The Creed and Oath of the Lifelong Learner.

The Creed and Oath of the Lifelong Learner

I was born to learn.
Every cell of my body exists to support my brain in the work of learning, and to benefit from what it has learned.
Every relationship with every person in my life provides me an environment for learning.
Every experience provides an opportunity for learning.
With such an opportunity at hand daily, the refusal to learn is at best folly, and at worst sin.
THEREFORE...

When I fail, I will learn.
When I succeed, I will learn.
In every circumstance, I will learn.
From every person possible, I will learn.
When I envy someone, I will learn how they obtained what I wish I had.
When I disagree with someone, I will learn how they reached such outrageous conclusions.
When I have someone working against me, I will learn what makes them think I'm worth the trouble.
Every day, I will learn.

And because knowledge and wisdom both increase as they are shared, I will share what I learn, that I may better learn more, and bathe in the joy of learning with my fellow learners, whoever and wherever they may be.
And when learning is air and light and food and drink to me, then...
I will be unstoppable.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 9 - Killing Emily Dickinson

In order to build a billion-dollar enterprise, I must kill my inner Emily Dickinson.

For all my life, a part of me has been content merely to create stuff and then stuff it in a drawer. I need to terminate that part of me, with extreme prejudice.

Poems? Stories? Get 'em out there for others to read. Songs? Get 'em out there for others to sing. Scripts? Get 'em out there for others to produce. Or produce 'em myself and get the shows and films out there for others to view.

I don't know that it is even correct to say that part of me has been content to create content without distributing it. I do know that part of has been afraid of putting stuff out there. Afraid that my stuff would not be good enough.

Which then raises the question, "Good enough for what?" Or better yet, "Good enough, compared to what?"  I could not possibly do worse than some of what people get paid to produce every day.

At the meta level, the work only has value when others value it. On the ground, that means that it's worth what others will pay for it; and that it's gotta be out there for them do that. The worst that can happen when I put my stuff out there is that people will refuse to pay; that out of the earth's six billion people, none at all will find any value in anything I produce.

But every week, SyFy movies offer hilarious evidence that somebody will pay for pretty much anything. There are markets that are ravenous for content. Somewhere out there are markets for my stuff.

Let this, then, be my mantra, to be recited internally, whether I ever say it out loud to anyone or not:

This is what I have. Take it or leave it. If you take it, drop some coins in the hat, and thank you very much.

* * * * *

Today, my primary tasks were preparing for, then leading, the monthly meeting of the Save Race Street Committee's executive committee, which consists of block captains for each of our five blocks, the chair, vice-chair, secretary and treasurer. Three block captains, the secretary and myself were present. Two block captains were absent, as was the vice-chair. We don't have a treasurer, the post having been recently vacated.

Leading that group, along with SRSC itself, and Block Watch Plus (which I chair), gives me huge opportunities for experiential learning in effective leadership (EL2). Lessons learned in those contexts could be useful in building a billion-dollar enterprise. At the same time, billion-dollar enterprises can provide lessons that prove useful in leading volunteer groups of citizens.

I got in around 8 pm, ate dinner, and basically passed out on the love seat in the living room. Woke up a little after 11:30. And reminded myself that I had not done anything today to build my billion-dollar enterprise, or to make any money at all. And lounged on the love seat a little longer before going to the refrigerator to grab the last slice of Edwards key lime pie (left over from New Year's Eve), and bringing it up to my office with a large mug of cold water so I could do some BBDE work.

I realized that the thing I said yesterday about having goals emerge from my masterplan could have been a dodge to put off actually producing "Quick Flicks." So I worked on "Quick Flicks." I did not do as much as I would have liked, and I'm not yet done for the night. But at least I am doing something, have done something, this day to make money. I have done something this day to build my billion-dollar enterprise.

Wisdom from slime.

This weird item was reported in several places; I'm going with the piece from autobloggreen (that is exactly how the name appears on the website. The kind of cleverness that dispenses of upper-case letters and spaces between words doesn't impress me, it annoys me), about how slime mold has been shown to mimic, if not precisely replicate, the interstate highway system.

I found this of particular interest because I consider the interstate highway system, overall, to be one of humanity's greatest achievements, both in engineering and in construction.

The barely-animate mold's evocation of that engineering and construction makes for a cool bit of strangeness, so please take a look (unless it reminds you so much of Greg Bear's "Blood Music" that it genuinely scares you. You're welcome.).

Anyway, this is what struck me most from the brief text:

"Once it's created a spider web-like network of tendrils, the mold maintains and strengthens whichever tendrils take the most direct or efficient paths to the food and withdraws the rest."

Wow. Discover efficiency, then delete inefficiency. DEDI.

Let me learn that.

Memo to myself, 20121109

We all start out ignorant. Being stupid takes work. Remaining stupid in the same ways for a long time takes a lot of work.

The writing on the wall.

I am at the KFC at the corner of 19th and Broadway in Louisville. I've been here before, but this is the first time I've noticed the wall:

In case you can't tell, the wall tells the life story of KFC founder Harland Sanders. Anyone who comes here could, by reading it, learn something about how to become a millionaire.

I wonder how many people do.

posted from Bloggeroid