yellow brick road

Yesterday a fur seal had an adventure on tar-seal in Dunedin. Fred was on exploration. The humans had a bit of a kafuffle guiding him back to the water whereas Fred was just happy lying on the nice warm grass between the 4 lanes having a snooze. (He loves to eat fresh fish and the occasional muffin. He enjoys playing with humans. Just don't prod him, he has sensitive skin.)

Sometimes other people think we are lost, have no idea what we are doing or doubt our abilities, mostly they just want to do "the right thing" and try and drag us back to that thing they call "reality". Naturally this can be sensible, as let's face it all of us have the occasional blond moment or fly into fairyland. But what if we just want to play? What if we did think about it?


We simply may enjoy having a little adventure, like Fred. Maybe it would be nice if people let us do silly things and pretend we are in charge of our own lives. If we inadvertently hold up traffic, like Fred, then the cops can be called upon. Just don't panic too early when you see someone venturing off into the unknown. It could very well be just the thing for them. Some people call it "going bush", "gone fishing", "painting in nature", "meditating" or "going to a retreat" or even "tree hugging". 


"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
-- Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne"


Seeing people do certain things maybe don't make sense, but it can be useful. If you feel the urge yourself, simply do it by yourself and try not to bother anyone else once you're doing it. And when someone does track you down just be nice to them and thank them for caring.

The village is back

Whether you realize it or not: the world has been toured, discovered, walked about, talked about and experienced. It’s been blogged, transformed into Art, put on YouTube, subscribed to and launched in the theaters. What’s the next trend now that we have “explored” this sphere? Is the western world getting bored already?

We might think we’ve gone global and internet has made it so, still we are humans and we are in need of contact, are affected by our surroundings and always want products. The reality is that the world is now a global village and it’s become small again because of that too. Everything can touch another. It’s becoming an art form now to escape this world of ‘reachness’ as we want to be contacted on the one hand, and to live in peace and quiet on the other. Some of us want to “get back to our roots”. So what’s the story?

You can live your life in a fashion you want to. There are so many possibilities of how to live your life, it’s almost scary to scrawl through the channels. I find it lovely not be connected to television anymore. I don’t miss it either. My family would like me to set up Skype and get a dish sorted on our roof. We appreciate it that they are keen to be in touch, and to have skype again would be nice, but at the same time Nico and I like our quiet weekends and our ‘disconnection’ to town/world. It’s the pros and cons of the modern life. This luxury problem of lifestyle choices nowadays is almost embarrassing.

It’s not that long ago that a baker in a village had to maintain the quality of his bread or he’d be in big trouble. His neighbors would spit him in the eye if he didn’t treat them well and his income and family would be affected. You can decide to buy your bread anywhere in this decade but you may choose to buy it from a family owned business because you like what they make and you trust them. Do you find that the temptation to buy online doesn’t beat meeting an interesting human being? I always got to the post office to pay my phone bill as I used to go there when I lived in Dunedin and now I still do even though it’s a bit out of the way. I go there because they are always great to deal with, I have gotten to know them and they recognize me which is a charming bonus.

Some things will always remain the same whichever way the world changes.
Humans have the need to:

• Have a roof over our heads
• Trade to get goods we need to feed, clothe etc.
• Live in a social environment and context.

Where and how we live in that sense doesn’t matter as we may have Wireless internet or not, the human need is the same, to have our daily needs met, to live with other humans, to reach out and connect, even if the world has become a different place. Looking at the essentials we are all the same. What IS the difference really between a native tribe and a modern one? Only technology and knowledge. Neither is superior, they are just different. There are only choice and options in life. In my humble opinion we have too much luxury. Many of us chase it to a cost that extends the dollar value.

You wonder how much comes down to human evolution, and how much to common sense, in deciding what we want our lives to look like. Let’s hope that modern science does not take away that which makes us human in the first place.

Providing value

I have made the decision to thoroughly change the way my website Quality Living is operated. I will turn it into an agency in 3 months opposed to keeping it as a network.

My talent is to CREATE and my time is better spend working on designs and being a creator opposed to setting up a business that is not my passion.

The following text is from Steve Pavlina, entrepreneur on VALUE.

Succeeding by Helping Others Succeed
February 19th, 2009 by Steve Pavlina
(…) How do you know if what you have to share has value? Share it first, and you’ll soon find out. If it provides value, people will tell you. If it doesn’t, people will usually ignore you. As long as you’re getting ignored, keep experimenting by trying to provide value in new and unique ways. The only limits are in your thinking. (…)

I was able to start providing value to others much more quickly because I wasn’t stuck thinking about making money. I focused on the service side. I soon figured out how to use my skills to give people what they need and want.

The most important result to track isn’t how many visitors your website is getting or how much money you’re making. Instead, figure out whether you’re actually making a difference in people’s lives. Are you helping people? Are you providing

strong value? If you’re providing genuine value, time and referrals will take care of most of your other key metrics.

Recently I was talking to a friend in the personal development field. Business-wise he and I both had record years in 2008, and we each expect 2009 to blow it away. We joked about the rest of the economy crashing down around us. Why do we feel so optimistic when so many people are nervous? Because we know that we’re providing real value to people. We know that our skills are aligned with contribution. We also have the capacity to do a lot of good for people who are financially struggling, looking for career changes, or feeling uncertain about the future.

Align your skills with what people need. Helping people grow is a service that’s in very high demand. It doesn’t matter that we’re in a (media-fueled) recession. That just means people are more keen to reduce low-value expenditures, and they’re more sensitive to spending money wisely — on purchases that provide the best bang for buck for them. If you’re providing weak value, you’re on shaky ground during a recession. But if you’re providing solid value that meets human needs, a recession can create even bigger opportunities for you — people will drop the fluff from their lives and seek you out instead.

When your business model is no longer fed by sufficient demand, you can always switch to doing something else. But if there’s one thing humanity needs right now, it’s for more of us to step it up and embrace our true potential instead of settling for the limited roles assigned by our social conditioning. In our current environment, there’s still plenty of room for more people to start businesses based on helping and encouraging others to grow. We’re a long way from being over-saturated in this area"

Helping other grow and supporting them comes naturally to me. I don't even think about it. I will continue to support others but make it a side activity, not a main priority. It's time I got back to doing more fun stuff with my husband, he deserves better. To even have time to (gasp) paint! The world is my oyster haha and I intend to have more laughs about it. You enjoy it too...

What do I know?

Agreed I know some things. I know other people know things. We all do, but they are different things. This is when it starts to get fascinating.

The funny thing is that one person can’t assess the quantity of what another person knows. Why? Because you can’t look in their brains and you do not have access to their private password to subject their inners to investigation and do some prying. Which is a good thing. Each person’s private thoughts and experiences are their own.

It’s good to realize that you do NOT know everything too. If you did there would be no room for exploration. Why would you want to do anything as after all, you already know everything. It sounds so mundane to me. Would God be bored to bits? She’s probably having so many laughs up there.

I think that one of my charming qualities is the fact I confess openly about not knowing everything. There. That’s the secret. Confess, get the word out and there’s no need to impress, convince or hide inabilities. Not that it would matter anyway, because HOW you do something and WHY is really only important to you isn’t it? If I get pressured or forced by other people into learning something because they think I should for one reason or another I can get annoyed. I can dig my heels in. It’s not the best of traits. If I see the valid point in learning something I’m very happy to get going. I’m self motivated but it has to make sense to me in order to do it.

Some things I do know about (ask me about crop circles, I used to be an expert on the things, back in the days before it became a hype) and I know nothing at all about piloting planes or how to make a roast (Nico’s department which cracks up the neighbors).

So getting to the Knowing; is that about information in your brain or about how you do things? Is it the experience or the theory that creates The Know. Personally I vote for experience. I mean you can read about the technicalities of driving a racecar but it wouldn’t give you a clue about what the experience can be like and how you keep the car on the track does it? The Knowing is in the Doing. It’s literally Know-How.

What I’m learning at the moment is learning how to swim Freestyle (in Dutch: borst crawl). Apparently this type of swimming is taught to kids at school in New Zealand. In the Netherlands this isn’t the case for the basics. When I was a child there were the levels, A, B, and C. You guessed it: I managed to get the basic A and that was it. There were horrifying teachers and I hated every moment of it. If I enjoy anything I will do well. When I don’t enjoy something I do average and either improve it or accept this. Most people work that way I’m sure, picture screaming kids who are dragged to piano lessons and so on and so forth. I don’t like accepting average though. I get a bit funny that way.

Yes I can do an absolute brilliant job thank God. When I’m motivated and have a bit of a knack for it. With the swimming I start to feel I actually belong in that water instead of being thrown in and making the best of it. The lifeguard was very friendly explaining the sideways breathing. Once I stop taking in as much water as I do air it will be more fun. For now, I’m learning and gaining experience. And sticking with it because it’s becoming fun instead of a struggle.

In order to improve Knowledge and Experience one has to be motivated. It’s easier to learn if the subject interests you. Have you thought about why it’s easier for you to learn tai chi then it is to play chess? It may be a shame to not get past the barrier and give up before hand. Decide whether the goal is worth wrestling through the ‘hard stages’ for. If all fails then at least you know you’ve tried and you can make it into a good story

Innovation

When are we being innovative? I like to think I am but probably I’m being more common then I would like to know. God I can be so arrogant! Of course I’m fabulous…. Yeah. Okay.
Innovation comes in different forms:

Being creative
Being original
Being surprising
Being new to the world
Being exclusive

What they all have in common:
They are a clever way of thinking and it’s something NEW. We people like new things. We are like kids unwrapping x mas presents and getting all excited at the latest and greatest. We like seeing our firstborn, buying our first fancy car, booking our first oversees holiday.

What does that mean? Do we like change? Not many people do. Usually we like to have routines and feel safe. Excitement everyday gets tiring too as terrible as this may sound. I guess us homo sapiens are curious in nature. We like to ponder things, discover, grow and develop. We like to be “in the know”, “onto it” and “joining the club”. Trends exist because we like novelties and because we like to belong.

The innovation of all that we do is self discovery. We learn things about ourselves while we experience. We can only do this when we get out of our comfort zone and think outside of the square.

Innovation is self expression through exploration.

Crikey that’s deep.