Leftovers
Modern Day Muse
The history of a Muse goes back to Greek methodology. Most reckonable as an instrument of inspiration used for Artists. In fact the artist Matisse used muses as models. Women are an inspiration. Bodies so strong as inspiration he would exaggerate his blindness just to get close to the woman’s skin.
Today, many sociologists see muses as the modern model. Whether or not the majority of society long to be a size zero, member of the Girls Net Door, or flashed in front of the stage of Oprah..Muses exist today. The occupation of a muse is nothing to long afar. Thought most woman would assume strippers and models have the best occupation in world, tie job of a must is much more in-depth.
Muses are inspiration. Modern day muses are often confused with sexual prevalent woman, today and one hundred years ago. They rarely get married and if the do, it never lasts. They are perpetually the other women yet not to be confused as a mistress. Muses have the natural instinct to afore their subject. Love them from the depth of their heart, body, and soul. They want to see their subject succeed in personal, sexual, and occupational growth. Yet they remain hidden.
Modern day muses may include Samantha from Sex in the City, your next-door neighbor, or if lucky, your life partner. Though historically, muses are not life long partners. Floaters whose God given talent is to love adore and believe.
Muses often transform into objects. We tend to turn to religion as our inspiration, books, and now the Internet. Though, the heart and being of a muse is the person. The touch, the voice, and the intimacy. It’s the person not the object.
Relationships are for dogs, breeding is for people
Over the short span of my life, I have watched society gender roles change. Even looking back on the 1980’s to now, we can see the dramatic difference in our personal relationships.
From the time MTV Debut “The Real World” to fast forwarding to the reality shows of today, our society prides itself of the dramatic turmoil and joy felt in relationships. We can point to the current Jon and Kate fiasco, with the obvious division of male/female supporters. Some woman being disgusted at the way Kate belittles her husband while others such as Gen Y Leader Penelope Trunk provide a social media high five the divorcing couple. The tables of gender roles are obviously rotating, with it’s very mark being left on the changing makeup of the ideal American family.
One can search the Twitter stream for the die hard supports and haters of Sandra Tsing Loh who shared her views on divorce and marriage with the world. Whether you agree or not with Sandra Tsing Loh’s point of view, you have to agree the traditional family and relationship balances are gone. Enter in the new era of marrying because it’s tradition not because of traditional gender roles. Throw in the hopeless romantics who believe in The Notebook, and we become a culture perpetually screwed.
Woman scream individualism and men scream for independence. Whether or not we have it in our relationships now, that doesn’t mean later on we may feel the closing grip of traditional roles nagging at our soul. Manifesting a horrible tear between reality and a cinderella fantasy.
Branded by two failed marriages and watching my male/female friends rack up the numbers on the divorce side, I’m no wiser than your local psychologist. What I do know, is no one wants loose the secret hope of being a part of a love story. Whether it lead to filing as married on tax returns or simply living like Oprah, perpetually in sin but forever happy, some of us may find love eventually.
Rock bottom bayou
In May, unemployment hit 9.4%. In May alone, America felt the loss of 345,000 jobs. Since mid April, I have been one of the 3 million+ unemployed. My optimistic job search finally took a steep tumble, hitting rock bottom at the end of another “groundhog-type” day job searching.
I examined over and over in my head where I might hove gone wrong with the job search. What avenue of networking have I not tried; what city have I not searched; what company have I not created a profile with; what skills am I lacking; what decisions I have made in my life to leave me jobless?
“It is not you, it is the economy,” I hear in my head.
Yet, my thoughts return to finding the links among my decisions. Up til now, I thought I did everything right to stay competitive in the job market. I got good grades in high school; I served my country and deployed a million miles away from home; I earned and paid for my bachelors degree; I sought out jobs which I knew nothing, only to gain technically-related skills.
What have all those sound decisions brought me? Nothing.
I fit no category. I am too old to be entry level, yet not specific enough to fit into a snug position. I have too many years since my military career which makes my skills obsolete for certain jobs. But, my military experience means nothing to the civilian world. I am only FAMILIAR with databases and web design, not EXPERIENCED enough to compete with certified nerds. What I am doesn’t fit on a resume.
I hit rock bottom when I entered my living room today. In the midst of me being glued to my computer, searching, uploading and repeating the process for 8 hours, I missed MY LIFE. Treading through stacks of magazines, paper, shredded pillows and blankets, I discovered how my beloved dogs occupied themselves. I was ignoring their need for attention because I believed the responsible choice was to stop at nothing until I found a job. The responsible choice left the ones who surround me neglected. The most precious things in life have been forgotten and discarded.
Where I was once an evangelist for “carpe diem,” I stopped breathing. I stopped looking. I stopped living.
I stopped enjoying the present because I have been so consumed with finding my future.
Speeding up the journey to end at the same destination
In 1908, Ford’s Model T became a popular mode of transportation. For centuries, automobile rides where viewed as an experience not as just a tool of movement.
Well into the 1970’s, families enjoyed the Sunday drives to absolutely nowhere special. The idea of climbing into a small compartment as a “family” or “community” to enjoy the peaceful scenery around them was enough to satisfy a crave for an experience. It’s the melding of each other’s minds, personalities, dreams, and ambitions into a simple ride in a vehicle. The endless conversations which transpire from a passenger’s inside view of the passing outside world exchanged back and forth for hours, created memories. The experiences crafted ideals, goals, ambitions, and hope.
Somewhere, we have lost the experience of the journey. Today’s cars are created with one purpose in mind: to get us from point A to Point B in the most reliable and fastest method. We don’t care what we miss along the way. OUr purpose is to get to our destination while ignoring the passing present moments engulfed into our digital communications, lead foot, and deathly sense of urgency.
What do we loose?
We loose everything in the journey. We loose every breadth, thought, blue sky, radiant sunlight, and humanity which is squeezed in between our quest from point A to point B. We loose the satisfaction of enjoying the experience shared between our fellow journey man. We travel independently only to race each other to the finish line. Meanwhile, we have lost endless hours of enjoying the scenery a higher one created and the humans we are blessed with their company. We focus on the end. The miles traveled. The efficiency of fuel spent in our journey. The wear and tear of our physical mode of transportation.
Who has the best kept vehicle?
Who got the best mileage and saved the biggest buck?
Who has the best resale value when they are tired and decide to trade up for a better version?
How many of us ask, who enjoyed the experience most? Who took the winding road up the hill to find the most beautiful lookout over an ocean’s mass? Who slowed down a bit, only to drag out a conversation with the journeyman on the decay of an urban house? Who relaxed enough to enjoy the touch of someone’s hand or smell of their hair in the wind? Who matches a song on a radio to a particular place, time, and Sunday drive?
Have we forgotten to enjoy the experience of our journey to only focus on the end?
Yes.
Today we propel each other to the end faster and faster. Disregarding the sweat, tears, anguish, smiles, and memories created in that car ride. We scream down the highway to end only up at the same bar and same lonely faces we left in our first stop. We’ve forgotten to hold onto the dreams, aspirations, and memories which we passed through….which we experienced…only on our way from point A to B. We’ve lost everything only to start all over.
Search For Inspiration
“Each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am not creative by nature. Like most, I foster creativity through various outlets which connect me with society. The exchange of thoughts, ideas, and conversation summons my personal creativity. I would safely bet, most of society feels the same way. Thus why masses attract to social networking site such as Twitter and Facebook.
Cease of Inspiration
Creativity to foster new ideas happens most often during our interaction with others. Throughout history, we can read about the great minds of each period discussing and arguing each other’s ideas. Even the great artists would co create next to each other from time to time. It’s surrounding ourselves with other’s who foster our own creativity. In our society today, we are using technology to recreate our inspirational bubbles. What happens if it fails?
Recent research revealed Twitter has an enormous quit rate. Why? Is is boredom with the features, too many established cliques, or personal life not conducive to social networking? It probably is a mix of all the above. The #1 reason being Twitter lacks fueling inspiration for others. Somewhere, users are not feeling connected with others. Their Twitter account fails to share new ideas, thoughts, or profound arguments to wrap one head’s around. There’s a failure to inspire.
Social media is by far an incredible outlet for us to network beyond traditional boundaries. Regardless of how amazing or simple technology is, it fails to satisfy our desire for close proximity relationships. We can see this by the trend of users making dedicated attempt to connect off line. No matter how quit the interface, how imbedded it is in our lives, or wide of a network, the manifestation of ideas created from discussions with others physically around us cannot be recreated.
What happens between two or more people sitting in a Denny’s discussing life, taxes, law, and business is magical. It’s the immediate responses, physical, emotional, and intellectual to which we play off of. There is no technology that can mimic a really great debate. We will never see presidential debates via Twitter accounts or Vimeo. The inspirational magic would never occur.
In our search for inspiration we may look to faith, newspapers, nature, or Twitter, but it only supplements what we can create with other humans. By far, developing long lasting friendships will reward us greater than any exchange of 140 characters or less.
WTF Are you bitching about?
I have been quite busy off-line and on-line lately. You know, taxes, bills, exercising, and all other real life shit that doesn’t occur on Twitter.
Emerging back into Twitterville, I felt I missed a whole hoopla of something or other around Amazon. Dazed and confused, I put on my detective cap to find the missing clues. As I sniffed around a couple blogs and Tweets, I stopped. I realized the clues was just leading me to a bunch of really ridiculous and meaningless arguments.
I must caveat, while I was indeed a busy little beaver offline, I did not toss my digital fetish completely to the side. I was indulging into information of much meatier substance. I found a new book on aid in Africa to buy, read “Me 2.0″ online (oops! Dan, you did know your entire book is visible online, right?), engulfed entire Economist at the gym, researched a disease that affects 1.5 million, and read an article on the recent Times headline of religion and America. I didn’t close my ears to the world. Only redirected my hearing to subjects of greater essence than a brand fubar.
I still don’t really understand what Amazon did or did not do. And you know what, I don’t care. Whatever Amazon did to piss off a couple of consumers is miniscule compared to events that will effect us all:
- Millions of dead in South Sudan.
- The increase in numbers of troops to Afghanistan
- Italian earthquake
- north Korea and China talks, failed launch of a Taepo-Dong II missile
- Enormous growth of individuals seeking jobs with nonprofit due to waffling high unemployment
- Danish PM appointed to lead NATO forces
- Health reports on oral contraceptive and silicone breast implants are associated with Lupus
Do you all see how much occurs every day without Twitter?
Dan Dennett on TED speech on memes, touched on how we spread ideas. Are we using our information channels to spread informative, positive, or useful ideas? Or are we using the most incredible communication tools (FREE to us) to spew hatred and anger? What positive impact has your information made on another life today? Did you make them aware of a disease that affects 1.5 million people, genocide that has occurred for decades, your elected officials negotiating with communist countries?
At the end of the day, I would rather my consumer dollars go for a brand to give their shipping clerk a bonus than spend the time entertaining a bunch of isolationist Tweeters.
That bonus, spent on the economy, would affect hundreds more of American lives versus calming one negative voice.
Never a Cookie Cutter Fit
One of the first things a new business must do is determine their target market. What is the goal or objective of the service you will provide? What’s your niche?
A builder will secure the best fit replacement window for your home. It is less expensive to go with original fittings, rather than to cut into drywall and the frame to install a different sized window.
Human nature is to place our lives into a cookie cutter. We create business that fill a perfect fit cut. We make home improvements within the constraints of our current house frame. We even place people we meet or interact with into a certain cookie cutter ideal.
Sometimes, we will never fit the cookie cutter.
I remember a childhood goal of mine was to play the part of Helen Keller in a play. In high school, the opportunity was presented. I gave a knock out audition (you know this when everyone in the room gives you an standing ovation ;-). Everyone agreed, the part of Helen was mine. Except, I didn’t fit the cookie cutter.
My physical presence didn’t fit the part of Helen. Bright blonde hair and too far developed to fit the image of a young girl, the part was handed to younger, brunette girl. It took four rounds of auditions, each one our director squinted at me and at her. I could see him trying to “visualize” the perfect cookie cutter fit for his play. I just wasn’t it.
Sometimes in life, it doesn’t matter if you give an outstanding performance and your perfect for the part. If you don’t fit the cookie cutter, you’ll never be it. It’s not about failing or changing who you are. It’s about learning to be dynamic and fluid enough to move with life. Because you will never be the cookie cutter fit, and cutting the drywall is too much work.
Cause you gotta love Tori Amos
Tori’s new cd comes out May 19th…you know I am salivating until then!
If every day was perfect, would we be innovative?
I hate struggling with everyday tasks. I think we all do. For me, I struggle with getting the trash bag out of the receptacle every damn time. It’s a curse.
It made me wonder how in life we have our struggles, our moments of really big hills that never seem to cease, and how it affects us as people. If everyday we woke up living the ideal life, perfectly happy, and no need for improvement, would we be innovative?
Every process, social welfare program, invention, or social cause, comes from seeking change for the better. Our country was founded by individuals who where innocent with current government and saw an opportunity to make life better. Alexander Bell saw a need and public discontent with communication systems. The discontent drew him to be innovative.
Everyday we come across struggles big and small. Everyday we deal with them. Eventually we come to the conclusion that change is necessary and we start to think creatively on ways to ease our struggles. If we woke up everyday perfectly happy with no need to improve, would we even bother waking up? Isn’t it the core essence of humanity to seek change for the better? To analyze and respond to hurt, pain, and discontent in the world around us by being innovative with ideas to improve our life.
As much as we don’t like pain or struggles, they are necessary. If it wasn’t for the HOPE that tomorrow would be better or be the change we desperately wished for, life wouldn’t be worth living. Embrace the struggles and make them your reason to be innovative.
*Maybe someday Hefty will make a trash can a bit more user friendly! :-)*
