Forget about good.

Forget about good.

Good is a known quantity.

Good is what we all agree on.

Growth is not necessarily good.

Growth is an exploration of unlit resources that may or may not yield to our research.

As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

- Bruce Mau

This is the second point in Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. It's probably my second favorite quote of all time. Tonight, it was written on written on the wall of my room...that's important.

The Cost of Freedom

As often as this subject is on my mind, it's almost appalling that I've not yet written about it here.

I'm often torn in the struggle for balance in my life. Twenty-One years is not enough time to determine which pieces of your life will level the scale. But then, is forty? Is sixty? I don't think that I'll ever come to a conclusion.

Recent changes in American government and business models stress me out. Apple computer is in the middle of a movement to control the software which can run on their hardware, even moreso than the AppleOS/Macintosh insanity (which only allows an Apple OS to run on a Mac machine). I normally wouldn't care, but the problem is that the business model is booming. People are still buying iTouches and iPads with the knowledge that they cannot open their property, nor can they put any software on it without the corporate supervision that is the App Store. This claims to be an ease of use method, but I'm concerned and almost scared of where this is leading. As people begin to accept the fact that they have no control over what they want to do with their new toys, I feel that they are essentially giving up their freedom. It all goes back to freedom and saftey. Would you rather have a super stable and clean machine, or would you like to tinker and take innovation to a new level?

It's early in the morning, I'm exhausted and in a rather bad mood. Sorry for the senseless rambling.

Anyways, what I'm getting at is that our population (and maybe the world?) is beginning to give up freedom for safety and feigned free will. The founding fathers of America would be disappointed. I know I am. I don't feel like there are enough people that feel like me to affect this shift. It's dangerous. As if we could organize something anyways. My generation is rather pathetic when it comes to those things. The generation in power now has a rather solid grip on things though. Change against their will is almost impossible. The cost of an impact now is a fine, a brand and a prison sentence that will always follow you. Maybe if we weren't so civilized we could bring about a revolution the old-school way. "If you do not do what we want, we'll kill you." American revolution style! When the Brits tried to control our colonists, they were told to lay down their arms or be killed. Unfortunately, I don't want to kill anybody. Our populace is fragmented, too. So much that I think it would be impossible to reign in. We'd be fighting amongst each other more than we would be fighting for our cause. (That's a Noam Chomsky idea, by the way.)

I'm in bad mood due to a fight with the parents tonight. That's what got me on this whole track. The reality of my situation is that I've given up much of the freedom I might otherwise have for financial ease. I'm not okay with it at all. In fact, I can't stand it. I was told tonight that they raised me to be a Free Thinker. They did a damn good job and I'm glad. It makes for a solid line of separation between them and myself, though, which I don't like. I don't feel like I can talk about my ideas when I'm here. Hell would break loose. It makes it hard to get very close with my parents, which in turn makes me sad. They're great people. They did a great job raising me, according to lots of people. I think so myself. But will this always be a source of irreconcilable differences?

Transformations

Ha. I named this post about halfway through writing it. I get a kick out of the fact that the title and content are strikingly parallel with RSD's Transformations...

Today is a good day for me. I realized that I've become the kind of consumer that I wanted to become before I set off. Although I'll always be eccentric and enjoy things of the like, I haven't always been a rational consumer for it. Like most others, if I seen something I wanted, I'd get it. Whether it was worth a great amount, or it was the most beautiful paperweight known to man.

I don't like that style of consumerism. Not only is it incredibly wasteful but, I think, those actions will eventually bleed into other parts of your life, at which point it can become a lifestyle instead of a consumer style. That's why I wanted to get away from it. This first year off of school was about doing some serious work transforming myself into something that I believed was better than my former self. Namely, I wanted to become more introspective, less materialistic and much more aware of the circumstances surrounding my life.

Now that I write that, I feel like I've come a long ways in a year. Having lots of open minded friends (ahem, Cody, you may get mentioned in every blog post; you're on a roll) has provided an outlet to discuss things about myself that I otherwise never may have considered. I'm much more attuned to what I want, what I believe and what I really need. I have a better understanding of self. It's like a whole different level than what I used to have.

The materialistic changes are what have surprised me most. I didn't really know if I'd be able to make it to where I wanted to be. I was sure that I could break myself of buying things I didn't need, but I didn't know if I could totally change my perspective on those things as well. I have. I see things now in a very "rational" way. Do I really need it? What REAL value does this have now and will it maintain that value in the future? I am working on purchasing not based on want, but on need and efficiency. MINIMALISM! I'm not sure that I want to be completely minimalist, or if I really can, but I'm making good progress going where I want to go with it...which is somewhere in that direction.

The "circumstances of my life thing" is a much more broad idea than either of the previous two. And it requires a lot of sense of self to really be aware of things. You've got to true to yourself, and completely honest. I see my decision to modify my travel plans as a sign of the changes regarding my self awareness. It's apparent that my original desire is not entirely feasible at this point in my life. I took a step back to see what changes could be made and made them and I am in a much better position for it. I know, with more precision, what I want to do and how I want to do it, as well as the things I'd like to do in the future (hookah bar, anyone?!).