Last year I sat down with some serious consideration to goal setting and planning out my year ahead.What I hoped to have for my podcast, income, home and social life. Then as the year wore on I realised that despite my good intentions many other things were being thrown up in my path creating situations that prevented or changed the direction of things that I had set out to achieve. Some improvements some challengers but things that changed where I thought I was travelling, thereby creating a feeling in me that I didn’t have control on my life and frustration that I wasn’t able to make the goals realised as I was told would be achieved if I followed the rules of goal setting. Basically what I’m saying is that the classic western goal setting model doesn’t seem to work for this little black duck.

So as I mentioned in the last post, as I started on this exercise in May to just opt out of what is expected and make my decisions based on what is appropriate in each moment and the relative ease at which my life now seems to be evolving I’ve decided on some new goals for this new year.

• Goal 1 – I intend to be fully engaged with every activity and make any decisions that need to be taken in that moment.
• Goal 2 – Any time I fall into emotional considerations of the future or reminiscences of the past I’ll concentrate on Goal 1.

If you haven’t realised goal 2 is actually a variation on goal 1. It’s just that I’m still not brilliant at this and I sometimes have to remind myself to go to Goal 1.

Oh! and just in case you think this is not, or is a real goal, I don’t mind what happens anyway.

I’m just here Now.

Life is a Game
A Game to be Played
You can never Lose
You can only Win
So long as You Play. ’91

Back when I came up with the idea and started Your Story I commented on how the years were all the same and the disappointment that there wasn’t any real change from year to year, of my desire to shake that up. Now it’s now been nearly 3 years.

I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing when I started on this path those few years ago but I knew that I needed to start and see where it would go. The first 15 years of my adult life were wonderful years with a great marriage, adventure and achievements but after that it was particularly tough. Now I can say that of the last 15 years since my marriage went south these last 3 years have been the best, most rewarding and enlightening years.

When my daughter was little I used to say that I was running a one off, 18 year experiment in parenting and I’d get back with the results on whether I achieved anything when she is 18. Now that she is I think that experiment has been very successful but that is another story. Just the same as parenting, this last year I’ve been running another experiment in not planning, not goal setting but

Ian in Buenos AIres

simply going where the moment takes me. It started way back in May when I decided, just for one week to have a Societyfast. What could go wrong for one week of not buying into all the stuff of society?

As it turns out after that week I decided not to reconnect with the system and that’s the way it’s been all year since then. Now I’ve always done things somewhat my own way but this was really ramping it up. I have for the majority of the year slept, worked, danced and travelled as it’s seemed right in the moment. I’ve done my best not to project into the future and reminisce on the past. I have at times been far from perfect from achieving this and I have sometimes bought into fear and sentimentality but generally I’ve been able to reconnect after a time and just enjoy the moment. And what wonderful moments I’ve had.

In the last year I’ve only worked about 10 weeks which has caused me to live very lean but my life is wonderful and rich with friends old and new. I have a wonderful social life thanks to my dancing and all that Tango has given me. I’ve travelled yet again, this time to Buenos Aires. I’ve worked for a time with an artist and on Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where I made some wonderful things. The podcast is evolving and I’ve managed to meet and get a whole new level of guests to come onto the show. My skills have continued to improve both with audio and video while some people, though only a few, seem to like what I’m producing and keep coming back.

But most importantly I’ve discovered that if I take the time, to take no time, to just be in the moment and make decisions on what needs to be done now and follow that quiet feeling inside me that says that I should do … right now it all seems to work out. Leave my petty ego out of it and be content with whatever happens whether it’s others or my doing doesn’t matter. Instead of worrying I’m starting to have an attitude that something will happen, it’s just that I don’t know what it is. This is creating a new state of wonder, where I don’t know what is going to happen but like watching a film I’m curious and wonder what will evolve. Amazingly it’s working out different and much better than I could imagine.

Yes, what will come of the New Year. I wonder because I have no idea.

Lets find out…

Book Stands for the Movie

this crazy life of mine and how it flies in the face of the Western method of work, whether it’s valid or irresponsible of me, if I’m burning my bridges for my future or if maybe I may actually have something here.

When I finished I knew I had to do the whole readjust again back into the mental head-space of just hanging out doing my thing again. It’s very easy to plug into work, as once I’m on a Job there is a first morning where I get up and head off to another first day and from then on it’s routine. The longer I work in that one place the more ingrained the routine becomes and the more comfortable it all is. That is until the routine becomes boredom. Then another type of stress starts where I question my existence and waste of life in that environment and yet again I have to leave to find myself.

That is very much the way it is for most of the permanent work that I’ve done and the great advantage of working contract is that normally I can stick it out long enough until the project is complete which hopefully isn’t too long and then I get the change that I need. So film work often suits me well in this regard.

Finishing and readjusting to no work is not as easy as compared to starting as I don’t have the distractions that work gives me from what I call the “Void” or “Nothing”. However there are two ways to approach this.

1. Get another Job is what everyone asks and expects. In a lot of ways that is the easiest option. But for me after all these years of doing the variations on this lifestyle I know that it will go the way that I’ve outlined above. Normally six months and I’m a spent force, bored and ready to move on. It even tends to manifest in physical disturbances in my body brought on by the low but permanent levels of stress.
2. Embrace the Void. Now it’s not exactly Nothing. It’s not as though I wake up sit down and do nothing until I go back to sleep that night as I have my personal projects and day to day order to keep functioning so there is a whole range of activities and a constant supply of new and interesting opportunities turning up daily to keep me active. However compared to the 40 hour week, 48 week year work model it appears to be a void that requires filling.

The challenges with embracing the Void is that there is no order projected onto the future, no planning and no surety. It’s very much living in the moment and taking the opportunities as they arrive on a moment by moment time frame. That flies in the face of the Western model of how to get things done. I’m supposed to have lists, goals, plans for what I want to achieve and a step by step approach to achieving them. I’ve read the books on goal setting and that’s the way they say to achieve what your after. Sure that’s the model and if you have a specific goal that is what you do to achieve it, I get that.

But what if you haven’t the goal at the moment?

For the last couple of years my podcast Your Story has been a goal, a huge goal, to get the knowledge and have a production model in place but I never knew what I was going to do with it beyond getting it up and running and hoping that some opportunities may come of it. So I’ve been working at learning everything I needed to get it going but now that’s been achieved it’s bubbling along and I don’t have the next step.

Welcome to the Void, Ian.

The easy fix as mentioned above and the one recommended by all is to go get a job and for two reasons.

Money and activity.

The number of people who say it must be good to have this free lifestyle or it must be good to have money, as they say they would like to not have to work but they need to, as they need the income, they need the money to maintain the lifestyle.

• Let’s look at the obvious side of this first – Money.

Are we addicted to the money and income from our work?

I think most people would agree that the answers is yes. Most don’t realise that the addiction is based on having an income to support a lifestyle that is far in excess of what is necessary. They scream that they want the “stuff”. You know the “stuff”… It’s all that consumer stuff that we surround ourselves with, from the house and car to the holidays and widgets. It includes everything beyond our base needs. Everything that the advertisers throw at us but more insidiously it’s the subtle daily reminders that to be a person of respect in our society (and just look at the business and social pages in the paper to understand this) you need to have a style and attitude the requires all the “stuff”. These are the things that identify you to the rest of society and you need to surround yourself with them at any cost and the cost is debt and/or work very hard to generate the income.

This is not to say live in a cave with only the basics to have a good life but do you really need all of that “stuff”? Do you constantly have to upgrade as soon as the next version of it comes out? If the answers is yes then you need to fund the never ending need for those consumables and there is always more “stuff” coming on the market to necessitate the increase in your income – consume, consume, consume. It never ends.

I know that many would say that they are only just getting by on the minimum of what they can afford with no luxuries and that is valid. They are trapped by this system of the things that they must have or are expected to have. The biggest of these for the average family but far from not the only, is the cost of housing. Once a mortgage is activated you are indentured to the system to work as a wage slave for the duration of this debt with rent being no different. However by todays standards we need far more than in the minimum. Our grand parents were happy with far less.

A few years ago I went against the grain and didn’t get myself into huge debt to purchase another property as I realised that I would have to flog myself just to maintain the mortgage by being in this exact situation. Instead I still live in my humble two bedroom unit and I have a small investment unit in the same block. When I say humble I mean very humble, these units are 49 square metres but in the wonderful suburb of West End in Brisbane. I have an old car that is cheap to maintain and run but with most things local I use it minimally. I have a simple frugal life with little that I need additional to my current situation. I have a small income from the investment unit that pays for itself and a little left over towards my other bills so in effect I need just a few hundred dollars a week to live my life. With a cash injection as I’ve just had from the film work I can often survive for several weeks before I start to run lean on funds.

The stuff that I have in my life above the basics of life are by the standards of our society few. I don’t need a large income to maintain it. This enables me to have this life where I’m not always chasing the almighty dollar and can spend time on more important things instead of work, like Life.

• This brings me to the second of the two reasons for having work – Activity.

Everyone complains about work and how good it would be to not have to do it but

Go for a Walk

the reality is that once you do unplug from the workforce there is a desire, almost a need to stay active. Sure sitting on a beach for a few weeks may sound fine but once you’ve done that it starts getting boring. If you have been spending half of you waking life working, with the rest doing the functional support things, once work is removed there is a huge void that requires filling. In not too many weeks most people find the desire to return to work in order to have activity. Work here I include as self employment, study as well as working for others but also hobbies and recreations that keep a person active. Also our society demands that we are working to play our part to support the system, if we’re not we’re said to be sponging off the system.

What Do You Do?

The number one question asked when people meet and start a conversation is “What do you do?”

This is where work is your identifier. It could be a way of pegging you in someones memory when they meet you but then the question could just as easily be “Where did you go for your last holiday?”

The reason the work question is so good is it places you in the pecking order of society, where your value as a member of it. Work defines you by what you do and how you do it not to mention how much money/stuff you have and if you wish to be a valued member of that society you’ll feel the need to play the game according to the rules as laid out above. Notoriety, affluence and stuff. We use the work standard for as a quick measure of that and we feel the pressure to strive towards meeting those requirements.

Nothing.

What about if you have nothing to do for a period of time. You have enough basics to keep going for a time, there are no goals to achieve and there are no desires for stuff. What then?

What about the idea of doing nothing unless something, i.e. desires or needs, comes along? Just wait until then.

Our society says that we can’t do that, we can’t do nothing, we have to do something… anything!

After all we have all these things to worry about in the future that we have to prepare for/against. So even if you don’t want to, go and do anything, it’s necessary to stash away more “stuff” for the future. Actually, while your at it get a bigger, better, faster “thing”and before long you trapped into the cycle where you have to work to keep the cycle going.

What about winding the cycle in the opposite direction. As you acquire the things you need to support the basics of life wind back the effort that you need to get anything that isn’t necessary. Sure get the house, but one that is adequate, no more than is required and once you have it, there is less of a need to work as much creating space in you life. Have a modest vehicle. Go on good value holidays but the whole time only as much as you need. Eventually there is a point reached where there is no  need to be working as much with more time available and there is nothing to do. You have it all, no need to buy more and it’s time to stop.

A lot of the activity that we do is like the things we buy, it’s “stuff”. It’s just the noise that we generate so that we have something to do. Could there be an alternative? How about doing Nothing… Yes actually doing Nothing as an activity. What I mean here is if there is nothing to do, not creating noise by creating an activity of stuff but just being quiet and doing Nothing! Sit, stand or lie and wait in the void doing No Thing.

Nothing

Doing nothing to such an extent that there is not even a desire to do anything just to create some noise, to not do Any-Thing but to do No-Thing. Just simply being in the moment allowing the constant stream of time to wash over.

Then at some stage there is an urge to do something, not out of a reason to create a distraction from the void but additional to the void, so do it. It could be anything as simple as changing physical position to starting a project that lasts a life time.

The difference to the Western model of work is that it is not out of a need to generate the income to get the stuff and it’s not in order to create a busy mind through activity. It’s the thing that needs to be done now, because it feels like the correct thing to do. So it’s done now.

Emergence is the concept that a group has an intelligence that an individual doesn’t have.

Take an ant colony. An individual ant will stupidly wandering around aimlessly doing what individual ants do and will perish in a short while without the help of others but when the ant is involved with a larger group the chances of one tripping across something that is of value to the nest increases. Then the group has the ability in their innate organisation and beneficial behaviours to create the patterns that will maximise situations. This emergent group behaviour allows the development of the nest.

The same is said for the way herds, swarms, cities and brains operate.

In the programme they say the the individual neuron in our brains is much like the single ant but when combined with the gazillions of neurons in our brain they work in harmony much like a nest or hive, to create something much greater than the sum of the individuals.

This got me thinking of a few things about human behavior and how for some of us we can grasp some concepts as self evident while other ideas, no matter how much we attempt to understand, we just can’t comprehend.

In my case I find the process of design, as in the assembly of the components to achieve a design in a proportional elegant way quite simple. I have the ability to take complex shapes and rotate, invert and rearrange it within my mind while balancing the engineering and end purpose all the time with cost and manufacturing technologies. Quite simple really. Some of this I’m sure is from my training but I’m equally sure that it’s one of my talents, the way I am, the way my neurons are wired up.

But ask me to do my tax and I’ll book out a day to get frustrated and even then procrastinate until the last moment. Try to have a discussion about share trading with me (and I have looked into it) and my mind starts to shut down no matter how important I want to make it. I just don’t care nor do I understand the importance of, and this is my main point, “MONEY”

We’re all told that we have to have money, and that we have to play the game or get out of the way. But no one says you have to make your own furniture, or our own clothes. If you can’t do these things your not told to get out of the game. However we’re all told that we have to know how to play the money game so we can get others to do the things that we can’t do. So why can’t we get someone to make us the money like we get someone to fix our car. Because the system is designed to screw us if we do. The only way to offset getting shafted is know how to play the money game or bad luck, you’re to blame for not taking care. Just consider everyone who are getting right royally shafted at present after taking the advice of consultants for the last couple of decades. As in the case of cheap home loans and Bernie Madoff.

Because of the importance that has been placed on playing the money game the few who have a natural harmony for it are held up as demigods for all of us to aspire to and emulate, while those that have equal skills as a mechanic, scientist or farmer are respectfully demeaned as not as valuable as an Investor.

We come into this world with our genetic heritage(nature) and life experiences(nurture) which when combined create the only possible way that an individual can be. Together these create our individual Emergent Mind that behaves in the only way that it can.

So if the outcome of who we are is controlled by the nature and nurture components that are involved in the life experience and we miss out on the, Money Stuff as outlined above, or for that matter the Parenting, Partnering or Making Stuff, how can we possibly get it?. Mmmmmm

Well the way things are now we have two choices.

1. We can’t do anything, so just deal with it.

2. Go get the education(experience) and learn how to do it.

We live in a money focused obsessed society. If you can’t do money your a dysfunctional and irrelevant member of society. After all look at all the ads in the papers and on the web of normal everyday folk making a fortune so why can’t you?????

Well maybe it’s not about knowledge, but about the particular way in which individual brains are wired(through genetics and experience) to see how money is created.

I’ve meet individuals as I’m sure you have who just say making money is easy and they have all the things that money can bring them. I’ve often looked at them and wondered what can you see that I can’t? What is the elusive obvious?

I did a week-end seminar a few years back, then for three days afterwards I could see opportunities all around me to make money, I could SEE(figuratively) money. For a brief time I had the vision as if someone had given me magic spectacles, to see what others could see but until then I couldn’t. I think the seminar rewired my neurons for a time.

Then it faded… It sounds bizarre I know, but it made me realise that there are physiological ways to perceive the world in different ways.

I know some things well and I see them easily. I know parenting and personal health without thinking. I can treat a partner well and I’m a good employer as well as a conversationalist. I’m empathetic and I have manual dexterity to make things along with the ability to laugh at the fact that I don’t know interior decoration and I can build a great matrimonial bed.

In our modern world it is said that many of these things are important but the ability to make money is number one and if you can do that all the others, as deficiencies, they are tolerable. We all know wealthy people who can’t do (insert deficiency here) but they are still respected because they are wealthy.

So my frustration is simply that I know that there is a emergent dynamic in our brains that enables us to see the world intuitively, to generate wealth like I know how to make a table. I know it’s simply not about knowledge but about having the components within the wiring of the brain to enable it to see the opportunities that are around us at all times.

I feel like my mind is like an ants nest that doesn’t have any idea how to collect bread crumbs. I know that they are there to be collected but I can’t sense them and when I trip over one it’s enough for just the moment. Meanwhile the bankers and corporations are strip mining the picnic table.