A Mistake

As I apply for the umpteenth mcjob. As I send out countless digital resumes, I realized, once again, I made a terrible mistake.

Now,I am not one for great regret, but the other day, waiting for a meeting to determine my future among the "not-a-living-wage" type jobs, I found a book on tackling the"Brick Wall" of a tight, hyper-competative job market. 

This book starts, with all, to find a direction. You have to know what you want. It asks that we perform an exercise called the Seven Stories. The premise is simple: write down 20 to 25 enjoyable accomplishments. Look back into childhood,  in young adulthood, hobbies and in jobs  orcareers you have held.

I did my list on the back of the folded piece of paper I snagged; some expired advertisement for well-passed Employment Fairs. When I have a phone, or camera, or scanner, I can prove it. Imagine a scribbled note here:

Editors Note: Scribbly Note goes here. Use your imagination.

Some items that were on the list were: Piggy Pirates, A relationship that helped me learn about relationships, myself, and people, My brief stint with chain mail, Several stories I wrote in college and my work in  400 University Drive and the Ubiquitous. A portrait of Ian Anderson that caused my father to not have a critical remark. Tutoring adults and children in several subjects and having them do well.

I want you to note something - something immediately apparent. Not a single accomplishment was related to IT, Technical Support, or call center work.  I am reminded of 2001 when I had the option
to intern with an Art Instructor. Since I could not ratiocinate both work and the instruction with respect to time, I gave up on the internship, because you've got to work to eat.

The mistake has always been my inability to sacrifice a job for a career.  I always chose the job: A small piddly, temporary thing over the work of a career: a long course. My head wa snever one for computers. I can work with computers, I understand their value,  but I found them incredibly tedious to work with. Had I been able to find them even a bit interesting, perhaps I would have tried harder. But the work with them was about as interesting, and important to me, as one might feel working at Mcdonalds.  And whilst working these jobs, I did not work on my talents/


 When you have gifts, you must work in the direction to increase efficacy. If you have talent for something, it would be foolish to let it whither.

And I am not saying I am special (not in this post, anyway). I think we all have talents and I think most of us give up on using them. I want to say it's circumstances that lead us to this, but that's only half of it.  Circumstances, internal and external can only become so obnoxious before your will is thwarted.

Mastering a skill boils down to desire overcoming obstacles.  And success, and expertise, is simply displaying mastery in a skill. Your upbringing and genetics make it somewhat more easy to walk some paths than others. We call these talents.
 
When I was offered opportunities to master skills in my life, to test skills, I tended to withdraw. And this was my mistake. I was not prescient enough to realize the existential pain of regret would be far worse than the difficulty at the time.

I don't know if GenY has this problem. Do you? There seems a certainty among others that I never felt. Better parenting, better schools? Better information? The Internet has done wonders to help our self-esteem, and (destroy it).

All I can say, is, in wisdom borne from foolish mistakes plus years of making the same mistakes, is that if you have a passion, do make time to work on them. Work on them intensely, passionately, and consistently.

Application to play Sysiphus

Editors Note: Trying a new thing. All instances of swear words have been replaced with other words. The author is woefully unaware of our trick. Let us know if you it.

I don't know how many of you are on the hunt for a job. I'll say I am, but the truth is I am half-heartedly engaged in the process. It's not that I don't want to work, it's just that I don't really want a job.  If I, or anyone, is required to perform such a job, perhaps there should be some recompense in less hours?  I mean, robots can do our work anyway. 

Recently I got the chance to speak to my friend Linda, who is about my fathers age, about work. Labor. Her generation, and therefore my fathers, prided themselves on work. A good job, in a factory, marked your status in the community.

Even Norman Rockwell would find this quaint. A modern jaded hipster would find this the worst, hopeless conceit of a poor imagination. Not because we are afraid of work, but because the stable jobs are all low-wage unlivable jobs or high-stress paperwork jobs. Go on, read about the twenty hours staring at excel.

The truth is, the economy is sideways. The black-and-white Calvinistic, Austrian model of economics hasn't just been turned on it's ear, it's been kidnapped, gagged, and forced to inform people by the use of hoots, grunts, and interpretive dance.

Face it, the rules that applied back then simply don't anymore. Not in any meaningful way. Our parents, leaders, and corporate elite  haven't informed us that the rules have changed. Partially from ignorance.   But also, out of malice.

Job applications have certainly not changed for the better. They are, in all honestly, a hopeless  bureaucracy,designed to inhibit, deter and prevent you from getting a job.

In my father's day, you could walk in, ask for a job, and get one, or told to get lost. And, if so rebuffed,  you'd head down one door.  "Hitting the pavement" was the euphemism for what you actually did.   Now you apply on  for Internet websites, press submit. Answer 400 questions about your personality. And though there are no right answers, clearly I answer them wrong because I never get a call back. i just send my application into the either.

And call on an application? They don't really do that anymore. They will call you.

Sure they will. 

The worst so far, Qdoba. Do you really need to ask 300 questions. I go to Qdoba frequently, and the biggest question I have is: Can you find someone who can actually roll a borking burrito? fire the people who make those long personality tests, use that money to bus your burrito rollers to La Bamba for a day.

McDonald's was only slightly less aggravating. They ask a series of questions and you choose the question that most reflects your views. These are the same questions.  For example

"I am a hard worker" vs "I like to watch butterflies fly into my bosses nose." 

"OK" I clicked the former - though my boss has nose hairs you could land Apache gunships on.

"I am a lazy good-for-nothing slacker"  vs  "I eat baby dolphins because I hate life."

So now what?  Do I contradict myself or do I make Jack-the-ripper look like a children's educator?
Sure, it's a bit of hyperbole, but it still aggravates me. What does any of this have to do with pressing burgers and dropping fries in hot oil? 

I'll tell you what, I ain't no slacker. Baby dolphins be damned. 



Sparkfire kindly posted this  graphic. I know it's bogus  when it talks about farmers. "No Job Hunt. No Career improvement."


Nonsense. Farmer is one of the most important jobs. The plight of the farmer was not one of improvement, it was about the poor economic and political policies. Yes, being a feudal serf might have sucked. But barring disaster, a skilled farmer lived quite a good life in the US.

And besides, in this hyper-corporate project-based, intern-serfdom world. Maybe a stable job with consistent pay is just the thing we need. 

I tell you Zach Weiner is positively prophetic. I suspect he has a lot of Millennial friends less-than-employed. 

We are reaching the existential crisis of the Job Market.  On one hand, we have a a bunch of slack-jawed sociopaths babbling about "returns on investments", "10 percent improvement in process efficacy" and "item action productivity", on the other, we have an overabundance labor jobs (replaced by automation) and service jobs "not meant to be a living wage." On the third, yes, third hand, we have an ever-swelling, leviathan-like government bureaucracy that exists to leech off the low- and moderately-waged and make serfs of those at the bottom. And the fourth hand we have people who, by virtue of illness, disability, or plain orn'riness, refuse to have anything to do with this nonsense.

Yes, the current job market is basically a 4-armed tentacled monster. In my nightmares it has Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama's face, melded like a sick love child.

And it's not like the basic rules have changed. So why the horse and pony show? 

The massive tentacled beast destroying or economic possibilities does have some vestigial arms - farmers (often automated), medical technicians (rapidly becoming educated button mashers), the arts. Things that were, or are, still valued for producing. But the system doesn't like those arms. Bankers making money on bailouts hate to hear that maybe the guy that grows pumpkins is doing more for the country. At least the farmer isn't giving money to people who hate the US. 

At least you can become a plumber or tradesman, with years of schooling and byzantine apprenticeships.

The markets are being made to keep people out.

But that's another blog post (or two, if I talk about neo-cottage revolutions). I'm losing my point today. Forgive me.

If you are, or were, looking for a job in an old way, you are right-borked. Unless you know somebody. And I am not even kidding. 

That McDonald's job? I have applied at McDonald's before. That specific McDonald's, for a soul-sucking mcjob that I can work around my desire to not actually do that job. Something that lets me pretend that I will be an artist some day.

They have ignored my application, but a caseworker of mine works with  and knows the manager there. And he says he will hook me up.

Networking required for a "not a livable wage" job. This is madness. Absolute madness. Regulation and litigation have made companies terrified of just giving a job.

If I weren't already a little on the batshit side, this would be enough to make me so. 

If you can't talk to people and hob knob, you might as well enjoy mopping floors. It's not like starting a business is much an option. Even in the blog post above, he needed way more money than he new. if you are in poverty, how are you going to manage that?

Remember when we were told to get a good job and not to be an artist? Remember that? I sure as hell do.

That was before Patreon and Kickstarter made fools of all of us, except the damn fools that followed their dreams. It's a new world, and prescient as I might have been, I was sure dumb on that account.  

The Comcast Effect.

I seem, very much, to be in a tizzy over the economy - specifically how we work, why we work, and what we work on. I think the whole system, created by industrialization, has turned like some modern-day ouroboros, onto itself. The mechanization and industrialization has ran away with regulations (and de-regulations) all in the wrong places. It's left the free market, good work, and the lower-class gasping in the dust.

As for the middle class, our current legislative body, from fed to state, and often local, stabbed it in 2002, it just took this long for it to bleed out. The middle class barely had tiem to gasp "Et tu?"

The ever-increasing hatred of Comcast is a bandwagon that has perhaps circle. Recordings and interviews  making the rounds, showing us the madness of the Comcast system. And regardless of claims to the otherwise, Comcast knows about and encourages it.
In fact, I feel like translating the Comcast apology:

We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and Ms. Belmont and are contacting them to personally apologize.

 Translation: We are so busted. This is just like when mom caught me stealing as a child. I had to go, apologize, and promise to pay back the shopkeeper. So now we have to apologize even though the candy we stole was delicious. Lame 

 The way in which our representative communicated with them is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives.

Translation: We do not precisely train our CSRs like this. In fact, it's not until they get on the call center floor where we discreetly discuss metrics. We reinforce these metrics at their 30- and 60-day reviewt

We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. 

Translation:   So, we know what's up and we will handle it in-house by completely ignoring it and.or firing the employee. 

While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.

 Translation: This happens all the time, but we will add an extra ten minutes in training to discuss how much we care about our customers so we can update the published date on our training materisl. We'll make it look like an overhaul by paying people way more money than they ought to rewrite the language of our training materials.

(As a mercenary who doesn't have apersonal beef with Comcast, I'd like to say to them: I am up to the rewrite job, and my fees are reasonable. It's will be $10,000 a month. You can bundle that with my $5000  a month  consulting and my $3000 cartooning. Now separately you'd pay 18 grand for all that, but with introductory bundling, I can get you two for $9000 or all 3 for only $6000 for 6 months!  What a deal!)*

 Sometime in the past we gave up on the simple idea of good products and services. There used to be this process. You made a product or a service, then shared it and exchanged it for money. if the product and/or service was good, and you were reasonable, you would get returns and some profit. Industrialization was, supposedly, simply an extension. of this.

But something went sideways. We stopped looking at return customers and happy customers as signs of good work and started engineering opinions. We sent out surveys. And the surveys said things like 'the call was too long" or "they didn't fix the problem and I had to call again."  And we valued signing up new customers, at any cost. We added flow lists and databases and metrics because we thought the science and data backed it up. And it did, to a point. 

But we stopped offering service, and offering to do the jobs, and starting managing the customer. Not his expectations, but them. We forgot that all the data in the world isn't giving the customer what they want or need. 

The fact is, while it's true that no sane or honest business owner goes into the game to lose money, the profit - the bottom line, comes from relationships, and connections.

Rather than asking "What can we do to help the customer?' We ask: "Can we make the customer happy in 6 minutes." Then we ask "Can we finish the call in 6 minutes to help the next person, and can we make them wait in a queue."

I have discussed this before here.

Comcast is not alone. I worked for a small Telecom, TDS. I was a pretty solid employee,but I had a problem. I wanted customers to be helped. I want to solve their problem and make sure they didn't need to talk to me again.
Did some of the customers need multiple things? Yes. That, at first, didn't bother me. Did some customers ask me for things outside my scope of support? certainly - I explained that I could help, or couldn't. If I could help, I said other agents might not be able to help.

I had excellent customer service. But in the world of metrics and numbers, this was unacceptable. And the simple answer is because our managers were so divorced from the customer and the process that they couldn't even understand good customer service, and why their metrics were detrimental to the people on the floor. Customer Service Representatives breaking out in a sweat when the difficult call takes very long. raises lost to skewed averages and you miss a metric.  

All companies do this. Marco's Pizza did this. Measuring the time to make pizza, the time in the oven, the time on cut and time out the door. All of these do, in fact affect customer service. But, in the end, the only thing that really matters is the quality of the pizza and the good customer experience.  At Marco's Pizza, the management is not distant from the customer. If a customer is happy, metrics are loosened. If a customer is unhappy, no amount of metrics repair it.

Metrics tell very little about the customer experience. It is a game of testing boundaries - how much can we get away with in our search for profit and speed and still have a positive experience.

It seems insane. In order to give a "positive experience" I had to not do all the things that made an experience positive.

Now the same telecom sent all their tech jobs to uneducated Jamaicans, costing the US jobs and giving a worse customer experience.

Madness and bad customer experience in a search for profit. No company went out of business by building positive relationships.

Something has happened. Industrialization and profit-hunting have become metric chasing. Desperate attempts to show your job is relevant by explaining why your imaginary measurements are good measurements. That the science of profit, time management, and efficacy replaced the ability to craft a good customer experience.


*Comcast must sign a 12 month contract. After 6 months the introductory rate become $19,999 a month. Early termination fees apply.

My FCC comment.

 In light of net neutrality (I.E. Comcast F*cking the Internet), I conntected the FCC and commented thus:

"Simply put, the telecoms, all of which are thinly-veiled actual monopolies, cannot be trusted with the Internet. They use strong arm tactics and bullying, both on providers like Netflix, and on customers attempting to extricate them from the service. In no way can we trust them to ensure the fast lane/slow lane service will be priced fairly.

Our Internet lags behind many other countries, only because the monopolies - sorry - telecoms do not want to provide better service. They want to profit, and ignobly. "Get the mostest and offer the leastest." It would be comical if it weren't so true.

When we came to this country, a man or woman could make good in this country by simply carving out a part of the public land. The Internet is the new frontier, and technology the way to freedom. My giving this power to the telecomonopolies, you are denying the will to prosper of the United States.  New blogs, new stores, new industry using the logistics and the easy messaging of the Internet to make money, for themselves and for the government.

How many Internet business will we lose because access is only by slow lane? How many subscribers will quit Netflix and use libraries to get movies? The unintended costs of letting telecomonopolies introduce lanes will be staggering as it deincentivizes Internet use and Internet commerce. Economically it will be a disaster. Does that matter to you? the GDP used to matter, does it anymore? What happened to being a country of producers?

The media is woefully inadequate and untrustworthy. Pictures of George Zimmerman were lightened. His 911 call, manipulated. An informed public cannot trust television and radio sources.  Several news agencies have outright said they are biased, and one even won a lawsuit, claiming they didn't even have to tell truth. But on the Internet, where information is free, the truth can be found. And even if it requires digging through stacks of useless cat pictures and diatribes, I do it gladly to find out facts - something other media outlets often lacks.

By giving in to the telecomonopolies, you are taking steps to ensure that we cannot find any truth but the one most well liked by the corporations. What's next, a firewall to prevent us from knowing things outside Oceania? That would certainly prevent the spread of crimethink.

If an appeal to your nobler capitalist side side does not dissuade you, let me then try your more ignoble, despotic side.

Fast, inexpensive Internet is literally circuses. Imagine, if you will, a society of people who have access to cat pictures all day. With the incredible amount of slacktivism today, don't you think it would be wise to let people speak out on the Internet. They will spend their time lamenting with Facebook E-cards and never be so idle as to pick up protest placard and brick.

Open up the internet, and we will immerse ourselves in hedonistic voyeurism, and leave you alone. Close it down, and our idle hands will have to find something to do. Maybe rallying against a corrupt government is just the thing to get us off our Netflix-deprived couch-sitting asses."

I am not a lawyer, my language may be colloquial - I am a blogger and would-be demagogue. But if enough us remind them that the internet is useful, as a tool of information for us, or, at the very least, an easy leash for our masters - they may realize what a terrible idea Comcasts lanes will be.

Go here:  http://www.fcc.gov/comments and comment on 14-28

Give Me Cannoli's or Give Me Death! (More Obstacles)

Note: Make sure to check out out changes page to learn what's new


I posted in my profile the following quote, which I think appropriate to the direction this blog is heading. It's important to make it clear:

“Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion” - Thomas Hobbes

He is rapidly becoming my favorite political and economic thinker. Again.

Anyway, let's continue showing the regulatory nightmare that impedes liberty and wealth. If you haven't, start with part one here.

I love the idea of micro-businesses. Let's say you have a great recipe to share with people. Wouldn't it be great to have a kitchen that actually meets FDA and Health Code standards so you could sell your product?
This woman thought so.  I noted, with ever increasing frustration, that Chicago disagreed. I don't even understand. Cooking, as an art or craft, is truly available to everyone.  Cooking is easy - don't get me wrong, being a chef is not. But a single recipe, perfected, is one of the fastest ways to provide a service and gain wealth. It ranks with programming as a way to go from poverty to reasonable wealth, and a career,  expediently.  It's hard work, but it didn't require a costly education to bake a few types of cookies and sell them.  What story of a chef doesn't start with a recipe learned from a grandparent?

Zina Murray wanted to remove an obstacle to wealth for individuals in poverty. With a much smaller start up cost, her clients could build and row a business.

They were closed down, and have re-opened. I couldn't find a Brick and mortar location.  They are focusing on helping people work through the system's sizable amount of paperwork, even as that system closed their business.They teach food safety as well.

Minnesota seems to agree that baked goods need not be made in an FDA kitchen. But "Cottage Food" laws
prevent most in-home bakers from expanding. After a certain amount of profit, you become a bakery, and are suddenly subject to FDA regulations. And recently - very recently, the Second District court dismissed the suit against the law.

I realize we need to have healthy food standards. There are people, who, in attempt to make a quick buck or shave down margins, will ignore customer health. However, I believe these people are becoming fewer in number, and in ignoring quality, will lose money.

Perhaps Zina Murray should open her Logan Square Kitchen in St. Paul.

Let's say that in order to save money, you want a garden. Now that's something we can't have. Now I have no problem with agricultural science, or even GMOs - they are reducing famine and hunger. I do have a problem when local government tells people they can't grow vegetables - healthy, life-sustaining vegetables, on their property. You know, property they purchased and paid taxes on?
What's more, small scale production will help in areas that generally don't have grocery access. It cuts down on food costs and increases sustainability. Small-scale food growing is not for the wealthy or the suburbs. It has a beneficial impact on urban areas. I'm no environmentalist hippy, but when you can save money, increase property values, and help the environment, and feed people - I call that a win-win...win...win.

Now, this is an attempt to keep Miami Shores "character."  I might suggest Hermine and Tom sell their home to a Stepford wife. Because apparently "character" means "bland mediocrity" in Miami Shores.

I have seen, first hand, what a garden can do for an area. Compare my what I drive past nearly every day, to a drive I take about once a month. I'll take a garden, any day of the week.

It's this foolish madness - byzantine and Kafka-esque ordinances. You can put ugly flamingo's and fruit in your front yard, but not zucchini. The orange and the strawberry and the hideous garden gnome is permitted, but WOE, WOE unto the CARROT.

I say blow their minds: Plant a Tomato!


This is only part two. We have more idiocy at local levels. I am reminded of person who get upset when you decide that you don't want to see the movie they want to see. Instead of going alone, they cajole, coerce and restrict you. It's childish in the extreme.

Part three we will discuss when the government fixes prices by making things more expensive.

Jobs don't work.

Marco's update: Apparently my legend grows, even those who loathed me (except for the antagonist) say they miss me. I am touched by the sentiment, but sadly sentiment doesn't pay the rent(iment). I am still planning a crowd funding and to add a donation/buy stuff button as soon as I can figure out a product or service other than "miserably bad advice", "swear word portmanteaus", and "anti-corporate screeds."  Hell, I bet I could raise about 50 dollars just for the service of "shutting my mouth." 

I looked back at my work experience, and I have settled all previous jobs into two categories: "Useless Insanity" and "Unskilled Idiocy." I imagine that I am not the only person to categorize so, nor the first to realize the futility of work. My talent for miscreance, and the words of Michael Ventura, Alan Watts (or read the transcript) ,and Harlan Ellison have left me bereft of job morale.

Why, in that video by Alan Watts, he echoes my sentiment - or perhaps I echo his:

But if you do a job, if you do a job with the sole purpose of making money, you are absurd.

He suggests that when we do so, we begin to equate money with happiness. I can't argue, or won't, rather. I don't want utilize my talent for opposition today

My work has been as absurd as Alan Watts suggests. I was taught, rather harshly, that I must have a job. That my talents were not in fast food or factory, that I have a natural savant-like idiocy when it comes to schedules, rules, and policies. A trained monkey with a severe bleeding head injury can follow rules that I find as alien and incomprehensible as Martian mating rituals.

Actually, given my lewdness, I suspect extraterrestrial sex makes more sense to me. 

I was raised to work jobs. I had to have a job, according to my father. I don't blame my father completely. His father was raised on German work ethic and an industrial-revolution perspective of the world. My father would pull apart guns at age six and draw each part, then put them back together flawlessly. And when he performed this miracle, his father and mother told him that it was "nice" , but he ought get a job in a factory.

Lamentable. If a child showed such precociousness today, his parents would encourage him to study math and become an engineer.

My father said the same thing, like a mantra. You have to have a job. You have to have a job. You have to have a job.

And so I spent much of my time working as call center tech support, my stock and "trade". This trade constitutes being yelled at, screeched at, cried at,  for 40 hours a week, but for the blissful two hours a month when we were  droned at or yelled by our manager about our metrics.

No call center I worked for scored me on customer satisfaction. On the contrary, they scored me negatively if I spent the time to actually help the customer.   I was told at TDS Telecom that despite having more "Kudos" (compliments from customers) than other technicians, if I didn't lower my call times I would be fired.

Let that ruminate in your head. A kudos required extra work from the customer, and generally meant they were satisfied beyond mere resolution. TDS threatened to terminate me for helping customers. 


But that doesn't matter. What matters is call times. If your call takes longer than 6 minutes, you are doing your job wrong. Hang up on the customer - so long as they don't call back - and the managers are happy. Avoid helping the customer and - so long as the customer doesn't complain - call centers are happy. 

And if we are being honest, companies placed "First Call Resolution" as a metric only because agents hung up on customers to meet call length metrics.It's hard to fix someone's error in six minutes when you spend two of those minutes gathering required information and another two trying get them to find the start button.

Absurd, absurd, absurd.  Insanity. Put together unreasonable expectations and then get angry when people cannot meet them. That is the nature of corporate jobs.

I don't have a particularly good answer - I have some, but that will have to wait for another blog post.

If you want to read more, or see videos of these screeds, don't be afraid to subscribe, share on Facebook, on Twitter, or +1 on Google.


Marco's update part II: As I typed this, a  coworker texted me that the blow-job-enjoying manager told the antagonistic coworker to eat a bag of dicks as well. But he did it when they were punched out (and away from the eyes of corporate). Marco's me fired for breaking the illusion of cog-like perfection and order Frank -er, my manager, had cultivated. 
Don't send them hate mail. Send me 5 dollar donation I receive I will mail them a drawing of a bag of dicks. A dollar donation means I'll spent more than 30 seconds proofreading.Or, actually proofread.

The Keys to Creativity

Today I was blessed to get some peace and quiet. It was surprising to me what a difference having some quiet time - actual quiet time- made in creativity. It inspired me, frankly, to was polemic on the subject.

I haven't posted anything substantial in a while, and my environment is why. Creativity needs several things to grow. Luckily these things can be cultivated and fostered. The most creative have adroitly done so. Creativity is a skill, then, and not a talent. Everybody is a "Creative", some people have simply spent longer learning the skill

So here's the 3 things necessary for a creative mind. 

1) Environment
This may seem obvious, but it's easy to forget. Creatives need a place to work without distraction.

 My friend DuWayne hasn't updated his blog in quite a while. "I have no topics" he confesses. He ios trying to write a song and record it, but the song was slow in coming. He has plenty of topics, and he found a solution to the puzzle of his song.  That solution came when he was able to remove distractions. Likewise, he has topics buried inside, but anytime he has a moment to think, he's being tasked with some duty from the outside world.

I found similarly. Whenever I am trying to work, I find my environment not conducive to it at all. Beggars can't be choosers, my friends, but I have to admit that my housemates cannot do anything at a low volume. Between the low frequency mumbling, rattling, and stomping of one, and the loud helter-skelter of the television watched by the other,  it's difficult. 
I imagine every Creative needs a place free of the chaos of the world.  A study or studio that they can work in.

Perhaps I am just projecting.
The environment need not be empty. My thought room would be very sparse - chair and desk and perhaps a picture. However,  a professor of mine has books stacked upon books, and a my dad's study is a maze of shelves, desks, and tight spaces.  The idea here is the environment must not distract the Creative.


2) Peace
This sort of dovetails nicely with the first. A creative environment starts with peace - but it is different. Peace is basically a private space without distraction plus time.

About 6 years (almost exactly - January 2008), I worked at The Franz Group and had nothing to do for a week. We had no sales calls to make (and I was not a hustler). So I listened to self help tapes and read.
One of the Gurus - I can't remember which one, mentioned that in order to work properly he needed to rest for 30 minutes. He would mediate - he called it sitting in a chair, but it was meditation.  He would sit in his chair and let his mind wander.

Many Creatives take walks with alarming regularity. Kant walked with so regularity that they named his path "The Philosophers Walk".  Kyoto also has a Philosopher Walk. Many artists walked.

Just as you have your best ideas in the shower, flow comes when you are able to relax. Ideas will flow easily when your mind is at peace.

Peace is Environment + Time. And Solitude is Peace + Environment.

3) Play

This one is often forgotten by most Adults.  Kids seem to get this. It's the only thing that I will give kids. Otherwise they need to get off my lawn.

Creatives need to understand affordance. Creativity is blessing. We see a book, or we see an artist, or we see a dancer and we say they are creative. The truth is, the written page is a technique. The brush stroke is a technique. the step a technique. A skill. Most people may grudging accept this while saying "I can't do it." What they think they can't do is be creative. To compose.

Creativity is a skill, however.

A writer revises to practice writing. An artist will sketch to practice shape and proportion. A dancer  or an actor will rehearse to practice the technique.

With me so far? Awesome.

Play is the skill of composition and creativity.  It's about putting things together than don't normally do so.

A colander becomes a hat. A splash of water on paper becomes the image of a dragon or a beast. A pile of leaves becomes a crown. 

Affordance is defined as a quality of an object or an environment. A chair's most obvious use is to be sat on.  When children in church (as I was, occasionally) they are told to sit silently. If they tried to stand, they might  be told "We sit in chairs."

Church is serious business folks. It is not play.

But do we sit in chairs? A chair to a child can be a table, a step. It can be a cliff from which toy soldiers leap. To a teen it can be an statement, turned around and leaned on in casual rebellion.

When we play we create affordance and break away from what we see. We deny the obvious and ordinary in trade for the subtle, the lateral, the vertical, the possible, impossible. We turn trees into Treants and we re-card the discarded.

Play allows us to take things that don't belong together and make them fit. It is the practice of creativity. When we play - or dream, or let your mind wander - a form of mental play,  we discover connections that we may never have thought to use.

Long post, I am afraid. But there you have it. You want to be a Creative (ha, silly, you already are!), then the answer is simple. Find a place to be alone, take some time to relax, and maybe make a few "vroom vroom" noises.

Cheers, my kittens.  Stay dreamy. :D

Where the fight is fought

Such an epic title! Where the fight is fought, where the war is won! TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!

How I Imagine All Mecha Anime. 

Seriously, I wanted to get your attention, but the battle isn't some Frank Miller epic. 

History does show that eventually violence is the way to solve income disparity. The problem with "Guns, God, and Grenades" is that the wealthy can buy way more Guns, way more god, and many more grenades. 

So let's call violent insurrection plan D and see what else we can bring to the table. 

My solution to the wealth disparity is pretty straight forward. It's small business.

I know I am hearing groans from some my more socialist friends, but hear me out. You see, when we get upset about business, it's rarely the small business that we rage against. It's the Wal-marts and the targets and the Krafts. The huge corporations.  That's who we have a problem with. 

We never have a problem with the Yellow Bicycle Shops or The family Run Coffee shops or the Greek Diners. It's not the farmers at the Farmer's market who are the utter cockbites 

At least from a capitalist standpoint. As people, I hear anecdotal, some small business owners can be real dicks. 

It usually happens when a small or medium size business grows just so to put profit over people. A small business - say, a local bike shop, is run by people who love bikes, who live and breathe and talk bikes, and who hired people so in love with bikes that they hung around a bike shop until hired. 

I am talking about the Coffee shop owner who had a vision of a comfortable place with well made  locally-sourced food at a fair price. The type of coffee shop or diner restaurant where the owner is still in the kitchen, willing to come out and chat with the customer. 

Or the record store where the clerk is an elitist snob - who wouldn't be caught dead listening to "Now that's what I call Pop Vol 3784634739" but can rattle of the influence to Mars Volta (That's a band, right?)

This song is the cat's Meaow! It's sure to give the bluenose's the heebie-jeebies

These companies and people aren't making a mint, and while the bottom line is important, they have yet to reach the point where money is more important than quality of service, product and experience.

Passionate, grassroots capitalism is going to save our asses. I guarantee it.

Now, why we should be doubly mad. These companies are often under the same laws that larger companies are under. A rule for Wal-mart is a rule for Small businesses. What's worse, these small businesses don't have the money to fight these regulations. They have to follow the rules but aren't the rule makers. 

And if violence comes, guess which businesses get looted? The small ones. The ones that can't afford to get robbed or to pay for lawyers. 

Regulations and risks make it hard for small businesses today. As ever, your anarcho-moderate writer isn't suggesting pure deregulation. I am just hopping on the hipster bandwagon by saying small, local businesses, who care about the product only a little more than the bottom line, are how we are going to beat the wealthy. We put our money into those companies, and not into the Wal-marts and Palermo's.

So today, I say to you, gird up they loins with thy thin and spare wallet, and take your hard earned dollars (75 cents after inflation) and spend it locally as often as you can. 

. 

How to be happy: Get off the computer!

For those tuning in, I want to advise something. If you want to be happy, get off the computer.

Remember when the computer first appeared? It was going to revolutionize our lives. We were going to share information and research. We would link the wolrd and share culture.

Now all we do is look at cat pictures.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter have replaced conversations. I have to hold back on what I say on Facebook, lest I have this conversation.

Me: "Did I tell you I saw Iron Man 3 finally?"
FB Friend: "Yeah, saw it on Facebook."
Me: "I rather liked the part where <spoilers>."
FB Friend: "Yeah, I saw your tweet"
Me: "Oh."

That's it. It's worse in person. What do we talk about?
Well, I used Facebook for good, and not evil. I crowdsourced a list of books I am to read, both Classic Fiction and Non-Fiction.  The Art of Nonconformity suggests at least 30 of each. Well, I have nothing but time and a Library Card, so let's do this:

First 15 of each:

Non Fiction:
1. Conflicted leader
2. Defending the Crown
3. The Selfish Gene
4. The God Delusion
5. Guns Germs and Steel
6. "Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
7. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
8.  The People Who Eat Darkness
9. Hired Swords, the Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan
10. Samurai, Warrior, and The State in Early Medieval Japan
11. The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha
12: The Vikings
13: The Vinland Sagas
14. The Signal and the Noise
15. Freakonomics

Fiction:
1. The Prose and Poetic Eddas
2. Egil's Saga
3. Dispair by  Nabokov
4. White Guard by Bulgakov
5. The Pigeon by Suskind
6. Fahrenheit 451
7. Count of Monte Cristo
8. Ivanhoe
9. The Brothers Karamazov
10.Watership Down
11. Anna Karenina
12. Voyage of the Beagle
13. Hojuki
14. The Tale of Heike
15. Dream of the Red Chamber

Thanks to Lorrie, Mike, Chris, Joe-Bear, Lynn, and the restof my literate friends. If a book you recommended isn't listed, then it is in the second part of the series, I have read it, or it's a Bronte sisters' book.
Now I shall take my own advice and get the hell off the computer!


EDIT:  I found a list of books I wanted to read. So I have added:

Fiction:
16. A Sport and Pastime
17. The Postman Always Rings twice
18. Tropic of Cancer
19. Revolutionary Road
20. As I Lay Dying
21. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
22-25. Factotem, Post Office, Ham on Rye and Women by C. Bukowski
26. Midnight's Children
27. Lolita
28. Underworld by DeLillo
30. CivalWarLand in Bad Decline

Non-Fiction
16. Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson
17. Artful Sentences
18. Super Freakonomics.