shinsato.com

Browsing Phil Gerbyshak’s quite generous offerings, full of great links, I found this link to Bill Kinnon’s mention of the Generous Web. Bill’s post describes beautifully how one billion online people sharing freely and generously of their knowledge is creating a powerful force for good, a disruptive conspiracy that is changing the world.

Generous websters share the best of what they see on the web, and they do it rapidly through links (and there are wonderful links on Phil’s and Bill’s sites). I challenge everyone to go and do likewise, be a part of the generous web. Take from it, and also add to it. There are many challenges around today that are asking for the best from each of us. Join the conspiracy!

Hello from a hotel in Battle Mountain, Nevada. It was as far as I made it last night on my way back to Montana from San Francisco. Notice my new shiny MacBookPro, showing the inbuilt iSight running on iMovie. So this is sort of an iBlogPost. Thank you to Hugh, it was through his support and encouragement I took the bold step of getting this sweet machine. I was seeing it everywhere in California, as I roamed JavaOne 2006 in Moscone Center, San Francisco, hoping I’d get to show of my new MacBookPro, and it was all over the place. Including on the big stage. I was roller blading around Golden Gate Park yesterday, and someone was using it on the side of a road. It was someone who was part of a movie crew.

This fortune showed up a few weeks ago in a Chinese Restaurant in Missoula. Carl Jung, the Austrian psychologist and contemporary of the atheistic Sigmund Freud was one of the early great psychologists, and for me at least, more useful. Carl Jung taught things that have been proven in more modern empirical studies, such as religious conversion is often the best path to deep personal change. Rather than being stuck in a scientific materialist model, which only allowed Freud to go as deep as the sexual drives, Jung was able to delve into the realm of spirit. For many, this is a problem, because the study of spirit and the study of material science had been divided up very cleanly between the priests and the scientists. It wasn’t ok for anyone to wander into the no-man’s divide between the realm of science and that of spirit. But Carl Jung did so, and his theory of Synchronicity made for a wonderful dance song in my college years that perhaps can explain why I think fortune cookies can work.

Synchronicity is the theory of meaningful coincidences, and for me at least, I find valuable synchronicity in the fortune cookies I receive. They can be messages from the universe and the Creator, and not just a cookie factory. And it occurred to me from that fortune cookie that I am reluctant to share bad news even more than good news. But there does seem to be value in it, and it’s something I’m going to practice right now in the blog. The bad news is the meal around that cookie wasn’t very good, and we should have known better, we just forgot that the restaurant wasn’t that great. The good news, it occurred to me it would be a good blog topic and worth sharing. I photographed it on top of a Java book, as I was preparing to get to JavaOne 2006 in San Francisco. And that’s more good news, as I’m done and it was a great conference. Perhaps a topic for a later blog.

I’ve become addicted to 43 Things recently. The website is a place to list 43 goals, and where you can give and get help and encouragement in achieving those goals. But an entry I read recently from someone who cheered one of my goals really struck home. It was titled, “Don’t stop to wave, you’ll drown”. The inspired entry quotes from a couple authors and it explained some of my problems using the 43 Things website, and how I can use it better.

The essence of the entry was that life is like a river, and you have to keep swimming. If you stop to wave, to get appreciation, to be acknowledged, to be anything, you will drown. Waiting for people to notice kills dreams. After a few days I chose a goal to give 43 cheers as I noticed others had chosen similar goals. Many have given 1000 cheers on 43 Things. But in order to give cheers, you have to get cheers. You can get cheers from others, and you also get “a handful” of cheers from the system every day. I started feeling like a lab rat hitting the lever hoping for a bit of food. I was glad when the goal was over.

The “Don’t stop to wave or you’ll drown” entry clarified my troubles. The “high” on 43 Things is being cheered, or recognized, or when someone leaves a comment or response. But it’s better not to want or need that recognition. Perhaps it’s good to appreciate the cheers, but the focus needs to be on the real goal, to keep swimming, flow with the current, and keep moving.

These new social networking websites have a tremendous power. I like 43Things.com because it offers support and encouragement. But the real power comes from giving. Giving others a cheer, or an answer to a question, or just a supportive comment, is a way to appreciate others, and to enrich the internet. I don’t want to wait for others to notice anymore. I choose to keep on swimming.