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Change is inevitable. As I review my online activities, I continually revise what I think is important.

Three years ago, I paid lip service to focusing on a niche.

- From Empire of the Niche

I recently registered for Michelle MacPhearson’s 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover. This free project helps me assess my online activities. One of the biggest challenges was recognizing the emotional attachment I had to several time-wasting projects.

Two projects were feeble attempts to get my Google AdSense account to the $100 payout. Ever since Google sharply devalued AdSense for content, I haven’t had any luck. For example, I created an account at InfoBarrel.com, where, to date, I have made 24¢ 92¢.

So, in about a week or two, I’m removing all my content and reposting it on this blog. There are several articles that will fit nicely in the Information Overload category. These articles attempt to deal with information overload by ignoring it, offering ideas for simplification along the way. They are meatier than most of the essays I’ve written and the writing process satisfies the need to express my philosophy.

Ironically, this is a 180° change in perspective from something I wrote in early 2008:

- From Deprogramming the Difficult

Thus proving, once again, that the inexorable march of changing priorities is not to be denied.

The decision to abandon Info Barrel was easy. However, my third project is pulling me apart. In September of this year, I decided to promote a couple of membership sites. I created a website and an e-book, which I was going to give away in exchange for email addresses. I’ve always wanted to do one of these e-books and I put a lot of energy and research into it.

However, I didn’t know what to offer beyond the e-book! What was the website going to provide? Did I want to keep writing educational pieces to inform potential customers about the pros and cons of hosted membership sites? Arrgh!

Because of the strong emotional attachment I have to this project, I will likely mothball it, rather than killing it. Who knows? Someone may read this post and contact me about it.

So, here I am. Chasing what matters. And what matters is developing software. What matters is recognizing that writing is just a hobby, and should not interfere with my real work.

Finally, what matters is that none of this is important.

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“The next empires will be empires of the mind.”

- Winston Churchill

The Continuum of Mutability and continues with

Interweaving Change and Power

If that self-inventory leads us to embark on a new course, we must also recall the lesson from The Continuum of Mutability:

Such a flexible change in our attitudes is probably too foreign to contemplate, but clearly, our predilection for perfection can not be sustained indefinitely.

The fact is that most of us fall short of excellence and unfairly punish ourselves for failing.

It is more productive to determine which underlying components are important enough to study further.

Elevating our mutability to such a higher level does require effort, but not maximal effort.

To that end, the first and most important “plum” among our resources is our own brains.
Beyond that, here is an offering of treasures:

• My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D
  

  In an engaging narrative, Dr. Taylor shares her story of stroke and recovery.
  What’s different about this book is that the author is a trained neurobiologist who understood what was happening to her on that fateful day in 1996. Her descriptions, explanations and lessons give us a rare glimpse into the inner workings of our brains.
  Perhaps the most compelling section is her recounting of the “split” between the two hemispheres of her brain.
  She poignantly describes the euphoria of being disconnected from the noise of her rational mind.

• The Assault on Reason by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore
  

  Mr. Gore gives a pretty good definition of reason and its importance to the survival of democracy in America.
  With the advent of mass media, the printed word has taken a back seat on the propaganda train.
  Using anecdotes and engaging historical vignettes, the rise and fall of the “informed citizen” is charted.
  This book may have an agenda, but should be appreciated for its ability to challenge “conventional wisdom”.

• An Inconvenient Truth, narrated by Al Gore
  

  This documentary provides more thought-provoking fare from the Former Vice-President.
  The topic is global warming, the graphs are gorgeous and the images of a wounded planet are far more powerful than any allegory could be.
  Early in his presentation, Mr. Gore shows this quotation from Mark Twain:

  What gets us into trouble

  is not what we don’t know

  it’s what we know for sure

  that just ain’t so.

  From there, he builds a compelling case for the dangers of global warming.
  Again, this resource is recommended, not for its obvious ethics agenda, but for its ability to evoke an interest in one of the major systems of our world: the ecological system.

• Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Steven J. Dubner
  

  Mavericks produce entertaining and – sometimes – enlightening works in their field of study.
  Freakonomics is both. Mr. Levitt has made a point of “seeking the right questions to ask” about social, economic and political issues.
  From drug-dealers to cheating teachers, he has found many a goldmine of data with which to test his ideas.

• Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas
  
  by Douglas Graham and Thomas T. Bachmann

  What is an idea? Who were the greatest innovators throughout history? How can we nurture an idea so that it doesn’t languish, unfulfilled?

  This is a straightforward book that promotes ideas as quantitative assets. Though it is geared more toward corporations than individuals, Ideation contains a blueprint of the creative process for all thinkers.

• The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
  

  Unlike Dr. Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight, which is a personal account grounded in science, The Secret proposes a theory about life, the universe and everything and then attempts to prove it with multiple glowing accounts.
  However one feels about the veracity and applicability of the subject matter, this book is recommended here for one reason: it demonstrates the power of an idea to change millions.

Photo by jacalynsnana


“Perhaps the biggest gift that humankind has been given is the choice to decide what thoughts and attitudes we put in our minds.”


- From the book Change Your Mind, Change Your Life by Gerald Jampolsky and Diane V. Cirincione

Change is Power

Consider a mayonnaise jar filled with golf balls, pebbles, sand and coffee.

The allegory of this bizarre mixture teaches that we take care of larger issues ahead of smaller issues, while remembering to make time for friends.

This is an example of the continuum of mutability exhibiting multiple properties.

Let’s examine the text on two levels and then discover how it serves to illuminate, in a larger sense, the idea that change is power.

Photo by Bludgeoner86

On the Surface

Externally, the reader undergoes a mild change of perception as the realization hits: this is not about the physical items; it is a metaphor for how we can choose to live our daily lives.

Further, the reader may be moved to at least think about how her current priorities compare with the stated lesson.

Finally, the reader may feel so strongly about the lesson that she shares it with others.

We can observe several features of the continuum of mutability as the reader proceeds:

• the unilateral property is represented by the reader’s shift in perception. Only she is affected by changes, at first;
• the evolutionary property shows itself, for all action begins with thought, consideration, contrast and comparison;
• the revolutionary property becomes evident when the reader begins to spread the idea;
• the multilateral property manifests, not only because the reader has changed, but also because of the potential for the recipients to change. Additionally, the idea itself will be subject to modifications as it moves through more and more recipients.

Photo by Cyron

Beneath the Surface

Internally, the properties are more pronounced, but in an academic way (pardon the pun).
While the internal message may seem to be less important than the external activity that it inspires, the choice of setting, characters and props adds to the power of this allegory to effect change.

First of all, the narrator is neutral.

No emotion is injected into the account, leaving the reader free to impart whatever level of credibility is warranted.
The professor, in the original story at least, teaches philosophy.

This gives the reader two clues that the words are not going to be laid out at face value. Therein lies a subtle mutable property: the text will evolve from a semantic account to an allegorical account.

During the narrative, the reader learns that the professor fills an empty jar with golf balls.

This early on, the reader is still exploring the text semantically.

After the jar is filled with golf balls, the professor asks the students if the jar was full.

The narrator tells the reader that the students agreed that it was.

At this point, nothing unexpected has occurred in the text, so the reader mentally agrees, as well.

Photo by apesara

Next, the professor poured pebbles into the jar and repeated his question.

The narrator informs the reader that the students again agreed.

By now, the astute reader may become suspicious. He can “see” the jar and is probably wondering what could possibly fit in there, next.

A bilateral manifestation of mutability is emerging, yet the reader is probably unaware that his perception of the text is shifting into the allegorical.

He is making the leap from the physical precepts to the philosophical. It is important to note that this shift would have been less powerful if the professor were a geologist. We don’t expect intangible concepts in a classroom of applied science, so our brains don’t get a chance to make this leap implicitly.

(Much like a comedian having to explain his joke, something is “lost”.)

Photo by d1andonlykar1

By the time the reader gets through the sand and the coffee, he may be chuckling at the clever lesson.
In the end, the metaphorical shift works because the creative use of imagery and ingrained notions of what constitutes a filled container resonates with the reader’s understanding of how most people tend to improperly prioritize things in their lives.

Resurfacing

Layering a simplistic story upon a seemingly complex philosophy is just one way that we enable our minds to manage the turbulence caused by information overload.
Besides allegories, we also make use of mnemonics, vivid associations and other “tricks”.
There is a point of diminishing returns, however, to neurological enhancement. Efficiency has it limits and, at any rate, cortical remapping of knowledge is not the goal being presented here.
Simplification is the key to clarifying the continuum of mutability in our lives.
Rather than bringing a gun to a knife fight, avoid the confrontation altogether.

Photo by D’Arcy Norman

Power is Change

Why do we struggle with priorities when we can eliminate them?

What do we gain by actively suppressing our essence (doing rather than being.)

Where do we draw the line between so-called success and so-called happiness?

When will we begin to look beyond the self-limiting thoughts of conventional wisdom, group-think and propaganda?

How do we know that change is even necessary?

The answers to all of these questions can be found only within ourselves.
If we believe that our days should be structured and our activities coordinated, we choose to juggle the golf balls in the sand traps of time.

If we equate efficiency with effectiveness [1] and busyness with business, we choose to focus on every subsystem of the master plan, while losing sight of that moving target.

If we measure success and happiness with two different yardsticks, we choose to make the two forever mutually exclusive.

If we can only repeat what we’ve read, only follow the herd and, in so doing, attempt to cloak our ignorance with the mascara of mindless vomit, we choose to abdicate the throne of our imaginations to the twin tyrants of Pride and Prejudice.

In Part Three, Plums in the Deep, we’ll explore fascinating resources that may help us rethink everything!

Systems

The world and the systems which define it are dynamic.

Change itself is a system. It’s called chaos.

Once we recognize that chaos is, in fact, orderly, we can begin to make sense of it and, more importantly, we can become “one” with the turbulences in our lives.

The process of recognizing, understanding and living with chaos is helped or hindered by our level of mutability.

Mutability

Mutability, or the tendency of something to change in form or quality or nature, is not a discrete property.

Rather, it is a spectrum that ranges from evolutionary to revolutionary; from red shift to paradigm shift.

Additionally, the perspective of mutability may be one-sided, two-sided or multilateral. In other words, change can affect one or more people, places, things and even ideas.

Recognition

We don’t have to look hard to find systems around us:

• spiderwebs, anthills and beehives
• our bodies, homes and clothing
• our cars, the streets and highways
• traffic signals, construction sites and parking garages
• jobs, businesses and theme parks
• the economy, the government and society
• the ecosphere, atmosphere and galaxy!

Each system is made up of subsystems. If we try to fathom this concept through too many levels, we wind up with uninteresting mechanisms such as blood cells, bricks and fan belts.

Yet, it is this very habit of over-analysis that hinders our understanding of systems.

There is a reason we take certain things for granted: doing so frees our minds for other endeavors.

Understanding

Recognizing systems without knowledge of their underlying components is a bit like driving a car without understanding combustion.

Recognizing a vital subsystem and studying it is like getting a tune-up to increase gas mileage.

Our desire to master and exploit systems is in direct opposition to our own mutability.

We inevitably confer greater importance upon those individuals who excel, rather than honoring those who are good enough.

Such a flexible change in our attitudes is probably too foreign to contemplate, but clearly, our predilection for perfection can not be sustained indefinitely.

The fact is that most of us fall short of excellence and unfairly punish ourselves for failing.

It is more productive to determine which underlying components are important enough to study further.

Elevating our mutability to such a higher level does require effort, but not maximal effort. [1]

Becoming

A simple example may clarify the shifts that occur as we move from a state of over-analysis, through understanding, until we reach a mental clarity that is refreshing in its simplicity.

Mayonnaise Jar and Two Cups of Coffee [2]

In Part Two, Interweaving Change and Power, we’ll review this allegory from the outside and the inside.