This doesn’t become obvious until you think more carefully about the obstructions we place in the road of our lives and the way in which we develop core notions of seperation.  The concept of the environment is a case in point.  If you consider it as seperate, then how is seperate from the completeness of things?  You say,’Well it’s seperate because it’s the environment.’  The truth is that the environment is no more connected, that it is seperate, it’s a category we use to define something.  You will never be seperate from the environment.   You are part of it.  So my colleague argues.

This also continues to the way we think about work, play and life.  We bracket out and seperate things so we can categorise them into order.  We shape them, force them to fit our internal mode of thinking, the question is why?  You see business people talking abstractly about ethics through the ‘this is business’ motto, you see salesmen talking about ‘capturing’ leads and my favourite:  Process managers talking about people as elements of a flowchart.

Why do we dehumanise ourselves like this?

Sharing Knowledge.

Scholarship was originally for people who desired to share knowledge and to show people the interesting findings of their most recent research.  So to me being a scholar means sharing knowledge, ideas, findings, results and such for furtherance of knowledge.

Today we have over 19000 journals ranked by the Federal Government in a wide array of areas.  You couldn’t tell me we had that much knowledge being produced by this country, and yes I realise that this is an entirely different question.  However, the first and foremost responsibility of a scholar is the production of new knowledge, be it about: teaching, research or how to run a chaotic university.

Why then do we have this situation where knowledge is fragmented into paywalls and disciplinary silos?  How can this be good for the advancement of knowledge?

A short journey but surely there’s a better way.

I have appreciated working with people who told me straight up that I was being an ass when I deserved it. I suspect that the majority of the time most people hold their feelings down underneath and hold it in. While there is an element of risk that you will be considered uncivil, strange, emo crazy or just plain weird, I think it’s best to let people have it or at the very least let it out if you need to.

Now should we just go around blasting folks who perhaps have wormed their annoying way into our feeble minds? No. Just yelling is being a complete moron. But, when someone has crossed the line, fuck them, let them know exactly what you think. There is time and place for anger, so long as nobody gets hurt or stabbed, but you can’t let people abuse you time and time again without giving back just a little bit to let them know that you are not going to take it.

Bottom line: don’t let people manipulate you and get away with it. Let them know, in your own boiling volcano way, that you aren’t their bitch. Do it. Right now.

Every now and again I am reminded of the reasons why I am where I am.  The title of this post should give you a clue.   It’s called your idea is good but…

Being a business lecturer, I have the opportunity to meet all kinds of people.  A lot of them have good ideas.  Here’s the critical thing:

Who else thinks your idea is good? 

Take for example the amount of people who come up with a ‘great idea for a movie’ or ‘the next big thing.’  The thing is you may be right.  It could be the greatest thing in the entire history of things.  A burning question then is: why?

The world is a big place.  There are lots of people in the world… therefore: How do you know that other people will find your idea as appealing as you do?  Think for a moment why we have people in the world that deliberately make movies that follow the same formula.  Sure, there are great movies like Inland Empire that break the mould.  However, the modern narrative form is what people want, by and large, when they go to the movies.  We can argue as long as there is wind, that it’s wrong, right, indifferent.  But, it remains.  The same goes for your idea.  How do you know others think it will be equally as awesome?

The key to learning that is to find ways that you can get closer to realising that.  Market research, talking to people, walking outside… you name it.

So next time you have the big idea, find a soundboard, a critical friend or some way of putting to the blowtorch to it.  Not only will this process tell you how good the idea is, it will save you the humiliation of finding out that you where the only person who thought winged shoes where a great idea.

Here goes:

People don’t solve problems they create them

Radical idea.  Not really.  When a problem forms people don’t actually ‘solve’ it.  They invent another problem in it’s place to solve it.  See, it’s all about learning to live with what we can and ignoring what we can’t.
Welcome to the hall of awesomeness.

In life problems occur because we find them.  The less well-defined they are, the harder they are to articulate so they more difficult it is to contextually organise our response.  A problem that’s well defined has no need of any kind of problem finding.  It’s simple.  The lightbulb is broken and needs to be changed.  A class 4 problem is one that lacks shape, has no structure and is open to many different possible interpretations.  The question I am currently exploring in my research is twofold:

1. Does that mean that problems are only ‘interpretations’ when they are complex?

2. If 1. can be explained as having some significance, demonstrably, does that hold then that different interpretations of a problem provide different representations.

3. If these representations are different… could it be that complex problems are malleable? They have a lack of definitiveness? For example, if I deliberately change the way I interpret a problem, do I so by changing the solution first?  If I navigate a new pathway to a solution FIRST, when I enrich the manifestation of issues I currently perceive.  Even further, if I change my perceptions by thinking about solutions will I by some force, accidental or serendipitous, reveal a new layer of the complexity I am entangled in.   That’s a big question with lots of little questions nested in it.  Yet, this is knowledge in the raw form.

These are the things that I think about when I come to class 4 problems.  We note and see the manifestation of them but lack the appropriate tools to interpret them cleverly enough to say we have any knowledge of them.  Perhaps these schema needs ‘Class 5′ to represent problems that are manifesting but have no clear explanation or yet lack a clear framework.  So class 5 could be: Creative Solutions.  Why?  Well if there isn’t a problem but a manifestation of one then a solution is required from a different starting point

A solution is better than a problem in so many ways.  It automatically suggests a problem because it’s a solution.  In fact, by agreeing to finish a problem (hat tip to Professor Colin Eden’s work) and instead looking at a solution, key ideas of what the problem is could actually emerge.  I have seen two cases in recent memory when external crisis events created a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.   Once the solution (twitter) presented itself, the problem (communication during emergencies) presented itself and had to be managed.   You can’t manage unstructuredness.  As a matter of fact if you try to manage the unstructured it will produce variability which itself can’t be managed only adapted to.  Enough truisms!

Get to the bloody point

So what’s missing from most management textbooks?  A chapter on creativity and management.  Structured problems versus unstructured problems and wicked versus tame problems.  Managers are not ready for variability and unstructure.  Unstructure is the stuff life is made of.  Unstructure does not lend itself to concepts of yes and of no.    We need management textbooks with ‘unstructure’ in their chapter lists.

The unstructure manifesto

Here’s what we need to do next.  Remove the word problem from our vocabularies when we are talking about complexity.  You don’t have a problem you have a manifestation of unstructure.   The next few steps are critical.  But, I don’t know what they are yet.  Sponsor my research someone please.

Begging aside… we need to move on from the language of stale problems to focus more on solutions and problem finding.  When we hit ill-defined problems we don’t YET have a problem.  What we have is a set of undesirable circumstances that have no clear pathway.   Think about it.  If you have a problem you can define it.  If you can’t then as Jonathon Rosenhead says, ‘What’s the problem?’

I am sure I will die frustrated, I was born that way.   Yet before I take my last breath I would like to add something to the set of ideas surrounding complex problems.  I am committed, in for the long haul, down to the last nail in my coffin, ready to use more commas when appropriate metaphors burst through the sun of my dark days (oops there I go again).  So this is me, reframing, framing and entangling the mess of structure with my clouded view of the world.  Peace and I will see you at the next post if not in the reality we call life at some point in the near or distant future.

Adios until next time.

If you have a business OR are involved in one please consider taking the business development survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6HRQL2S

Sudden sound effects are important.  Why?  They define the way in which my research has hit the virtual wall in the last 18 months.  It’s a good thing.  The following has happened to me from a series of unnamed journals and conferences during that time:

• Six papers were rejected (outright)
• Two papers sent back from conferences
• Two grants were rejected
• Several ideas I had (at least nine) were denied funding and have gone nowhere

There have been some excellent victories.  I got a grant for my work in complex problem solving and wrote two papers (one is under review) and I was accepted without changes into the Academy of Management’s Managerial and Organisational Cognition roundtable.  That was a major victory.  So why write this on a blog?

You have to keep failing in order to find success.  How many times have you seen it written?  Failure is what happens most of the time.  The rest of time I think we just get lucky.  So what’s the alternative?  Be normal?  I was never normal.  Be like the rest?  The ants?  Come on you are better than that.  You want to be brilliant you think it just going to fall from the sky?  Never!  I will write many papers in the future that will get rejected.  The next one probably will.  Yet, I know that at some point one will be accepted and people will read it.  Like they did with this one.

/rant.

When we are depressed I believe, without any empirical support whatsoever, that we do not function according to the way we should.  Depression happens for many, many reasons.  I have noticed that when I fall into the hole of depression that I find it difficult to get out.  One of the many reasons it happens is because there is a distinct lack of creative fulfilment in my life.

To counteract that I have to find something to do each day to release that creative energy.  My job as a Lecturer isn’t always creative.  Sometimes, it’s pure logic, analysis, dealing with grumpy bosses, managing student complaints and the like.  All of these things add up to depression if at some point you don’t find a release point where you can re-channel creativity back into your life.

I have found activities like drawing, playing my guitar and other things provided a clue that I wasn’t in balance, creatively speaking.  Instead of playing a standard boring three chord masterpiece, I would pluck random chords and release some creative energy.  I would randomly walk down the hall way, pick up the guitar, play something and then put it down.  My brain was sending me a message saying, ‘hey why don’t you release that energy’.  So I did, then I would feel a little bit less depressed.

The big question

Of course this little activity is the tip of a bigger iceberg.  Are we creatively fulfilled as individuals? In most circumstances in life it’s not possible for the majority of people to live from their creative talent.  Some don’t even want to.  We have to balance paying bills with feeding children and releasing that inward gift within us so that the world can appreciate and notice the talent we have.  This causes a deeper depression that strikes at the heart.  Of course, my caveat here is that by not even trying we never even begin to build the pathway to a successful creative career.  After all, simply submitting manuscripts to a publisher is no guarantee that it will even be read.

We need to take steps on a day to day basis with the goal of reaching a point where we can master that talent and release the energy more frequently and in deeper richer ways.  A critic may say, well that’s good for you but I have no time.  Perhaps they may also add: I have no creative talent.  Time is relative.  Even if you only take one second to do it, you will feel a bit better.  Then you will hunger for more and make time for more.  Secondly, I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t have a creative talent.  There’s something you just have to spend time looking.   There are no boundaries on creative talent either.

I hope you find the time to make this world just a little bit better by releasing your creative potential on a daily basis.

I remember thinking once that when make people accountable for KPI’s we create an invisible boundary around their performance.  We say: this far and NO FURTHER!  What a joke.  How can leadership really occur outside the contextual boundary of human judgement?  It’s almost as if we can’t see the forest because the trees (KPIs) are so thick and filled with performance!

I feel like I am going to explode sometimes because I honestly can’t see passed people who can’t move beyond their KPI’s.  I mean bloody hell, if there is a good decision to be made shouldn’t we invest our time and energy in the people we have hired to do the job.  I don’t know I am just venting out here.

I also feel like I am going to explode when I hear people saying to me that they can’t do something because it’s not possible.  But I digress.

Somebody I know died recently you can read about it here.  Although I never met him face to face his posting of comments on this blog made me realise I had something to offer.  We shared an interest in Systems Thinking, Ackoff and design and we had many interesting conversations over a period of years on this blog.  When I was reflecting on this today I realised that I do have something to offer.  This well respected man thought so… even though he passed some time ago.

So I am making a comeback because I believe I have something to offer.  I am not entirely certain what that is, but I plan to figure it out.

Welcome back … me!

The story behind the story is part of a bigger story that we have all agreed on at some point.

It’s a meta-narrative that acts as a guide post for what we come to hold as true and dear.  I had a further problem with this, as I usually do.  Exactly what is a meta-narrative?  A collection of stories that explain the other stories we tell?  No, that’s explaining something through association.  How do we come to tell stories and make sense?  Why do we make sense?  Do we make sense?

We use instruments, various devices and all kinds of mental tools to construct the language, thoughts and ideas we have.  Yet, it leaves me with a question I can’t answer.  What lies behind the stories?  A void, blackness… certain death for all who live there.  What if there was a world of stories existing above those stories that encapsulated all stories ever told?  I wonder what it would look like.  I congratulate you if you got this far in this absurd post.  I need to write more but less of that which doesn’t matter… like my trivial meanderings.

“What we think or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.” – John Ruskin

I’ve always had a plan for my career, but after getting laid off recently, I decided it wasn’t working for me. I was frustrated with how long it was taking to reach my goals, and I felt destined to be stuck taking detours just to pay the bills. I felt overwhelmed about how to approach my career.

Then I shook myself awake and came to my own rescue. It dawned on me that my career was simply a project in my life, and I’m trained in my work to handle projects a certain way. So I applied my knowledge of project management to my career, and came up with a career project plan.

Necessary Ingredients of a Career Project Plan

Needs

My dream career has always been to have my own business that is successful enough to allow me to live the lifestyle I want, that’s flexible enough to allow me to travel extensively, that’s interesting enough that I look forward to work every day, and that runs well enough that I don’t have to work insane hours to make it happen. So my goal has always been to earn enough money so that I can save up a chunk of cash, say good riddance to working just so that other people can profit, and start being my own boss, making my own ideas happen.

However, because I don’t have any formal knowledge of running a business, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to handle all of the operational stuff – stuff like accounting and HR and legal issues that come up. Not to mention I don’t have any leadership experience. So I realized I need a real-world education as well as formal training in business before my dream is going to become a reality.

Goals

This time around, for my career project, I decided to break down my grand vision into smaller goals. I wanted to be able to see progress sooner. If my goal was to be an engineer or a physical therapist – a career with a well-defined path to follow – I could have looked up a career profile and used it as a guide to establish my goals. But entrepreneurship is one of those careers that can take shape in many ways, so I had to get creative in my goal-setting.

I took my “happy ending” big picture dream and spent some time really imagining what it would be like to live the dream. Then imagined I was being interviewed about my journey to success. I told the imaginary reporter that “it all changed when I decided to go back to school to get my MBA”. Goal #1.

When the reporter asked me what prompted me to get my MBA, I said, “I met someone who showed me why it was important. He had started his own business, and it had been very successful. I asked him if he would let me volunteer at his company a few hours here and there in exchange for learning the ropes, and he agreed.” Goal #2.

“Once I started really focusing on learning about business,” I said to the reporter, “I started generating momentum and things started happening. My boss at my job left, and the person that took her place asked me to start attending meetings with higher ups and taking on more responsibility. I got a promotion, and qualified for tuition reimbursement so I could start taking night courses in business.” Goal #3.

For more articles on developing career goals and career exploration, career planning, and specific careers, check out BrainTrack’s Career Planning Guide.

Objectives and Timeline

Pleased with these three goals, which would lead me along a path to my ultimate career vision, I then put them into a logical timeline and broke them down further into simple objectives.

Goal #1: Find a role model in business who is successful and is willing to teach me how to be successful

• Go to the career development centers at local colleges to check out internships and volunteer opportunities.
• Talk to professors and students in business schools about the best strategy for getting started.
• Search online for advice on how to choose a mentor.
• Subscribe to Entrepreneur Magazine to read about successful entrepreneurs.
• Go to lectures given by successful entrepreneurs about how they got started. Attend workshops and conferences.
• Ask friends and family what entrepreneurs they know who are successful and who might be willing to let someone mentor with them.

Goal #2: Find a way to pay for taking extended education business courses online or after work

• Look into tuition reimbursement options at work and what is required to become eligible.
• Compare going to school full time against taking night courses or online courses while continuing to work.
• Go to local colleges to check out upcoming extended education courses. Ask about financial aid options.

Goal #3: Get my MBA

• Research good business schools that are known for their entrepreneurship programs.
• Develop a strategy for getting into my ideal schools, and then start working on it as early as possible.
• Apply for financial aid.
• Apply for admission into my top 5 business school choices.
• Start thinking like an entrepreneurship student now, and begin looking for business ideas that I know suit me well and that I can grow into a successful business.

Resources

Making this checklist of things I could do to generate momentum towards my dream career also helped me get a sense of what resources I have to work with right now – and what resources I need to get. I’m hungry now to learn as much as I can about having my own business, begin tapping the brains and just spending time with other people who are active or aspiring entrepreneurs, and coming up with creative ways of financing my future schooling and business ideas.

Making a Career Project Plan Work

I have to admit, I wish I’d starting thinking in these bite-sized, manageable tasks towards larger goals a long time ago. I could have accomplished so much more if I had just started somewhere, beginning with what I had to work with, instead of thinking of my dream as a far off goal that would happen someday when I was ready for a big life change.

Now that I’ve officially hired myself as my own career project manager, it’s up to me to keep moving forward no matter what… but not like a bulldozer. More like a boxer who stays light on his feet and adapts to what comes at him. I will look for the best opportunities to have the most impact, and make the most of my strengths and overcoming my weaknesses.

Having this sense of control over my career gives me a lot of confidence that I will be able to accomplish my dream. In fact, it’s not a dream anymore. It’s the next level up.

Ellen Berry is a member of BrainTrack’s writing staff. She writes articles about a variety of education and career topics, and has contributed to BrainTrack’s Career Planning Guide.

1. Don’t cook fish on high with the lid on.
2. Calamari is like rubber if you cook it too long
3. You need rear vision mirrors
4. Make sure you get all the information you need when saying ‘Yes’ to buying something OR doing something
5. Some people will always use you, even if you tell them, ‘you are using me’.
6. Your boss is not your friend
7. Direct to video sequels destroy the good memories of the original
8. Philosophy is highly subjective, even though academics think they are all right
9. Most people won’t change unless they are forced too
10. There are about 100 ways to skin a cat
11. Just because I think something is a good product, doesn’t mean customers will
12. Having goals are good, having ambition isn’t always a good thing
13. Working harder doesn’t mean getting ahead
14. Doing things for people is not always noble
15. Computers are efficient and useful, except when they aren’t.
16. It’s not 1992 anymore
17. People on the road can get out of their cars if you cut them off
18. You have to spend money to make money only works when your idea is tested, refined and proven to make money
19. Liberty doesn’t exist
20. Max Weber had major mental problems
21. Existentialism, while interesting, leaves you depressed and without answers (sic)
22. Never bet on the favourite
23. Making money online is harder than offline
24. Students don’t love you when you are a hard ass
25. Graduate students should not review papers for major journals
26. Graduate students should not review papers for minor journals
27. Never say yes to something you would take your name off later
28. Don’t sign a contract if you don’t understand it
29. NEVER trust a real estate agent
30. Electricity works, even when it’s switched off
31. Quick release wheels are convenient, until they come out while you are riding your bike
32. Driving on drugs is a really, REALLY bad idea
33. Women don’t find fat people attractive
34. Children don’t do what you ask when you yell or if they do, they undo it later
35. Arguing about the truth is confusing and depends on what the truth is
36. You are not a research paradigm
37. Policy works, breach it and see what happens
38. Managers don’t necessarily think about their employees first
39. Good ideas go to waste in a ‘system’
40. Problems are interpreted, misinterpreted then made into policy
41. Colleagues are also competitors
42. Don’t say yes to money if you don’t know the strings
43. There are no ‘friends’ in business
44. Never take your eyes off the road
45. If you are bulky (or burly as I have been called) you are likely to be sitting by yourself if you get on the bus first
46. Same for trains
47. Doing a PhD is a great idea… until you start
48. Doing a masters is a great idea… until you start
49. Smoking is a bad habit…. especially when it’s crack/marijuana or something else addictive
50. Waving to people may result in a beating
51. Reading ‘literature’ is fun until page 90
52. There is no such thing as a ’4 hour work week’
53. You can’t make as much money as the guy who makes 40k a month without stealing either his market or his ideas
54. Getting old gets worse as you get older
55. Having gray hair at an early age does not win friends or get you a girlfriend… it will get you ridiculed as ‘gramps’.
56. Saying yes to ‘cat’ is a great idea if she isn’t a mentally challenged Sealpoint Himalayan who thinks shitting in your shoes is fun
57. Things usually get worse then much worse if they even get better at all.
58. Action speaks louder than a committee meeting
59. Accountants rule the world
60. Living up to your potential depends on how much you could be bothered to learn what the fuck your potential is in the first place.
61. Other people don’t know you as well as you know you
62. Relatives will be offended when you make inferences about their parenting capacity
63. People think university Lecturers are leaches in a large majority of cases
64. Respect is often fraudulent
65. If you see a car that’s broken down on the side of the road, unless you have a phone, money or mechanical skills keep driving
66. Dreams are poison
67. Your words make little difference
68. Taking a stand carries a price, you better make sure you are prepared to pay for it when you stand
69. Faith works except when it doesn’t
70. Believe in what you do
71. Shoot the messenger
72. Don’t bet on old ideas
73. Marketing is for micro thinkers
74. Happiness depends on context
75. Church is for church people

These are only a few… add more in the comments if you like.

“I got a house and it was a miracle.”

Remember eating words is a lot like eating paper.  I wish I knew what I meant by that.

Personal Development – The Hard Way

Personally, I think personal development is way overrated – all the self-help gurus and books exhort you to “improve” yourself by raising awareness, increasing knowledge, rebuilding yourself, strengthening your character, yada yada yada. However, it takes more than books and advice from self-styled experts to give you that makeover called “personal development” – it’s not something you can gain in a day spent at the spa and salon; rather, it has to be built through trials by fire. In my book, personal development is what happens to you when life happens to you – it is the sum total of all your experiences and relationships, it is a consequence of all that you’ve been through, and it is more of a subconscious self-preservation mechanism than a conscious effort to improve yourself.

It was C.S. Lewis who said, “Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, you learn”. He hit the nail right on the head, because no matter how much you’re taught, no matter how much advice you receive from well-meaning friends, family members and acquaintances, it is experience that boosts your emotional maturity.

• It takes a series of bad relationships to get you to choose your significant other with care and consideration. Or you reach a conclusion that you’re just not the kind who can make a relationship work, so you settle for short-term liaisons and flit from man (or woman) to man like a butterfly collecting nectar. It may not be much of a life, but it sure beats the pain and angst of being in a full-time relationship and undergoing emotional torture time and again.
• It takes many years to figure out that tolerance in a relationship helps maintain the peace, if you want to stay on in the relationship that is. And so after years of losing your temper and saying things you regret a few minutes later, you’re finally able to find the maturity to hold back and say nothing at all – and you’re rewarded with peace and normalcy.
• It takes many bad job experiences to make you realize that you cannot be happy unless you’re your own boss, and so you find the courage and strength to go into business for yourself. Sure you’re scared of failure, but the alternative is even more frightening, so you stay the course and do what it takes to make it on your own.
• It takes a host of bad experiences to boost your resolve and revive your “never say die” spirit – it’s when people have written you off that you feel the need to prove yourself and make something of your life.

So as I was saying, throw away all those books and shut out those pundits who seem to know everything about your life and how you can improve it; instead, just go through each day as it comes, doing the best you can and staying true to your principles and ethics (not morals that society has set for you), and you can rest assured that you will develop personally because of all the trials of fire that life has in store for you. So the next time you go through a bad experience, look at it as a personal development tool, shrug away your sorrow, and get on with life.

David Lynch said that he often would sit down and ideas would come and he would work hard to capture them, so that he could hold on to them.  Isn’t that interesting.  I often have my best thinking when I am driving, in the shower, on the throne or elsewhere.  I don’t really care how it works or why it does but I find these times when ideas just come are often not synthesis.  I am growing to dislike the way we use that word. It’s more like a description of a ‘product’ of something else.  Think about Chemicals.  We call the hybrid ‘synthesis’ (I hope) and use that as a way of describing a process.  I would argue that synthesis is the outcome of creativity in some cases. Human beings are creative.  We make stuff.  A lot of stuff.   So this presents two problems in my limited mind.

1. Stuff comes from somewhere

2. Not all stuff comes from somewhere, some stuff just comes.
I am often impressed by the word, ‘variegation’.  It reminds that two things can be true at the same time and the other thing can also be true as well.  What?  Well we often frame our problems as thus: ‘It’s either this or that’.  This invites synthesis.  Combine the ideas and create a new perspective.  But in design, we often make new ideas that other people engage with and this process of making ‘new’ ideas is not necessarily a process of combining old ideas.  It’s something else. Inspiration, creativity and new ways of thinking are often hard to conceptualise for an academic, we follow the patterns and contribute to others.  Our arguments don’t often synthesise the texts either, sometimes they contradict and refute.  This process leads me to think that thinking and creativity are deep.

I am reminded of perspectives, how they shape and inform, how they create and divide logic.  How interesting that we ever thought a rational process could explain irrational humans?  What of rhetoric?  Ok that last micro sentence was silly.  Anyway, remember that combining things and looking for new interpretations leads to synthesis.  Synthesis is not the combining of old ideas and new ones, it’s the emergent process of creativity which is beyond my intelligence to comprehend.  We use words like inspiration too loosely.

Synthesis, leads us to new interpretations but sometimes new interpretations come because of some other reason.  When I figure that out, I will more than likely be dead.  Now there’s a concept.

Is it a crime to write as though you were someone else online?

No. But what does it say about the bloated doctor on the other end of the keyboard typing this sentence?  So what is the bloody point if you aren’t going to do or say the things you think need to be done and said?  You get depressed, tired, withdrawn and overall very weird.   Yet, there is a timing and wisdom in this that involves taking the time to find your voice.  You start with copying, trying on ‘dad’s shoes’, pretending and so on until you realise, this is me.  I am the kind of person who has a hard time selling out and my body lets me know almost immediately if I am doing it.  I get depressed, can’t sleep, get angry and so forth.  When you begin to find your voice, it’s a good feeling, you are you and know it.  You settle in on some things.  The words flow from the chubby fingers to the keyboard with ease, the revisions seem less important and you even begin to like the editing process a little bit.

The voice is like the sweet spot on a picked lock.   Perhaps the wrong metaphor, yet the obscuring face of the lock from what lies behind is more than likely apt.  Consider then that on the other side of this metaphorical door lies the chamber of secrets to your voice.  What key wouldn’t you try?  Yet, the only way you can find your voice is to use it until you get the key that fits.  Unless of course the lock is in another room, behind a gate, guarded by a moat filled with alligators (or crocs if you are from Australia).  The point is: you are you and you should tell you not to sell you out for a few dollars.  Be you, yes you, because you have to live with you.  Don’t YOU forget that.

I couldn’t be bothered reading the map before I went to check out some land in the deep (deep) south of Brisbane.  When we got there the agent told me that I had come the long way.  Story of my life.  In her helpful discussion on how to get me back to where I came from, she told me about the route I could take to get back home which saved a shirtload of time.  Now, on the way we discovered things that were very interesting to us, a new suburb (not so feral), quiet streets and most importantly high speed internet, hot local girls, an adult entertainment venue, super IGA, reasonably priced drugs, houses.

When I say reasonable, you have to place that in context.  The houses are still four to five times my income.  However, they aren’t six to seven times my income as they are in area I am in now.   I digress.

You could argue that planning sometimes creates a frame that leads to a known solution and blocks out other solutions.  This is true… ish.  Yet, my laziness led to a surprise that the lady had for me because I didn’t bother to read the map!  This happens rarely but it’s a lesson for me that sometimes you are best to see what happens when you do stuff instead of creating a fifty seven point plan.  It’s part of the fun of choas chaos.

My point is we all have something to use, a talent that needs polishing, ideas that need explaining and a host of other things that constitute our uniqueness.  One guy I saw at this retreat/conference was making a robot fish to find pollutants in rivers where humans couldn’t go and of course for commercial reasons (SKYNET!).   How unique and interesting!  There was a man studying glycomics, another looking at the semantic web and me doing whatever I can to avoid work.

Why don’t you begin to be unique and special, just like everyone else.  Don’t stop doing something because it makes no money or because it’s going nowhere.  If you believe it’s you, you should want to do it just to be unique and different.  It’s the different things that make this world so interesting, at least to a boring academic like me!  There are no guarantees of success but at least you can be happy within yourself.  Don’t throw it all away, just spend one hour a week being unique, then build it up to 190,000 hours.  Before you know it you will as unique as everyone else!