Memeverse

I’ve said it before, but let’s make if “official”.

I hereby declare my sovereignty from all governments, all nations and all laws. I am not a croatian. I am not european.

I am an inhabitant of the Planet Earth and this is its flag.

Mind you I can make my own flag if I want to. I can stand by multiple flags of my own making or my own choosing, but none of the national ones. None!

I wont even call myself a “citizen” because that might imply someone has to grant me “citizenship”. I live on Earth so I am an inhabitant, nothing more, nothing less. You could say that I live in Croatia and am therefore an inhabitant of croatia, but I’ll take that as meaning that you call this general area to be “croatia”, but borders don’t matter.

Do I have the right to make these kinds of proclamations? Well, do I own myself? Yes. If you believe otherwise, prove it!

Thank you.

Someone might think that I think too much and do too little and might even be right about that. Then again I shouldn’t care too much about what “someone” thinks, albeit how much will I care depends on who that someone is and how much value does he or she represents in my life (or how much does he or she mean to me). But I’m over-thinking it again perhaps.

It is true though that I have a sort of a compulsion to get clean on certain topics before I proceed with some others. The ultimate of this, one which I easily gravitate towards, is to get clean on everything - everything that anyhow relates to my life - to just think it all through, decide on a conclusion and then draw my moves from there.

This thinking things through, especially if lack of concentration creeps in, can take a while. I feel, however, that when I blog about one of those topics it accelerates the process. Writing seems to boost thinking and publishing the final result for whomever is reading, even if it’s nobody, somehow seems to give me a psychological seal of completeness, making it easier to move on with something new. It’s like making a commitment saying this is what I think now and that’s done, it’s out.. and now I can begin exploring further.

When I say “everything” here I mean everything that should ever be relevant to me and my life. Everything includes the reality outside of me and the reality of me. The outside reality includes everything that I ever encountered in my life, everything that I am encountering right now and everything that I will encounter in the future. Reality of me includes everything that I was, everything that I am and everything that I want to be, with an emphasis on what I am because this is where the “game” starts. This is the perspective from which I am looking.

What I learned so far about reality of everything:

1. Everything in reality, including myself, is in fact more than anything a process. As time passes there is a process going on that keeps moleculs together which in turn form materials and everything else, including us.

2. These processes are always actions and reactions. It doesn’t take long to conclude that my life is a process as well and that every act I undertake will have an inescapable reaction, a consequence.

3. Everything is consisted of fundamentals, including the fundamentals themselves (fundamentals of fundamentals). Subatomic particles make up an atom which make up moleculs which make up materials which make up objects etc. The way this works is by the rule of universal commonalities (yes I just made that term up). If something is common to everything then it is considered a fundamental. If every physical thing is consisted of atoms and moleculs then they are fundamental to all physical things. If a certain idea is common to all concepts and philosophies observed then those philosophies have that as their fundamental idea. And so on.

4. I own myself and am the dictator of my life. I get to decide on every single next move that I can possibly make consciously. I control my actions totally.

5. The more conscious I am about the reality of me and reality outside of me the more control I will have over my life. The more I truly know myself and the reality outside of myself the better equipped I am to make the right judgments of consequences I expect of certain actions, before I undertake them.

6. As perfect as life can get is when you arrange all your actions in exactly such way that will bring exactly the consequences you desire, and when you have a high (near to 100%) rate of correct predictions of consequences. You don’t need to be psychic for this, just very very aware of the processes that are going on around everything that relates to every act you are making. If you have all the facts you just have to connect the dots to see what should a particular action lead you to.

7. Emotions are a signal making me know whether I am on the right track or not, unless misinterpreted (which is another skill to master). Basically, emotions can tell me if I really love what I’m currently doing and if I really like the consequences that I earned by my actions. I have to have these signals in order to be able to truly guide my life in the direction I want to - towards being more wealthy, more positively influential and more happy.

Now… it’s easier said than done.

Knowing self is a pretty advanced skill. I’m not sure what’s harder, getting to know oneself or getting to know the reality of everything around oneself.

At least the journey doesn’t ever have to stop. I should make it into a habit to research, read and then explore more regularly.

Cheers

I feel a sufficient amount of conviction in the idea that a Laissez-Faire Free Market society can work without a government and only without a government intervention to openly state that I am now an anti-statist, with beliefs which probably fit the common definition of an “anarcho-capitalist”.

I actually feel that I’ve been slowly travelling towards this point of my life for quite a while, the recent months in which I dedicated quite a bit of time towards introspection, self-discovery, truly open minded debating and exploration being a sort of a catalyst that just accelerated my coming to this point. You can even see from my blog posts that I have been increasingly gravitating towards individualist humanist ideas of full individual liberty and responsibility and I have recently participated in a rather large and heated Libervis.com debate where I found myself defending libertarian / anarcho-capitalist ideas quite adamantly.

In other words I didn’t really need much by now to just tip me over into a full conviction. And a book I’ve just read (and simultaneously listened to, as the audio book is available), has provided much more than just a tip over. It blew my mind too. It is an incredible,detailed, logically sound description of a Laissez-Faire Free Market society and how it could really work and in fact work far better than any of the current government led societies. It literally has an answer to all of the major questions or objections I or most people would have against a society so radically different so as not to have or need a government.

The book is called “The Market for Liberty and that’s where you can download it in both PDF and audiobook format (torrent with high quality mp3s is high-speed). You can’t believe how much I recommend you read it.

One of the fundamental reasons for which I find it so convincing is the fact that the authors base their reasoning on what is essentially a logical scientific theory which a back up in reality can easily be accounted for. We simply have to observe ourselves as human beings and how we naturally interact. It takes no genius to conclude that self-interest has a great deal to do with it. The book, in my mind, successfully and completely dismantles the ideas such as altruism and even pacifism which ultimately result in contradicting and even immoral and self destructive behaviour. Yes, I am no longer a supporter of altruism and pacifism. I might sympathize with the intention of those who associate themselves with these ideologies, but the ideologies themselves I find fundamentally flawed.

The scientific “theory” is a Natural Law which is as objectively real as the law of gravity. You can believe with all your heart and mind that gravity does not exist and then throw yourself off of a skyscraper - regardless of your beliefs you will suffer the consequences of the fall.

Similarly, there is a Natural Law to human behaviour, which if not followed must lead to adverse consequences to the society and its economy. Here is a nice quote about that from the book:

“Natural law does apply to human relationships, and it is just as objective, universal, and inescapable in this area as in any other. The proof of this is that actions have consequences . . . in the area of human interaction as surely as in the area of human medicine. A man who swallows poison will become ill (even if he has complete confidence that the poison is nothing more than vitamin pills). A man who aggresses against others will be distrusted, avoided, and probably made to repay his victims (if some government doesn’t interfere). A
man who cheats his customers will be driven out of business by his more reputable competitors. The consequences of “breaking” natural law cannot be avoided. No matter how cleverly a man schemes, he will suffer if he insists on acting in a manner which contradicts the nature of human existence. The consequences may not be immediate, and they may not be readily apparent, but they are inescapable.

The free market is a product of the working of natural law in the area of human relationships, specifically economic relationships. Because man’s survival and well-being are not given to him, but must be achieved, men act to maximize their welfare (if they didn’t they couldn’t keep on living).. To maximize their welfare, they trade with other men, and when they trade, each man tries to get the best possible “deal.” Buyers bid against each other and push prices up. Sellers bid against each other and push prices down. At the point where the two forces meet, the market price is set, and everyone who wants to trade at that price can do so without creating surpluses or shortages. Thus, the law of supply and demand, and all other market laws, are really natural laws, directly derived from the nature and needs of that specific entity, man. The fact that market laws are natural laws explains why the free market works so well without any outside regulation. Natural law is always practical—it always “works.”"

Obviously, once a human recognizes that all actions have consequences it will be in his self interest to pursue activities which would result in maximum good for him or her, and in a society in which everyone is free to pursue anything (without the government to forbid certain kinds of pursuits or attempt to meddle in all of the other pursuits) coercion actually represents an undesirable means towards achieving maximum good for oneself. And it is therefore, as initiated by the market forces (powered by the law of supply and demand) enforcing the principle of non-coercion naturally.

This very notion undermines the criticism which somehow equates a society of fully free individuals to chaos (essentially, a lot more violence). Yet it is exactly the government, as a coercive monopoly, which has violence as an integral part of its way of “doing business”. As the book says, it “institutionalizes violence”. As such, the way government offers its services to people in what is consistent with the definition of a “protection racket”. They will protect us from poverty, for instance, by making us pay for welfare services under threat of theft of property (fines), incarceration or outright violence should we actively resist them.

Furthermore, by forbidding certain kinds of pursuits the government is actually creating “black markets” itself. And while you may already be aware of this, something that most people doublethink away, is that the very fact these pursuits are forbidden is what creates ecosystems of crime. This is because only people who are not afraid of government brute force are willing to enter markets which the government prohibits, because they themselves are not afraid to use brute force against the government as well. This gives way to organized crime or what we know as “Mafia”. So much for a government led society preventing the culture of violence that is usually associated with “chaos”.

And I no longer buy the argument that if the government doesn’t work this is just because there is corruption within it, but it would work if we got rid of that corruption. The thing is, government is fundamentally corrupt in itself, by its very nature as a coercive monopoly that concentrates power under the guise of protecting those which it coerces. It thrives on a moral contradiction.

Black market is just one of the actually more obvious ways in which the government harms the well being of individuals in a society, ALL individuals including the poor. The book describes ways which are much more subtle and much more easily escape the critics. Every single, even most seemingly insignificant regulation, can have tremendous consequences - all of which ultimately lead to MORE poverty and LESS economic growth.

The book even deals with such hard questions as how would a free market society deal with the few who would exercise aggression on other people and how would it defend itself from foreign attacks, and does this in a quite capable and convincing way. It further even poses that an effect that establishing a free market society in a particular part of the world would actually start the process which would lead to a world in which wars would not be fought. Because as people in the world see that government is an unnecessary evil whose impositions they don’t actually need to submit to, they will demand freedom, weakening their own governments while strengthening the economy of this single government-less free market country even further (by migrating there, investing there etc.).

And once all governments and their war machines collapse, who would be left to wage war? Aggression and trade are mutually incompatible. A Free Market is inherently anti-war, which can’t be said for governments the power of which is actually strengthened by the existence of an additional powerful enemy from which it needs to “protect” its citizens from (as we well see in the USA today.)

The prospects of establishing even just ONE Laissez-Faire Free Market society in the world are simply staggering. If it proves that it can work, and I am fully convinced that it would - because it respects the laws of nature governing human relations (without the need of artificial government) - it would mark an Earth shattering paradigm shift.

And I will be working towards establishing such a society. The book gives quite a sound and powerful method of doing it. It actually advocates against such methods as violent revolution, infiltration of government by other anarcho-capitalists, libertarians and alike or even total separation from the current government system (going off the grid or escaping into an unpopulated island). Instead it approaches a simple yet very powerful method: the spread of an idea.

And the idea that government is not actually a necessary evil, that taxes ARE actually theft and that paying taxes and other protection fees DOES NOT actually help the poor - are incredibly powerful ideas - might be the most powerful ideas you may ever convey to another person.

Therefore I would upgrade the statement of my purpose in life, my ultimate desire for the world from “a world where technology is used in a socially, ethically and ecologically responsible way” into “a world where governments no longer exist and technology is used and developed in a socially, ethically and ecologically responsible way”. I do feel now that the existence of a society without a government is a precursor to a society that is responsible in the way it manages technological use and development - because such a society is consisted of people who don’t just follow the leader and train dependence, but actually lead their own life and affairs and train personal responsibility.

And the only way we can hope for humanity to learn to use and develop technology responsibly is to make human individuals responsible and free themselves.

I would also note, as a result of this change in thinking, that I no longer assume as much distrust towards “Big Business” and corporations as I used to, and instead divert more of such distrust towards government itself. In fact, big business or small business or any business is doing exactly what we would expect them to do - follow their self interest (in which sense they’re actually most trustworthy). The fact that government has polluted the free market within which they operate and corrupted the balance it thrives on hence leading the business world in an awry direction is less of a fault of business and more of a fault of government meddling.

In their attempt to save the market from itself, they actually broke it, bluntly said. And I don’t take kindly to that, considering that I AM within that market and I SUFFER the consequences of their sleazy fingers in my affairs.

Nobody will stop this idea from spreading. I will dedicate DoublePlusHuman.com as a hopefully innovative and effective platform for spreading the idea of liberty, as it can fully be achieved.

I would like to testify to the power of writing things down - everything, from ideas and observations to the questions that may bother you at any given moment. Opening up your favourite text editor and putting it in there is a great way to empty your mind buffer so that it can be filled with what might be more immediate concerns.

Not every situation is suitable for every topic that your mind stumbles on for which you feel is worth exploring. You may be in school or at your job or simply not in the mood to go into it deeply. So bright ideas, interesting or just troubling questions, a new way of thinking or looking at things - it can all go as easily as it came - unless it is written down. Not only that you bypass the curse of forgetfulness, but you allow yourself to look at the given thought from a different perspective as there is a chance you will not be in the same exact frame of mind when you go back and read what you’ve written.

This could result in anything from dismissing the original thought as bad or simply resolved or actually building on it even further. Writing things down is sort of like communicating with yourself right now and yourself at some point in the future (no matter how close or far it may be). And like every conversation you are bound to eventually discover something new. Yes, even by talking to yourself you can discover new things and enlighten yourself. It induces a productive thought process.

You can have a multitude of files with your notes for various categories that you feel are most distinct from each other. In my case I’d categorize it between workflow stuff as is basically the “todo” file and the exploring stuff which can contain notes of my observations, questions, new ideas all of which can pop into my mind as I read, watch or listen to something or even purposely ponder a topic of some kind - in essence exploring. We are all, to a point, explorers, unless your sense of curiosity is absolutely dead (which I doubt). Even when not doing it intentionally as we go through routines in life, there could be things that catch our attention.

Why they catch our attention? The answer is the reason why we are all explorers: curiosity. What we perceive somehow interacts with the interests currently ingrained in our consciousness or subconsciousness and it triggers a reaction like “I want more of this! What is this? This is cool!”

And when that results in a new observation, a question (that you might not be able to intelligently answer right now) or an idea, writing it down is like capturing it at its blissful flyby down your brain’s path-ways. It is also a satisfying experience - you caught it, it is there, it is yours and you will be able to refer to it any time later. A unique thought can be so powerful, it could earn you richness and success in life for all you know. If you write all of your special thoughts down how much closer might you be to becoming a successful person?

Cheers

Asking myself what do I want I would split that question in two:

1. What do I want for the world?

2. What do I want for myself?

Of course, most if not all answers could fit both, but this is still a way to make answers more clear.

WHAT DO I WANT FOR THE WORLD?

Freedomware must rule! - Literally, it must be a standard, a social norm, ultimately perhaps even a rule. Software distributed under terms which deny most basic property rights (by way of denying full control over your own computer devices) should be remembered as merely a relic of the past, a dark age in the software industry. Real innovation and real world changing empowerment is in Freedomware. I want all proprietary software businesses to be replaced by those running a model around Freedomware, models you might today know by the moniker of “Open Source”.

RIAA and MPAA as we know them must die - These worldwide (no, not just american) organizations are today doing more for the oppression of creativity than their promotion. Simultaneously the copyright law which they helped turn into an utter dystopian joke criminalizes most people in the western world for *gasp* sharing! This just has to change, as soon as possible. If they don’t intend to loosen up and reform themselves into organizations which would encourage sharing in a digital world, then they simply must move along, for the future then has no place for them. All digital culture must be free for, at the very least, non-commercial sharing.

I want rampant technological evolution to accelerate even more, but more responsibly! - Yes, it is already accelerating, and we’re all impressed by how fast we’re progressing. But who is to say this is fast enough? There are no alien planets that we know of which could serve as a reference. With so many world problems to solve, some of which really starting to strangle our necks, we need more, better and efficient tools than ever.
BUT, technology should not be developed in a way that worsens these problems. In other words, it should not be used to pollute the Earth even more or to restrict people’s freedoms and privacy even further beyond their control. Green tech, responsible and sustainable development and free access (to knowledge and technology) are the key words!

Furthermore, I wish scientists and developers to have a fully open mind. In that name, I would like to add another key phrase: Anything is possible! Nano replicators? Warping to the stars? Teleportation? Strong AI? Artificial gravity? Yes! Natural universe has the elements. We have the intelligence. All we have to do is connect the dots. If we’re not “smart” enough today, there is no guarantee we wont be smart enough in the future.

I want us to go to space! - I want as many people as possible to see Earth from orbit, within my life time. I will go too. I want space stations in orbit and around moon. I want us to colonize Moon and Mars. I want us to, eventually, warp to the stars. I believe that humans, if they have any future, it is in space as much as on the Earth. I want us to continue exploring beyond Earth and I believe this to be a natural, even inevitable, course of our continued evolution.

I want people to be less indifferent, more aware and open minded. - Basically, there’s more to fun than what is commonly considered as fun. Nowadays it is unfortunately a very common occurrence for people to be stamped out as “geeks”, “wackos” etc. and subsequently ridiculed just for being different and thinking in different ways. When you talk about philosophy a lot, the “deep stuff”, you end up feeling like you have to apologize for being so enthused about it. Ever had that feeling when you tried to express your enthusiasm about something not-so-mainstream and felt like nobody gives a rats ass? While it may simply be that they just aren’t personally genuinely interested in what you have to say, I believe this phenomenon goes much further - some things are just too taboo, for whatever reason, for anyone to really feel free to express themselves without totally getting dissociated.

We have to be more open minded, accepting and overall aware. Being different is common to all of us, so why escape those differences? Let’s embrace them, and learn from them.

WHAT DO I WANT FOR MYSELF:

Successfully continue a personal self improvement process. - This simply means not giving up or giving in to the flow at any point in time, or at least until the “flow” becomes the good life I want to build. It starts with keeping up to my new schedule and new habits I’m trying to develop and keeping the positive mentality I want to maintain.

A nice, futuristic, off-the-grid, environmentalist medium sized house with a terrace and a telescope on top. - Here is one materialist desire. I would love to live in such a house. It would feel like living in a space ship, totally futuristic, cool looking yet genially simple. I would have a remote control for various functions in the house. The terrace on top would be great for star gazing or just relaxing on the sun or fresh air. The telescope could ideally be both portable and possible to “plug in” to be controlled remotely from inside the house, displaying the image on a computer screen below if I wish so (which makes it very easy to instantaneously record or even stream live over the internet).

Off the grid means that it would have to be fully powered without dependence on the standard electricity grids. A combination of solar panels and some other renewable source (if even necessary) would do.

This may seem like a million dollar kind of dream, but considering that technology actually exists for all of this and that for each expensive way of accomplishing it there is at least one cheaper alternative that can be found on the internet (heck, darn it, you can build a solar panel out of the old TV set, save up on electricity until you buy a real panel, for just one example). It is not necessarily such a luxury anymore. One just has to be determined. I’m not going to pursue this dream immediately, but once the business is good and financials healthy I see no reason not to pursue this gradually. It is also a good example setter for others - a green yet high tech life.

A zero-emitions, sustainable energy powered car. - It just adds to the picture above. Air car, water car or electric car? Shall I say more? I already pledged not to buy a car until it can be the one of this kind.

Find someone…. - Well.. let’s just say I’m single, and I don’t plan on staying one forever. Everybody needs someone closes to share this phenomenal life with.

So this is it. The reason I asked myself these questions is because it seemed helpful for finding a most accurate answer to this question: “Given the things I love to do (including my skills and interests) and my overall purpose, what do I want to achieve next?” The answer will give me a pointer towards the proper goals I need to set in front of Libervis Network in the future.

I hope to find this answer VERY soon now. And once I do, some exciting things might be getting done around Libervis Net, because I’ll be getting down to it right away! What’s to stop me? I have the goal, it is the right goal, I believe in it and I have the skills and interests to achieve it. All it needs is doing!

So you see, this “wishful thinking” is actually about things that will happen, as far as I’m concerned! Wooohoo!

Cheers

It’s incredible how much insight or even “enlightenment” can come out of one healthy debate. I lately had a tendency to call everything an “organism” thus emphasizing the collective, procedural and evolutionary properties of all things in the universe, albeit by a perhaps very imprecise definition of an “organism” (as I further realized during this discussion). My motive for doing so is to basically motivate myself and others to think of ourselves as part of a bigger whole which we can actually affect, in which we can make a difference, that whole being an organism in which there are many other “cells” like us which have the same kinds of powers.

In doing so I didn’t necessarily negate the importance of individualism and what makes each of us different and unique, as I’ve indeed been pointing out (especially lately), that by being well rounded full individuals who know who they are and what they want can we actually make most of the difference in the world. Yet the classification of human societies as organisms might sometimes have an effect of actually over emphasizing collectivism over individualism, which is not what I support. I support a balance between the two with starting point being inward out, acting based on who you are rather than based on who you think the society wants you to be (albeit you do first have to know what kind of a society it is you are living in before you can have a reference point for what role you want to play in it).

Ultimately, and as it often happens, we ended up coming to pretty much same conclusions, but from different, almost directly opposing directions. He views the world inward out, from the perspective of an observed set of objects, seeing what makes them different from each other rather than what makes them same. I on the other hand do exactly the opposite, I first see what is common between them and then what makes them different from each other. His equation is essentially addition, mine is substraction.

It is probably just the way we are “wired” so to speak and I would be hard pressed to call either of the two approaches as more right or wrong relative to the other. But it is true that both approaches have also their disadvantages and advantages, in fact probably in the same amount. The debate helped me see more clearly the disadvantage of my approach and hence allowed me to take greater care of it.

Interestingly, after having this moment of clarity, I’ve further recognized this trait of mine in a lot of what I do and in ways that I think. For example, I tend to couple all of my online projects in a “network” and these days the ideas I’m having call for even further consolidation and “unitedness” of some of these projects under a single brand. Doing this gives me a sense of having more power, which in turn gives me the satisfactory feeling of achieving something that is big enough to put me higher up whatever ladder I perceive. United we are strong. My projects united through networking under a single banner make me more strong. That seems to be my philosophy.

But I think there’s not much wrong in this. It’s just that by seeing this tendency more clearly I am urged to take care that this way of thinking doesn’t go out of control, turning me into a power hungry monopolist, because that seems to be the extreme end of such tendencies. You know how it goes. One single entity acquiring more and more and more under its one single brand run by a single “board of directors” presided over the man himself, the executive director or the president, the emperor of the empire that devours everything in its way.

Of course, I don’t want to reach that extreme end, hence the expressed concern. On the other side of the coin, inward out thinking, the thinking that sees differences first and commonalities second, has its extreme end too. It is one where you become oblivious and uncaring towards the “outside”, the society. Interestingly, that too can lead an entrepreneur falling to that extreme end into the desire of position of a monopoly, not by way of consolidation, but by way of first ignoring and then extinguishing the outside as if it was an enemy..

Well.. every position has its extreme ends. I guess we just have to keep our eyes on the balancing point, rather than be caught by the gravity of the extreme ends.

Expanding on realizations expressed in my previous post, motivated by the fact that I still had some doubts about them, I ultimately came to the following conclusion.

All that I really am and all that I love to be is a business aware social entrepreneur. Business aware because I do not abhor the idea of profits and I believe that they can give me more power to do even more in my social enterprises. And social entrepreneur I am because at the same time as I may be driven by the profit potential I am equally or more driven by the prospect of making a positive change by promoting what I believe to be positive ideals.

To be more specific about what kind of a social entrepreneur I am, I would point to the few really key words: humanism, freedom, evolution, technology and business.

I’ve put these terms in an approximate order of importance. By all means the most important thing is to be as human as possible, knowing yourself and living to your full potential. Then you have to have full freedom to be who you are and respect the same freedom for others. Then we also have to be able to grow and evolve, always explore, always be open minded to change. Technology is one of the ultimate material outcomes of all of the previously mentioned, but it bears special mention that when technology comes after appreciation for humanism and freedom it is less likely to be used for human oppression (anti-freedom uses), which is absolutely crucial to me. And in the end, business, the act of empowering yourself by empowering others.

And these keywords also exactly illustrate my main general interests. It could almost be said that the order in which I’ve put them and the explanation that followed is both an expression of what I believe in and what I AM or ultimately want to BE. I realize there could be many other people who would agree with the above order of things, and even many people who are passionate about exactly the same things, but that’s fine. Just because there is one person who is passionate about, say, programming, doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands more. It is good to be in good company.

What led me to these conclusions is the fact that my specific interests tend to vary, which makes it rather difficult for me to pick any one of them and call it that one single thing I love to do most and would be most passionate about. Depending on the day I love both Free Software and electronic music roughly equally. How the heck do I pick any of these two as one single thing I love?

Obviously, I need to find something that is, within me, common to both - and I feel “starting new projects”, which is essentially entrepreneurship to be that. It allows me to pursue various interests which I may be passionate about, yet the most passion I will and usually do get is not perhaps so much from that particular interest as much as from the fact that I am starting something new or even changing something existing into something even better.

When I look back to the history of Libervis.com, my longest standing project so far, I see how often I’ve had the urge to revise it to make it into something new, and I enjoyed that, because the prospect of what could come out of such a change was exciting. It is like always standing on the edge of a new frontier, seeing the beautiful colorfull fog in the distance and wondering what it could be hiding.

All this said, I’ve been reading about purpose and I’ve been reading about goal setting and power of belief. While I am yet to give this further thought, I think my purpose is very well already weaved into my being as a social entrepreneur - to help bring on the world I imagine, the world I’ve seen in Star Trek - human beings living their full lives in freedom, exploring the universe and solving their problems with the power of technology.

The goals I set will be mid-term milestones. By the power of belief, and by setting them as believable, I will be able to achieve them. And another important thing I learned, when I set a particular goal, all my focus should be on it, until I either achieve it or truly realize that it was a wrong goal. But failure will not get a break - every failure carries within it a seed of success, as Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich” nicely said. There is a reason you failed - by the mere fact you know it now and can therefore learn from it, you are more equipped to succeed next time.

Cheers

After a number of “thinking sessions”, compiling a list of skills and interests and then ultimately asking myself what I would love to do that combines those skills and interests and could bring value to people, and that is something I could do continuously.

I came up with a number of answers, none of which seem all that new to me. That fact seems to induce a bit of doubt in whether I really found it, considering that Brian Kim says that “If you feel the slightest doubt that it’s not your passion, then it’s not”. But I’m compelled to doubt him! Hey, my whole life philosophy is revolving around doubting things and continuously exploring rather than accepting something as the absolute final. And Paul Graham would seem to agree that there is no single absolute one-time answer to this question.

That said, between Brian Kim and Paul Graham I choose the balance. I’d say that things I found to be things I love to do most are the things I should pursue (or continue to pursue) in life today, but accepting that as I continue to experience life, things can change, and that’s fine. Even the most successful people shift their occupations. At one point they build something great in one area just to exit and shift to something barely related.

Another reason why I think what I found is fine is that I’m not the case of the majority of audience of Brian’s article - working in a standard day job which they probably hate and looking for a better life. Naturally there will probably be much less room for doubt and much more room for passion when they compare their answer to the life they are living today. It’s different with me. I’m already quite a bit down my road. I don’t have a day job. I already managed to achieve something exactly by pursuing my own interests. The reason I wanted to ask myself again what I love to do is because of a bit of enthusiasm loss I had lately, so I wanted to check whether I’m doing is what I should be doing. Once I discover that I am quite close I don’t expect myself to scream out of happiness, as if I found something new. I expect to merely be reaffirmed and satisfied. And that’s good enough.

So the answers I came up with, trying to put them in the order of importance (or how well do I love it):

1. Building new things online: communities, businesses, campaigns, small and big projects - using my multimedia production (music composition plus other uses of creative multimedia software I believe I can master), graphics/web design, community building, diplomacy and marketing skills - pursuing my humanism, freedom, space exploration, futurism and technology interests. This is quite general, but I guess I like stuff that is open ended. Let it be something shiny and new, put a lot of what I know how to do into it to pursue a lot of what I am interested in!

2. Writing - as in journalism or blogging. About philosophy, freedom, humanism, space exploration, the future and technology (computers and Free Software mainly).

3. Throwing cool futuristic parties around the ideals of freedom and awareness of the people! Something that I could be more capable of doing when I get my social life in order. (now we just have to figure out how to throw a party online!)

4. Offering computer and software use support / help online or offline.

5. Building computers

Well.. lol.

You know, the number 3 is interesting, and perhaps the most new of the answers I found. I guess it’s something that’s been in me for a while but couldn’t exactly pin it down in words. I love electronic music. I absolutely adore it! But combined with lack of good music production tools on GNU/Linux and me generally being busy with other stuff I seem to have lost too much of my “music production” enthusiasm. I don’t say it couldn’t be built up again, but it seems nowadays it is more about playing electronic music than making new tracks, or just mixing it up with something else.. How many times have I envisioned a big party of happy people gathering together in a powerful way to both have fun and point out that we the people still matter, that we are here and that our movement cannot be stopped.

I sometimes have an almost obsession with combining the power that I see in music with the ideals, rather than just letting this power go to waste on, you know, just getting drunk and dance until you collide. Why not channel that energy to something really significant? Why not party for freedom? Party for Freedomware? Party for humanism?!

Now that I’ve asserted that interest I might as well start doing something about it. Maybe at some point I organize the first Libervis. Freedom Party.

In the mean time I find it an incredibly cool challenge to figure out how to have a party online! All those empty game arenas come to mind, combined perhaps with an icecast stream. We’ll talk about it elsewhere, on one of our beloved Libervis sites.

So..

If answers are so similar to what I’ve already been doing, where the hell did the lack of enthusiasm come from? Well, apparently it wasn’t that I was doing something I don’t really love to do, but that I was becoming too unfocused and undirected, and there are various other little psychological deficiencies which didn’t help, like increased lack of positive thinking.

At the beginning when I founded Libervis.com I felt really enthused because I had two goals: make it popular and start making money. The first is because I wanted the site to be recognized as a respectable player in the area in which it operates. I wanted it to make a big difference. Second is merely for financial sustainability. So, latter was achieved, but the former is still a pain in the butt… I mean.. we are somewhat influential, but the ideal I had for it was never reached. I am realizing now that the time I realized that it is fine as it is, that it will never get much more popular and active than it is, was also the time my enthusiasm started dropping.

It seems that what is fueling enthusiasm is ambition, no matter how foolish in some contexts it may be. And interestingly, what I am learning these days is that there is no such thing really as “foolish” ambition. If you believe you can do it then you will find a way to do it.

I guess it’s time to set some impossible goals then. And when I say this I repeatedly have this drive woken up in me that says something in the lines of “OK then, let’s do it, let’s get rid of the clutter first (finish the darn freedomware gamefest, kill off the projects that aren’t going anywhere or just aren’t inspiring much confidence right now), set a goal, or a set of goals that is solid enough to be pinpointed yet flexible enough to allow a level of adaptability - LET’S MAKE LIBERVIS NETWORK *THE* FORCE FOR GOOD.

Ok the thing in caps locked is too general, I know, but whatever it will be it will be a force for good. All positive ambitions are about that. Heck even Bill Gates thought he was doing good… but that’s another topic. My goal is much more diverse than “money and monopoly please!”.

So.. I shall be reading, feeding, thinking and preparing for a new era of libervisco. How fitting that nickname is, as I once again discover just how essential Libervis.com is to my life. Libervis Network which it gave way to literally embodies all that I am and could be.

Love ya all for being with me on that journey!

Cheers

I was up early today as I had to do something for my youngest sister and hat to meet her at 8 AM. So I decided to, while I’m out, also use the long day in front of me to pay the bills and also go bike shopping, something I’ve been contemplating for a while. Ideally I wanted to find one that is really cheap yet of fairly good quality. After roaming around the city and various centres I eventually decided to get one which is apparently, at least in the words of the salesman, “a good bike at a low price”. This sounds pretty plausible for me since I know that in many areas there usually are products which fill that sweet spot between “cheap and bad” and “too expensive yet great quality” in that it is fairly good quality yet close to cheap. My Logitech X230 speakers are an excellent example - cheap and incredibly good sounding. I still just love them!

So I got it. I paid more than I originally intended but it seemed reasonable. Better to go one level up from “the cheapest” and enjoy better quality and easier maintenance than pay dirt cheap and keep being on my toes about it. The bike is awesome, the ride is smooth, totally quiet - feels like driving a brand new car - there’s no clamping or weird noises whatsoever. Changing gears is also very smooth and easy. Overall I feel quite satisfied with it and am looking forward to at some point further equip it with lights, bells etc., especially if I end up driving it often.

Why the bike? Well as part of the self improvement initiative I’ve been pushing lately I started paying more attention to the physical aspect. In addition to trying to make exercise every day a habit, at least in a basic sense, bike is an excellent way to do exercise in a fun and enjoyable way - plus I actually get out more and I also get to skip the buses and trams and traffic jams. As spring and then summer comes, it ought to be a great ride - I can only see advantages. And as Brian Kim says (not being the only one), better physical health means better mental health, which is what I need to keep working enthusiastically on my main goals and with my main occupation here on the internet.

There is one negative which I currently perceive though, and in full honestly feel a little bit intimidated. Apparently the statistics show that cyclists are the most endangered in traffic and that many people end up quite fatally in various accidents. Reading BicycleSafe.com there appear to be so many various ways you could get in trouble on a bicycle, some of which seem barely predictable. So it does seem like cycling means assuming a bit higher level of risk comparing to just staying relatively safe walking and taking buses/trams.

On the other hand the popularity of cycling seems to be increasing and the special cycling tracks seem to be a new standard in building new or modernizing existing roads - where cyclists now get to have their own space. And the benefits of cycling as too good to be turned down. I suppose I’ll just have to learn to stay safe. Good thing about bicycles is that you can ride them down alternative routes, through less crowded and trafficked places allowing to generally stay out of harms way - avoiding even the very situation of there being a potential of accident caused by a moment of carelessness..

And to add a more significant point to this diatribe I think cycling should really be widely promoted all over as an alternative to car driving. People should ask themselves whether the costs of driving and maintaining a car is really worth it? Some have two cars in the family? Is it really necessary? Bikes are so much less of a burden on both your financials and the environment, and are healthy too.

Final point. The more bicycles on the road - the safer they will have to become for cyclists and the more environment friendly too. Less cars, more bikes, everyone wins.

Cheers

I tend to be sensitive to stories which describe the few manipulating the many, from a nation to the world at large, for their own agenda. You may otherwise know them as “conspiracy theories”, but I tend to avoid contributing to the proliferation of that term because it is nowadays used merely as a means of discrediting whatever one has to say - truth or not, logical or not.

Ultimately I think I learned, by now, to be more vary of such theories and to be more critical initially, not just after further evaluation - so I don’t fall for it before I’ve actually given it a full analysis and thought. Or perhaps I just grew tired of it as I start believing more in my own personal power and the power of other individuals, to change the world - to spoil whatever plans whichever elite may have for it.

I am beginning to realize that what the masses should be most excited about is not so much the big New World Order scenarios or big political plots as much as their own personal self improvement and empowerment. It is interesting how many times I’ve seen a relation between theories of mass manipulation and simple personal disjointedness of a common western human today: disjointedness from their own very humanity. Since the majority of people apparently fail to find themselves they resort to playing one of the roles made for them by the society they are living in. This is conformism. They conform to the path set for them by the society because they do not know their own way!

I couldn’t hope to explain this as well as Brian Kim can, especially in his article titled “Why So Many People Are In Jobs They Hate”. Because they don’t yet even know what would be a job they love, let alone have the boldness to pursue it! Then they ultimately start to blame the system, the society, because indeed it is the paths society has made for them that they followed and became so unhappy. Intriguing question comes to my mind: Is it any wonder theories of conspiracies are so popular?

I would say that if there is a conspiracy going on, if we are being manipulated, the best way to oppose it might not be to go on the tedious process of ghost chasing, trying to find the truth in a pile of truths - all the movies and articles all claiming to know the truth about the world and its future. The best way to make sure that we are not being manipulated and led like sheep into the world of dystopia is to realize that there is more than a sheep within ourselves, to discover a human being in us and who exactly it is! Once we do we will be naturally able to rearrange our life as if we were born again, as if we were turned from one kind of being into another, much more powerful, one which can actually live to its full potential, one which can change the world, one which will not be manipulated, one which has its own path and will not conform.

Imagine if all people in the world found the real full blooded human in themselves! Oh I certainly believe whoever is plotting a conspiracy to make us slaves to their agenda will have their plans severely disturbed. When the majority of people are barely aware of who they are and hence naturally conformist, they are easy to manipulate. But when you have a nation, a world nation of people who are full blooded ambitious humans in touch with their self and on their fast tracks towards the goals they set out to achieve, many of which due to the ambitious evolutionary nature of a true human include changing the world at large good luck with manipulating them!

This is an incredible realization. There are so many various theories out there, so many wrongs in the world. And the knee jerk reaction to them tends to be emotional - anger, numbness, cynism, an undirected drive of an activist - and in most cases all of this is in vain. You can’t do much to change the reality of the world if you don’t yet know the reality of who you are. How can you use yourself to bring about change if you still didn’t learn who and what yourself is? It’s like trying to go into a car race without knowing how to use the gear changer, or like trying to fly a space ship without knowing how to turn the propulsion on. Sooner or later the space ship you are trying to fly will be caught by the gravity of something bigger - leading you down its own paths and you’ll barely even be aware of it until you hit an asteroid or something.

So the prospects of the world are frustrating. Heck, your own life is frustrating! How about changing it all? There is a solution. It is you! You just didn’t find YOU yet. I suggest you take a look at what Brian Kim has to say (check his articles on the left sidebar). It’s really helping me so I figure it might help you too!

I’m on my way.

Cheers