of increasing uncertainty the old, well, they hang on with ragged claws to the only thing they know to be true, certain & authentic. i.e., the past.

But, suffice it to say, how we view the past goes beyond age <although age can exacerbate the issue>.

There is seeing and … well … seeing. And there is a vast difference between the two. Frederick Franck in “Zen Seeing/Zen Drawing” argues:

“The glaring contrast between seeing and looking-at the world around us is immense; it is fateful. Everything in our society seems to conspire against our inborn human gift of seeing. We have become addicted to merely looking-at things and beings. The more we regress from seeing to looking at the world — through the ever-more-perfected machinery of viewfinders, TV tubes, VCRs, microscopes, spectroscopes — the less we see. The less we see, the more numbed we become to the joy and the pain of being alive, and the further estranged we become from ourselves and all others.”

Well.

That is a discouraging thought. He is basically suggesting that once we get on the slippery slope of ‘not seeing’ we very quickly enter, and stay, in this miserable abyss of blindness.

He may be right. But I would rather believe he is not. I would prefer to believe seeing, really seeing, is a discriminating decision made by you and not the world around you. I would like to believe if we chose we could see the past with open eyes, open mind, open heart, with open to unapologetic attention.

This is about not really looking for something in particular just being ready and receptive to whatever happens around you and in front of you. And by not seeking anything in particular <because that inhibits true seeing> you end up, as someone wrote somewhere ‘… by your own eyes you will see, and there will be a conclusion.’ What that means is you don’t see based on your own ideas <or belief system>, but rather you see based on … well … what you see.

Hey. I am not suggesting this is easy. I am simply suggesting that you can do it if you elect to. If it helps, we partially have evolution to blame on why I can say what I am saying to you:

…. evolution’s problem-solving left us modern humans with two kinds of attention: vigilance, which allows us to have a quick and life-saving fight-or-flight response to an immediate threat, be it a leaping lion or a deranged boss, and selective attention, which unconsciously curates the few stimuli to attend to amidst the flurry bombarding us, enabling us to block out everything except what we’re interested in ingesting. (Selective attention, of course, can mutate to dangerous degrees, producing such cultural atrocities as the filter bubble.)

Ah. The ‘filter bubble.’

the filter bubble — by definition, it’s populated by the things that most compel you to click. But it’s also a real problem: the set of things we’re likely to click on (sex, gossip, things that are highly personally relevant) isn’t the same as the set of things we need to know. – Eli Pariser

Evolution and Life experience has created this filter bubble for each of us. And, by the way, each of our filter bubbles are different <because our Life experiences have been different in creating it>.

This filter bubble idea also suggests that you can manage, if not actually change your filter bubble.

Yup. You can change the way you see things.

==============

“To learn to see- to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

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I love that one thought: ‘allow things to come to it.’ Allow what you see to come to your eye and ultimately your mind. In other words, seeing is in the mind; not in the eyes. Mentally we need to stop focusing on a specific destination, but rather watch during the journey.

All that said.

While the past may be authentic it may not be truthful <or a reflection of truth>. There are certainly some problems with the past ‘truth.’  We are really sure about how we remember the past “… to some extent he is saying all the correct things. But he is not correct.”

 And maybe that is the most important is lesson that lies within.

We say all the correct things … but aren’t really correct. Context and perspective is needed to share “real & absolute truth” and Truth, with regard to the past, is the sum of accurate information; not just some of the accurate information.

Now.

More research.

Just to make everyone feel better, beyond evolution, there is a real reason we do this. It is called ‘adaptive ignorance.’ This is no excuse and this ‘adaptive ignorance’ gets driven by an out of whack barometer of what is important <kind of> to us crazy people, but at least there is a psychological reason:

This adaptive ignorance is there for a reason — we celebrate it as “concentration” and welcome its way of easing our cognitive overload by allowing us to conserve our precious mental resources only for the stimuli of immediate and vital importance, and to dismiss or entirely miss all else.

Attention is an intentional, unapologetic discriminator. It asks what is relevant right now, and gears us up to notice only that. But while this might make us more efficient in our goal-oriented day-to-day, it also makes us inhabit a largely unlived — and unremembered — life, day in and day out.

Not only does Life make ‘seeing’ difficult, our minds do. Our minds adapt more and more <which ultimately constrains seeing> because of a couple of things:

• • productivity <just getting shit done or out of the way or solved>

  • the ways we learn to see the world

All this adaptation <or I imagine we can call it ‘coping’> creates something researchers call ‘search images.’ These are things all of us employ when we need to narrow our attention in a goal-oriented task. Unfortunately, this is only helpful or even possible if we know what to look for.

And that, my friends, is ultimately the point about seeing — and really seeing.

================

“… more is missed by not looking than not knowing.”

Thomas McCrae

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We don’t see because we don’t “look.” What a shame. Because by not looking … really looking … we miss seeing some really valuable things, like, what is authentic.

We all need truth goggles. Because we all want to hear what we all want to hear & see what we want to see & remember what we want to remember.

But all truth, even “the past,” takes a discerning mind.

Because what happens when the past says all the correct things, but is not correct? <i.e., you have a misguided view of what is true>

Truth takes work.

Shit.

Seeing things as they truly are takes work.

And that which appears authentic is often not what it appears to be. Just think about this whenever someone seems to be longing for the past. They are partially correct and partially not correct. Be careful with what you believe you see.

===

“Change does not take place by trying coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient [or client] abandons, at least for the moment, what he [or she] would like to become and attempts to be what he [or she] is.”

Arnold Bessier

===

This is a companion piece to my thinking on “we are all a bit purposefully ignorant.” That said. Let’s be clear. For the majority of things, no person ever gets to know the whole of a truth. If you don’t believe me, just think about how time has effected many of the ‘truths’ you have held throughout your lifetime. Shit. Even experiences you had, things you knew to be ‘true’, can often take on a different narrative once you know everything that occurred before, who was involved, what was involved, and the consequences that followed. Things that seemed self-evident take a back seat to things you thought were trivial at that time. Shit. This is even true about honesty (and lying). You may discover you have become a liar not because of you intentionally lied, but rather because of things you did not know that become known.  I say all of this to suggest history, and beliefs, are not truly fixed but defined, and redefined, as time breaks down their construct. Well. That is true if you let it be true.

Which leads me to beliefs, and history, can be pretty resilient.

We have a tendency to have a self-sealing logic <Chris Argyris> with regard to our beliefs. Self sealing is when we find information that confirms our beliefs and ignore some ‘truths’ which could challenge our beliefs. In other words, once we settle in on a belief, especially if we view it as a ‘governing belief’, we seal it off from additional information.

To be fair. Most people like stability with regard to their beliefs. And this means beliefs kind of seem to gain some strength the longer they are perceived to have lasted. In addition. The more uncertain the world becomes, or we believe it becomes, the more likely we will latch onto even some conspiracy theories (or dubiously grounded theories) to moor our belief world. These ‘governing beliefs’ become kind of like the color filter which hues everything you see from that point on. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out superficial beliefs are relatively easy to change, but governing beliefs can be stubborn motherfuckers. They gain some emotional “I care about this belief” aspects and caring is not only the engine to do something, but also the glue to hold on to something.

Obviously, the problem with self-sealing beliefs is new information should shed some of the boundaries around existing beliefs.

“Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.”

Marshall McLuhan

Now. We have access to new information all the time, but the truth is that the brain is an inherently limited storage unit <and computer>. We rarely know as much about a given topic as everyone else in a room put together, and even if we do, our perspective is partial and biased in a variety of ways. That ‘room together’ thought is important because research has shown that human connectivity <dialogue and interaction> is the most powerful tool in shaping, and reshaping, our beliefs. It is within interaction, exposure to new ideas and thinking as well as the discussion of new ideas and thinking, which can reshape what we have in our brain. Alternatively, as Jaron Lanier has pointed out, more people can make us more stupid. Depending on who your ‘connectivity’ is with, you can easily fall into pack behavior, identity signaling and a variety of ‘I have found my tribe’ characteristics. It is a version of “group sealing beliefs” which only feed into conformation bias for ‘self sealing logic’ and ‘self-sealing beliefs’. It’s a vicious loop to get trapped in if you are not careful. Oh. And most people are not careful. Why? Well. Its easier to wander around the world with self-sealing beliefs, find other with similar beliefs, and scratch your head <or get irritated> when someone doesn’t see what is obvious to you.

All that said. I imagine my point is almost everyone’s belief systems do some shapeshifting within a contextual environment wherein we get influenced by other mindsets, i.e., beliefs, attitudes which effect ours at times in our Life.

“Defensive routines are thoughts and actions used to protect individuals’, groups’, and organizations’ usual way of dealing with reality.”

Chris Argyris

Look. We all need beliefs. They shape who we are, how we think and even what we do. We couldn’t really survive without any beliefs. At the same time, beliefs are constraints <constraints can be good and bad>. Those constraints can make us both more efficient and effective while, at exactly the same time, make us less efficient and less effective. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that beliefs wielded like a dull axe guarantees a dull person. That said. The interesting thing I don’t believe people think about enough is that governing beliefs are typically grounded in some ‘needs.’ What I mean by that is as we need things, not just want, we craft a belief system around how to get them and filter ‘stories’ as we get them. Our beliefs assess reality in terms of filing away reality and assessing the ‘non-knowable’ stuff as it moves into reality. This is partially why governing beliefs can be so damn stubborn – they shape the reality we ‘see’.

Which leads me back to ‘obvious.’

Earlier I mentioned something about ‘obvious to you, but they don’t see it.’ I cannot remember where I read this, but, “the obvious is not obvious.” What I believe they meant by that is your belief system crafts your ‘obvious’. That means someone else is using their own belief system to craft their own ‘obvious.’ Uhm. The probability that your obvious perfectly matches someone else’s is fairly low. Obvious has shiftable dimensions and yet we tend to think of it as a whole concrete thing.

Shit. We think of stories as concrete things and the truth is most stories we accept as simply constructs of things we believe. Our belief structure is, well, constructed. It’s a narrative constructed of a tapestry of stories. I mention stories because that means self-sealing beliefs are constructed by stories we tell ourselves. Now. We may claim these stories are real and these stories are truth, but, well, for the most part they are stories OF stories which we like to tell ourselves so we can justify our ‘self-sealing beliefs.’ Ponder that for a moment or two.

I think I’ll end there to state – “you set a thief to catch a thief.” You tell a story to kill a story. In today’s world far too many of the self-sealing beliefs are unhealthy and I think we need to become better ‘healthy storytellers’ to help reshape some of the more unhealthy ‘self-sealed belief stories’ in existence. To be honest, I am not sure self sealed logic or beliefs is a good thing. I know why we do it, I am not sure we should do it. My sense is self-sealing beliefs can quickly become dogmatic thinking and in a dynamic world in which the world itself reshapes almost on a minute-by-minute basis, it would seem like our belief systems should be a bit more malleable. But, hey, that’s me.

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“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

Albert Einstein.

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“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.”

John Philpot Curran

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On page 5 of The Cluetrain Manifesto tucked down at the bottom of the page you will see these words written by Christopher Locke: “As would soon become obvious, the Net was a powerful multiplier for intellectual capital.” Not long after he follows it with its uncomfortable partner, “voice”, in that the other thing the Net did was give voice to anyone, intellectual or not.

And therein lies the wretched hollow we live in within this world of 24/7 internet access.

And therein lies our eternal vigilance – our vigilant pursuit of information.

I suggest vigilance because no matter how siloed your ‘tribe’ is there is no way that you will ever know everything that everyone knows even in your tribe/group/connections/etc. Just think about that for a second. And I choose a second because if everyone in your circle googles something they will get over a million responses in one second and the odds they will choose different things than you to read has an extremely high probability. You cannot chase all the information available and even if you have some excellent parameters on how you filter your intake you will not know as much about any individual topic as someone you are talking with.

To maintain some sanity, we are all a bit purposefully ignorant.

Technically, purposeful ignorance occurs when a person knows the truth, but chooses to ignore it, or the person refuses to abandon false beliefs and pursue the development of further knowledge.

According to the Urban Dictionary willful ignorance is: “the practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs.”

But, to me, there are four levels of purposeful ignorance:

• accepted ignorance: I have an attitude, perception or belief and I go about my life doing nothing to engage my thinking and expand what I know <unlearning avoidance is what I call this>

• confirmed ignorance: with the intent to show everyone that I am not ignorant I actually proactively engage in news & opinion offerors … uhm … but I only do so with those who have the same attitudes, perceptions and beliefs that I do <learning how to better articulate what I already think is what I call this>.

• ignorant ignorance: I actively engage with people who have different views and maybe even have some discussions and give the impression I am open minded, but even while nodding my head sagely I am simply building additional walls around what I already believe and think <listening without listening is what I call this>

• selective ignorance: I only have so much time in a day and so much brain space and I will actively attempt to be smart on some things at the expense of being ignorant on others

The third of those three is the most heinous type of ignorance. You actually have the opportunity to learn and you choose to not learn diddleysquat. It is heinous to me because there are gobs of well-intended people who are smart, but just don’t actively engage in learning new shit because, well, they prioritize other shit. In other words, they have time, but don’t learn. Useless dangerous people.

So. Let me get to the ‘selective ignorant.’

The truth is almost every single one of us have moments of purposeful ignorance. At its worst it is a conscious choice to be ignorant rather than challenge our own thinking and acknowledge a truth about reality. At its best we have simply bucketed some things in our minds as ‘decided’ in order to short cut some things and invest energy in others <and we all do the latter>.

And I even give some people a break on this topic.

Psychological research tells us that some people are cognitively complex while others prefer cognitive simplicity, in other words, some people are open to experience while other are closed minded.  Some people are cognitively flexible while others are cognitively rigid.

I could suggest that those who are cognitively simple, closed minded and/or rigid are much more likely to engage in the ‘accepted ignorance’ level of purposeful ignorance that I noted earlier, but they are not stupid people by any stretch of the imagination. They most certainly have the ability to be ‘smart’ <or broader in thinking>, they are simply people who would rather be comfortably ignorant rather than ‘intellectually smart’.

In addition, Urban Dictionary suggests that some people are “cognitive misers”, i.e., they do not to examine things intellectually if they don’t feel they have to. Let’s call them lazy.

And another valid reason is, well, conformity. While this sounds ‘sheeplike’, it is not always. We all engage in some aspects of conformity because it helps us not only fit in, but provide us with some daily stability which permits us to engage our energy elsewhere. That is why a shitload of people tend to believe what those around them believe because questioning those beliefs would lead to conflict, possibly rejection and, well, energy investment.

And, look, there are some nice benefits to conforming. Conformists have the greater potential to find a mate, or mates, to climb the social ladder of “success,” to have others speak well of them and to enjoy the benefits of a social support system.

And, with all that said, you know what? I can live with that.

As much as a curious, always seeking truth, person like me finds purposeful ignorance to be an egregious and utter lack of responsibility to living Life to its fullest and being engaged in Life, in general, I accept that there are some acceptable versions of purposeful ignorance <and, yet, I will do anything I can to break thru to these people and engage in some thoughtful thinking>.

I absolutely believe that learning and unlearning, is a lifelong process and ultimately leads to a fuller, richer Life <and society> I will participate in learning/unlearning through my own discussions and I will engage with anyone, anywhere, on any topic, at any time. But I am clearly in the fourth group, albeit grudgingly so.

Let me end by saying I am an “anti-ignorance optimist.” I understand that deeply ingrained purposeful ignorance is incredibly difficult to change, but I also never, ever, underestimate people’s capacity for change. I will continue to be interested in the views of others, even where I disagree with them, and I will always be interested in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do.

I think this is a healthy way to approach things because, to me, this is the ultimate negotiation of ‘what will be.’ In other words, how we, as people, achieve the best possible outcomes for ourselves and society. Yeah. 99% of the time better thinking will lead to better doing.

“The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little.”

Sigmund Freud

Anyway. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that anyone can change the world – even if it is only the small part of the big world that you can control. And maybe the point of this rambling post isn’t that anyone can change the world just by thinking and speaking the truth, they need to be able to close the deal. While we are all a bit purposefully ignorant that’s no excuse for not attempting to change whatever ignorance exists. Maybe it is within our vigilance we can make a dent in ignorance and nudge the world toward a better place.  What I do know is one who seeks vitality against decay, one who struggles against indolence with relentless energy, one who understands the journey to enlightenment is one that never ends, is the one who never has stagnant ignorance. And maybe that is what we should all purposefully attempt – a lack of stagnant ignorance. Ponder.

“Life is a struggle between vitality and decay, energy and indolence”

Winston Churchill

Ok. So what the hell is investing energy in life?

Let’s call it being able to discern between ‘resting’ versus ‘being stagnant.’ And, possibly, add in being able to discern when to use energy and when to not use it. By the way.  All of that translates into making choices.

Anyway. Let me use a quote to begin the discussion.

“As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Ah. Now. Be careful when reading this. Lucy isn’t suggesting people not be original or seek to have some ‘depth.’ Nope. She is suggesting investing energy at the appropriate times is a choice. A choice for when energy invested won’t be wasted.

Look. Haven’t we seen those people who go 110% all the time on everything? And they get tired. And often frustrated. And they often don’t seem to get as far in life as you would expect for all the energy they have invested. While they may debate with me (because they feel like they are making the choice that has to be made, i.e., I am ‘working at being successful in life’), the reality is they aren’t making any real choice.  Anytime you do something 100% of the time you haven’t made the tough choice. Shit. You actually haven’t made any choice at all. The switch is simply flipped into a default mode.

The choice truth? There is a time to rest. And. There is a time for energy.

Oh, and yes, you do have to invest energy in life to get something out of it.

Because being lazy doesn’t get you shit.

In fact.

Being apathetic doesn’t get you shit.

Once again. That doesn’t mean 24/7 energy and pushing and shoving and being passionate and trying to kick ass 172,800 seconds (if I did my math correctly that is the amount of seconds in a day).  It’s about making choices. When and where type choices.

So.

What I am saying is you cannot have enough energy to kick ass every second of every day.

(and if you have someone suggesting you should? … ignore them)

But.

You also cannot be passive every second either.

There is resting (before investing energy).

There is stagnant (before never investing energy).

(former good; latter bad)

And they are significantly different because living a successful (happy) life takes energy. And life is a struggle that takes energy to manage and deal with. And frankly happiness doesn’t always come easily.

By the way. This ‘struggle’ isn’t a day-to-day get-things-done struggle.  I mean it is a mental and physical struggle.

Describing this struggle is interesting. Good ole Winston C. suggested Life is the struggle between energy and indolence:

“Life is a struggle between vitality and decay, energy and indolence”

Winston Churchill

Whew.  Good stuff.

Life is all about either growing or diminishing. You are either active or passive. And life is the struggle within the two. At all times.

Some people would simply suggest that an active life is better than a passive one. Oh. If only the solution were that simple (because it isn’t that one sided).  Sure. Embracing adventure or some activity you are passionate about (or believe will make you better) is important to what makes many of us happy and feel like we are being productive within our life. But it isn’t just about going out and doing a bunch of stuff.  It’s about going out and doing the right stuff. And, to be happiest, the right stuff at the right time.

So be careful.

You may elect to ignore people who tell you to “slow down and take it easy” because you feel like you are being productive and ‘doing.’ But be sure you are aware of what you are doing and how you are investing your energy. Because energy is not limitless.

Life is about balance. Balancing rest and energy. But this is where stagnancy or indolence issue steps up to the plate. Because happiness can be such a struggle and ‘doing nothing’ sometimes seems the easiest thing to do. It isn’t (no matter how it may look or feel at the time).  You HAVE to invest some energy at some point. If not for you then you have to for those around you. Because in the end we see that the energetic displaces the passive. Even if the passive is “good” (intentions or in heart). Because evil is restless.  And energetic.

“In this very real world, good doesn’t drive out evil. Evil doesn’t drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.”

Bill Bernbach

Ok. My fear is when people read this last quote they begin to dedicate all their energies to … well … doing.  With good intentions, but not seeing the forest because of the trees.

Remember. We are not Ever-Ready bunnies who can go and go and go.  Because all that “going” means investing energy.

And the people who you see going 110% all the time? Well.  The reason they do is because they haven’t figured it out.  They haven’t figured out when to rest and when to invest energy. And having already decided mentally that they need to invest energy to win the struggle they just invest.

And invest.  And invest (I would like to point out … with diminishing returns).

Please.  Everyone.  This isn’t about time management.

If you read my “time according to Lucy” post you know I am skeptical of the whole managing time concept. The closest suggestion I can make to clarify what I am trying to say in this post can maybe be found in the book Power of Full Engagement. The book suggests that instead of trying to manage time we should be conscious of managing our energy.

I am not talking as literally as the book author suggests (they suggest at different points in the day we have more energy than others as well as more motivated to do certain things at certain moments). I don’t think this is about planning your work times around when you expect to have creative energy (like the book suggests).

This is just about investing energy at the right times.

Yes.

Investing energy at the right time in the right place.

This is not about motivation or creative energy or any of that.  This is simply about recognizing ‘influential moments’ (moments that can swing your day or life) and acting upon them by investing energy.

And that, my friends, is a choice.

A choice to invest what energy you have available, no holding back, when the opportunity arises.

Yes. That is a choice.

And not investing energy at some times (when people look at you and worry if you are lazy).

And, yes, that is a choice.

Choices based on understanding the difference between rest and stagnancy.

Maybe that is “the” choice.

Yeah.  Life is a struggle. And a struggle of choices. But mostly it is a struggle of energy. When to invest and when to not invest.

Ponder. Ponder because it matters.

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“Sliding down the slippery slope of mediocrity.”

David Ogilvy

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Turn on television on any given weekend in the United States and you have a very high probability of finding the movie The Replacements at some point. While the movie, at its core, is about taking for granted what you have versus taking advantage of opportunities, tucked within the movie is what I call “the quicksand moment.”

This is the scene where the coach asks the players their greatest fear and the quarterback says “quicksand.”

Businesses get stuck in quicksand all the time. Shit. People do too. What makes it worse is that most times you know how to play the game well, in fact, you may have actually been playing it well at the time so the first thing that goes wrong is just a blip.

“Just one thing” is what you say.

Then another thing happens.

Then another.

You fight back alone and sink.

Or.

Someone notices (usually management) and they help you fight back.

How?

The first response almost every business has to a problem is “more resources”. Oh. That is the first sign you have fallen into quicksand. As Brooks pointed out in the Mythical Man Month, even on projects, our first instinct is to add more people. This only makes everything even slower and more dysfunctional.

If that fails, the second response is usually even more resources.

You sink deeper.

Faster.

On a personal level this comes to fruition in “I’ll stay later or get in early.” You are on the edge of quicksand. You see added resources as “more time.” So, you put in more time. And more time. And this is where fear enters. You know you are trying hard; you know you are doing right things and, yet, it still keeps going wrong.

You are sinking despite all the effort.

And then you can’t breathe.

Organizational quicksand.

Now.

Quicksand and slippery slopes share some similar characteristics.

The first is that you don’t know you are in, or on, them until its too late.

The second is what I call “just this once” behavior.

It is absolutely easy to compromise – in business and in life. “Just this once.” An exception. And then another.

And before you know it you are on that slippery slope.

Regardless. This is a Life and business lesson. So, let’s just call it “truth.” It’s a truth about work, effort, decisions, compromise, lies (or “half-truths”) and almost anything else I can think of.

Slippery slopes are incredibly easy to step onto AND get stuck on. What do I mean?

“Just this once” you say to yourself when you are tired. Whatever the decision or action we are discussing, to you, in the moment … it is mentally “an exception”.

“Just this once” when you are asked a question and you ponder your answer and maybe you embellish a bit.

“Just this once” you say to yourself when you put off that thing you wanted to do. A workout. A chore. A book. A project. A diet. A decision.

“Just this once” you say to yourself when it is a silly rule or what you are doing isn’t really unethical, but its not 100% ethical, it’s just in the margins of “okay to do.”

Before you know it <after some “just this onces“> you have edged on to that slippery slope. Once has become many and, well, many becomes the standard.

Business is funny that way. Its sneaky. It permits you to look at things in a mutually exclusive way so that you don’t really see the accumulation of events and decisions until you have sunk.

Oh.

Quicksand.

Ponder.

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”

Mark Strand

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Innovation can embody some seemingly innocuous inspirations. This is also true of social behavior and social dynamics. What I am referring to is that a nonlinear “exaptation” occurs.

In biology ‘exaptation’ are variations on the usual variations of natural selection. Unlike adaptations, which are changes to an organism that respond to environmental conditions, exaptations are novel, unexpected applications of these new traits. For example, wings evolved as an extension of reptile’s webbed forelimbs wherein evolution was in search of a stronger limb, yet, somewhere along the way the ‘newly winged’ discovered its capacity for flight.

“An organ initially constructed for one purpose may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose.”

Charles Darwin

I say all of that to talk about technology. And I don’t mean anything specifically within technology, just technology itself. I read somewhere years ago that the most profound change brought about by technology will not be some new program, AI or even involve some whizbang software, the most profound change will reside in our generic expectations of technology itself. Through its ubiquity the broader shifts will occur in corollary effects that trickle in, and out, and throughout, everyone – the subtle gradual changes that shift the foundation upon what we know and what we think (about Life and ourselves). Living in our technology-created-“memory palaces” (or information spaces always nudging us) will inevitably engineer a social transformation which, in turn, inevitably cascades into the pragmatic functions of life itself – education, healthcare, business, etc. In other words, maybe technology will offer us ‘exaptations’ of which we cannot envision. And maybe worse is that some of these exaptations we cannot envision, will make our lives easier, but worse.

Norbert Weiner, Alvin Toffler and Marshall McLuhan all invested a lot of energy and brain power thinking about this and even telling us in the 1960’s and 1970’s – but I am not sure we actually listened. We fell in love with all the technology things and widgets and embraced, for the most part, how we adapted. But. What they were warning us about were of exaptation.

Which leads me to effectuation.

A causation approach focuses on a predefined goal and then goes about finding the means to attains the goal. An effectuation approach focuses on the means at hand and then have them coalesce with the intent to achieve some outcomes which inevitably achieve some goals (not all predefined).

Effectuation is most often discussed within business and how entrepreneurs shape performance. I bring it up because I fear someone truly thinking about what I am bringing up will jump to designing a goal and pursuing it (causation). I fear it because in a dynamic environment like technology and society, by the time we attain that goal, the goalposts will have moved – most likely dramatically. The truth is that this technology-society battle we are fighting is currently asymmetrical and technology has the leverage. I am not a fan of the word ‘scale’, but the reality is technology is scaling exponentially AND with velocity, faster than human brains can scale, and attempting to address it solely with causation approaches is doomed to fail. The real conclusion anyone should take is to embrace effectuation. Take what exists and use it, and the skills that developed all those things, to materialize real progress in real time and outcomes occur making predefined goals irrelevant. Its kind of like nudging at scale.

Anyway.

As the saying goes, ‘the street always finds new uses for things,’ and with technological ubiquity in most lives, we should be paying attention to ‘the street always finds exaptation while we are not looking and maybe technology will encourage people to fly when they have no wings and, well, we will crash’.

Yeah. There is a lesson lurking in that bad metaphor I just shared.

Ponder.

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

Marshal Fochs

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Ok. Marshal Fochs is a WW1 French military guy and at the core of this thought is that nothing elevates the soul of a human to fire than to have their home threatened.

At the core of THAT thought is believing in that home is half the battle.  Ok. Maybe more than half. It won’t stop a bullet. But enough people with enough passion will equal more than the total bullets in the end.

But let’s take this to a different space – opinions and ideas.

Yeah.  If you want to feel the fire, have your idea or belief or opinion attacked.

But let me take it to an even different space – the passionate opinionated – and how they all seem to have their human soul on fire AND invested in their belief/opinion.

Psychology typically separates passionate and opinionated, but the reality is we face people every fucking day who are passionate about their opinions, in other words, passionate and opinionated. Their passion creates objectivity blindness and, in their passion, they have a nasty habit of turning the conversation upside down where they will argue you are the one being opinionated <yet you are using facts and knowledge> and you are the one being ‘objectively blind’ because you are not open to alternative views. Well. Let’s be clear. Not all alternative views are created equal and some of them are just wacky.

And in defending the wacky <or maybe what they call the “silent majority” which is actually the“1% view”> these passionate people are not only focused on what feels true and right for them <many times under the guise of common sense> BUT ALSO are focused on their opinion just being right. Yeah. This makes them almost obsessive <passionate> not just in their opinion, but in defending it.

“No” just doesn’t seem an option in their passionate pursuit of their belief.

Which leads me to strong opinions, loosely held and minding the gap.

Passionate people are relentless and their strength resides mainly in their resolve, not the truth. Therefore, it becomes a battle of attrition where we, seeking to find some resolution and get the hell out of this alternative universe, try to close the gap between the universes.

Which leads me to ‘mind the gap.’ The gap is the gap. The gap exists BECAUSE they have their passionate opinions which don’t completely reside in reality and you have to be mindful that you don’t step across the gap in the attempt to find a resolution. I say that because the moment you step into their universe, even though you may still view it as some warped version of truth, facts, reality, they see it as validation. Remember. Most of us seek win-win, passionate opinionated are zero sum. Their objective blindness is necessary in a ‘win or nothing mindset’.

All that said. It feels like there are more passionate opinionated people today than in the past. There have always been passionate people, heck, passion is often what pushes ideas through skepticism and entropy to actually get good things done as well as obstruct bad things from not getting done. And maybe that is where this whole thing has gone off the rails. The outcome has become more important than the idea. In the past that passionate push allowed the idea, and ideas, to morph a bit as it got forged through the gauntlet. In today’s world it is kill or be killed to a passionate person. We have shifted from sharing knowledge to get somewhere better to simply stating what is better and telling everyone you either get on board or you don’t even deserve to be alive.

I do believe belief is a powerful weapon, tool, energy as a force for good. Alternatively, if you agree with that, you must also accept it can be a force for bad. I end there because it really does sometimes feel like an actual battle, or war, between good and bad. Certainly, the passionate opinionated feel like they are at war. So if you stand for truth, facts and purposefully good knowledge that improves humans and humankind, prepare for battle. Or prepare to die in some alternative universe.

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“We are all joined in a circle of stories.”
Linda Joy Myers

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“Stories are like spiders, with all their long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each.”
Neil Gaiman

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In ‘the experience economy’ or ‘experience as value’ world far too many people are simply laying out ‘experience’ as some amorphous wonderful blob of ‘do it well’. Sure. Sometimes it is “customer experience”, sometimes user experience, but more often than not someone stands up in front of a big screen and suggest “experience is the new value.”

*** note: experience is an extension of product value, not value in and of itself. It is an expansion of proof. If the experience doesn’t add value to the product itself, i.e., just be entertainment, it creates unmatched anticipation-to-expectation reality in usage.

The truth is that not all experiences are created equal, competing on experiences is a race to the bottom (or a commodity in which you can charge less and less for) and any experience value truly resides on the experience within the experience.

Let me explain. If you want to find real value, the stuff that drives up experience value, begin identifying the experiences within the experience. A simple trip to the coffee shop becomes an order, an eavesdropped conversation, a thought on how that related to something you may have heard the night before, what your roommate would think of it, the conversation you are having in your head if you talked with them, how that makes you feel, and then your amazement that all that happened to you in an unexpected moment on a bland expected transactional experience you were doing.

The value is found within the threads in individual experiences.

While we like to think not everyone “sees the things no one else does” the truth is everyone sees the experiences within the experience.

In different terms it is actually an ability to take advantage of the ‘now’. An ability to expand experienced time – in a good way. Conceptually this is adding dimension to a linear, or horizontal, time continuum. I bring that up because many businesses map out ‘customer journeys’ <which can be a helpful tool> and, yet, that linearity can make you miss the experience within, which is expandable, and reflects essential parts to value. The best example I have of this is when I speak with UI/UX people and suggest ‘frictionless’ can actually diminish value and that purposeful friction moments can actually expand value.

But. To be clear, many of these experiences are unplanned. They simply intersect with a standard continuum of experiences representing added value. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that many experiences within the experience is a reflection of the fact one person’s experience is intersecting with another’s experience <or a number of them> creating an expandable moment as it shoves multiple experiences into a time space planned for one essential experience.

Yeah. In those moments, at its simplest, experience goes vertical and, at its most complex, it becomes a spinning helix of multiple experiences. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this is also where ‘stories’ occur, not in the grand experience but rather in the experience within the experience – the moments that become stories to the one who experienced it.

Anyway. All of that can seem overwhelming and create some uncertainty on how to optimize this whole “experience economy” thing being thrown around. All you really have to do is craft an experience that has experience opportunities nested within and then make sure you get credit when someone triggers a nested experience. You will not always get it right, but I can guarantee you will get it righter than someone who simply says “its all about the experience.”

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“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”

Unknown

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“You can’t be who you’re going to be and who you used to be at the same time …”

TD Jakes

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Today is the first day of Fall.

……………………………. first day of fall 2016 google ……………….

It is kind of a reminder to everyone that everything is temporary. On another note. I do also sometimes find it slightly strange that death and dying can contain so much beauty.

Anyway.

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to let go of things. And while we even go kicking and screaming with regard to seasons, Life ignores us … moves on … lets go of the last season … offers us a new season, and once we get over it we are once again shown how beautiful it can be to let shit go.

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to distinguish what often looks the same from one day to the next. as we keep our heads down to the Life grindstone and each day dawns without any major incident, other than  the same aggravating everyday incidents which inevitably occur, Life ignores our obliviousness … moves on … let’s go of another season … offers a new season … and we get over the fact we actually have to lift our heads up and pay attention for a little, but, we are once again shown how beautiful it is to let some shit go.

“Between the end of that strange summer and the approach of winter, my life went on without change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. It rained a lot in September. October had several warm, sweaty days. Aside from the weather, there was hardly anything to distinguish one day from the next.”

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to think a little bit about who we want to be … who we are … and provides some real life aspects to show us how difficult it is to be who you used to be and who you are going to be at the exact same time.

Look. I am not a huge Fall person. I am more of a spring person. Heck. I have even suggested we move New Year’s Day to the 1^st day of spring  because I think it would make new year’s less depressing and more hopeful.

But I admit that Fall, even more so than Spring, forces us to face our feelings, thoughts, doubts, dreams and fears with a fairly discerning eye. An eye that views ‘what could be’ with a little more sense of urgency.

Sigh.

Falling leaves can do that to you.

Better seems a little bit harder.

Better seems to have more of a deadline.

I think we all seek a great perhaps of “what I know can be”.

I think we all know what a better world really looks like.

I think we all want to see the beauty that can be found in what is better in everyone.

And maybe it is within Fall and the falling leaves I think we all better grasp that failed plans and failed dreams can beget new plans and new dreams.

Maybe it is within Fall that we are able to see that new realities can lead to needed life changes.

Maybe it is Fall that reminds us even in times of ‘things slipping away’ you can still find abundance.

Maybe it is Fall that reminds us that Life is a healthy mix of duality — life & death and the ebb & flow of growth and regress.

Maybe Fall reminds those who have a view that a happy and fulfilling life should consist only of highs <or, maybe better said, a significantly higher % of highs than lows> and that a positive life should consist only of certainty <shelving fear and doubt to be successful> that happiness & fulfillment also embraces the ebbs in seasons as well as the flows of seasons.

Maybe Fall reminds us that no matter how you plan your day, year, or life, it will have times of … the best, the worst, wisdom, foolishness, belief, incredulity, light, darkness, hope, despair, everything and nothing.

Maybe Fall simply reminds us that time goes on, things come & go and we always have an opportunity to begin again … arise anew after the Fall as it were.

In the end.

Maybe Fall exists just to remind us to think a little.