yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes

I want try going by Jim. I love the name Jimmy; it laughs at itself. But it crosses a line of social convention that I’m always struggling with: we are shaped, both in other people’s eyes and our own, by the labels we use. That nickname is a bit of playful eccentricity I use for myself, but it paints me in a childish hue. Anyhow, I want to bow to convention and see if it hurts my back or, as is possible, makes it stronger.

It’s an experiment in some shifting thoughts I’m working through. I’m not going to write the core of those thoughts (mostly because I don’t know what the core is), but here’s a snapshot of one facet.

I’m a creature of ambiguity. If there’s a line somewhere, I’ll try my best to tightrope it. One reflection of this is how I try to do everything at once– or rather, everything, in parallel. My full todo list is about 400 items long, and fuzzily scheduled halfway through next year. Every day I work on a dozen independent projects, fully expecting that I won’t finish most of them for years, if ever. And I try to maintain several prospective romantic interests, even when that’s an obstacle in getting into any woman’s pants or heart. It’s helping me learn to flirt better and I’m getting to know so many incredible women. I’m frustrated that it makes me talk big and act small, but it’s fun playing with those insecurities.

And I love living this way; I wouldn’t want life to be any different. But all these balancing acts make me awfully ineffective. Which is another piece I’m okay with… mostly. All together, I take it too far. I had a great idea for a music creator the other day– it could revolutionize electronic music, but I’ll never have time to work on it.

I need a sidekick. Not the little electronic ones– I need a person to tag along with me like the guy who follows Cramer around and records all his projects. There we’d be at the south pole, and he’d say, “Holy samosas, Jimmy! It would take a miracle to stop this iceshelf from caving into the ocean.” “Wait Robin,” I’d say dramatically, “I have an idea– get me a keyboard and a bit of straw.” Now hiring. Compensation based on experience. And you get to help me build a bat cave.

I’m still reeling from the Media Lab dishwasher that destroys your dishes and molds new ones each day out of the clay. But future shock continues apace.

The New York Times is reporting that 3-D printers (Sci-fi geeks read mono-material synthesizers) are going to be available for $1000 in four years. Need a new back on your remote control? An action figure for your child? A fractal centerpiece for your dinner party? Just print it.

Soon printing plans will be freely available on the web, public libraries will have printers available for anyone to use (until everyone has one– they only cost $300 to make), and invention will be a normal daily activity. And intellectual property as a tool of the Man will break under the strain.

The time to act is now. In a world where you can do anything, what do you want to be?

Every Wednesday I walk away from Rocky preshow meeting with a silly smile on my face.

Saturday, I did Monologue (RHPS virgin hazing)! I was dizzyingly nervous the day before, but as it got closer and closer to the time, I just got less nervous. And then I was there, and my talking-to-crowds-auto-pilot took over. I had fun and I think it was good. I was told that I need to be louder; if anyone else has comments on things to improve next time, I’d love to hear them.

The after-party was at my place. It felt disconnected, like the groupings of people never found their groove. And I was in an odd mood; in my mind, I kept seeing people fall into their weaknesses instead of becoming their strengths. It was fun and all, but it seemed to reflect a shallowness of recent parties at a time when deep connections are blossoming at Rocky. Does anyone else feel this?

I know some people would just avoid parties for this, but I’m a creature of community, and it makes me want to fix things. Maybe we need new party games? The power of the party game is to drive us to give up our pretenses, manifest our desires, and reveal ourselves to each other.

Also that night, I opened my disposable-party-stuff cabinet… and a twig nest and a very surprised black bird started falling out. So I quickly shut it and pretended nothing happened. I was worried that I might have hurt the bird, but I’ve since heard lots of activity up there. This morning, I was rummaged in the cabinet underneath, and this little “Hey, I’m trying to sleep here!” peep answered me.

Yesterday, when a friend was hanging out in my room while I was away, a black cat jumped through the window, gave her a frightened look, and hopped back out. And I have a small infestation of moth-like locusts, and I can’t find their breeding grounds. My apartment is being taken over by wildlife omens.

I’m usually a part-time environmentalist, but I’m starting to think that environmental concerns are direct symptoms or driving factors of every worldwide problem. However, too many discussions of these issues end the same way: people say “China and India” like they’re pronouncing a death sentence on the world. China and India are clawing into our standard of consumption with a combined 8 times population of the United States. They say that as China and India flex their growing muscles, any meager progress America takes to clean up will become irrelevant.

I couldn’t disagree more.

China and India are following *our* path to wealth. And it has been a miserable path, and built on old technology, moldy ideas, and without the hard-won understandings of how we affect our world. Today, with thoughtful policies and better technology, we can all win, and the natural world with us. If we forge a new path, they will follow.

But incremental progress won’t cut it. We need to kick a few bad habits, but our lives will be better without them. Like all addictions, the American mode of consumption, exploitation, and war is overdetermined and self-reinforcing. Nothing can be blamed for the way things work, and no single policy change will fix things: everything works the way it does because of how everything else in American society works.

The solution is to fix our paradigms, and the first step is to believe that there is a solution. Here are the pieces I think need to be thrown out of our worldview:

1. Consumptionism. As much as consumption and war do wonders for the economy, drive innovation, form our choose-any-product conception of freedom, we don’t want them. Consumerism and consumption don’t make life better. The god of economic growth busies himself with expanding wealth gaps and exploiting people and the environment– we want a zero-growth economy. Innovative progress is largely a waste; in food, where it affects us most, it has been an outright disaster. The biggest exception is progress in the essentially non-consumptive area of communication.

2. Corporation. Corporation is a weed strangling society for its own senseless benefit. Of all the ways that human beings can organize themselves for collective enterprises, the publicly traded corporation may be the worst because it disconnects the enterprise from its reason for existence. Businesses exist because they make money, and because of the role corporations have our entire society is directed toward that humanless aim. The maximum planning timespan of corporations is 20 years, and this willful shortsightedness is destroying our planet.

These two social creations help form every aspect of our lives, mainly (I claim) to our detriment. If we could convince everyone to just *stop* doing them, after a little confusion, we would be a happier world.

We’re closer to being able to do that today than ever. We largely know how to solve the world’s problems, and more answers are formed every day. Download the beautifully composed Rough Guide to a Better World. Buy WorldChanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century the work of the WorldChanging blog group. And there are zillions of other blogs, magazines, mailing lists, and action groups built around each issue. For a system-wide approach, find a copy of the 3000 page Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential.

Plus, with the power of the internet, these ideas are spreading faster than ever. Any day, the right new conception of the world will come along, take fire, and we’ll wonder what took us so long… but not unless we’re all looking for it, and believing it when it stares us in the face.

C. came over this evening to work on a project. While she’s here, the door bell rings, and I answer it to see my good friend, A. She came, I find out, for her first date with my apartment mate. They leave.

An hour later, there’s a flash as something whizzes by and bangs on the ground near me. My thoughts: “What was that? Where did that come from? What *was* that? Hey, that was K. hiding behind the door!” As I’m picking up the chocolate they threw to distract me, in come three friends, J., K., and L., from the *back* of my apartment. They proceed to write a card for me, and disappear back the way they came– through my bedroom window. Now, hours later, I still can’t believe it. They broke into my apartment to give me chocolate. God I love my friends.

Another hour passes and C. leaves and I go over to visit J., K., and L. for a half hour. On the way back, I see that someone has left fast food trash in my recycling bin, so I bring it around to empty it in the trash bins. And I look up and see the shadows of two people (A. and my apartment mate) making out on my living room couch. Knowing them, I’d ruin everything if I came in. Before today, I’d never been in that situation, and before today, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do, but now it’s obvious. I go around back, and sneak in through my window.

d_day‘s 101 Goals in 1001 Days inspired me to write my own list. Tell me if you’re interested in being involved in/assisting with any of them!

101 Goals

The local production of Einstein’s Dreams is awesome! The thrill of creative ideas, the surreality of dream, the beautiful language of Alan Lightman: the actors take their project of creating those worlds so spontaneously, creatively, seriously it’s inspiring. Read Einstein’s Dreams right now, and then go watch the play.

I can’t keep the smile off my face. It’s an effort not to skip.

A few hours ago I was exhausted, head and heels. I’ve bled myself for the last three days to help a friend live on the left coast. But today, todo list item #66 was “Be Your Own Lap Dog”, and now my favorite tea and ice cream are at an arms reach.

Come to Dublin for Bloomsday (June 16)! Bloomsday is the day Ulysses (the greatest book ever) is set (and Dublin is the place). Oh, yeah, we’re also poking our collective nose into London and Paris. So read Ulysses and join us! Or just come without reading it– you can mope in the hostel while we attend the biggest lit-geek party in the world.

Briefs: foobar2000 is the best music player. We need a paradigm shift from “rules” to “definitions”. I’m in debt but got a raise. Business-making is about designing validation.

A stream of consciousness posting, better to read me with later.

The question of work. Three threads away from having a business and an employee, or maybe I want the rushing safety of the Media Lab and its paper. Last night’s idle thoughts of working for Google, and then their headhunter’s email today. I could be their genius, like a proud dog for an indulging master. But a master with openings in Dublin (Bloomstown), Switzerland, Australia– maybe even here, me kept in a kennel on my favorite seacoast, to chase one rabbit of my own at a time.

Always the whip; I can feel it in my back. Was it enough today? This morning’s work, distracted with a conversation I wanted. Then begetting, and then midwifing, for my students. Then the other’s work, distracted by the other conversation I wanted.

Rocky is coalescing into something fresh. Bubbling, throbbing. How many connections were made and broken this week? The middle isn’t crowded, and I’m cold on the outskirts. And there are good friends to be had. Feeling so blessed. Now I’ve got to make the most of it before it cools.

And before the fling runs its course. Came to Rocky to be young before it was wasted on me too, and I might just get there in time. How much of beauty is ephemeralness? I think my picture looks better with ever lesson from Lord Henry, but I know it’s the sand running out. It’s so right, today, but it’s nice to know I have homes for tomorrow.

But not without taking some friendship with me. Like when C. came. Now’s my job to collect those friends on LJ before they go the many ways of the dusty book. It won’t be the same, spread so far apart, but it will be something.

And then called away by C. for a couple hours of voyeurism on on pornography, smoke (and it’s Thursday), nursing her baby, and critique. Watched Terence McKenna. Spoke like that and became famous. “Help me with my oratory style?” I can always come to C. for her truth and my falsehood. And I wrote it down, my path laid out. Be natural, clear. My gestures. Relaxed, slower, lower, fluid. My shoes and pants, my nerd.

It’s been a week of acting. Played a game with a Rocky friend Saturday, not really an acting game, an apology mostly. So much less than meeting at salsa when she would wonder if it was me. But got me to thinking of my mannerisms. I don’t want these, but I can trade them in. Acting is living. Damn awkwardness, but I can see the headlights at the tunnel’s end to take “me” away. And then my meme answers: “continuity through change”. Just now, it was Frank’n’Furter who brought this mess, revealing new secrets with his eyes in 3-133. Frank is a god. I’ll do him more than justice; I can be him. The Rockys who inspire me to really act, body and soul. Have to know it enough to forget it.

Amazing how ideas grow and break. The myth of the weather machine, the MIT community’s hubris to sanction our own event. And then the windy grey ushers in a damp misery, and it turns out we didn’t have any clothes on. But how many good ones will we lose? It might be better. Look into next years’ frosh– the administration might not think highly, but we can make them.

Kurt Vonnegut died. Sallie Mae is being unfaithful. So far to go.

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

I have notes for posts on the Rocky community (I love every one of you, the community is thumping, the present now will later be past), and the China-and-India problem (they aren’t the anti-answer, recognize our ability to divert disaster, the possibility of a golden age)… but I’ll get those out when I can.

It’s a beautiful night for sipping tea and snuggling with Ulysses.