The creating new content is the hardest part, really. Writing every day and not repeating myself is tricky. I love to find new ways of thinking about things, but the more I actually chronicle that thinking, the more it seems like more of the same. Forget trying to put together a longer work, it seems like this is all the time I even have to write. 

I am finding myself wanting to learn more about designing for the web. There has got to be a simpler way than trying to get my busy friends to do it for me. I want to be able to pop up a website and add modules to my blog. Wordpress, the blogging site I use, it formats what I write into an HTML format for me, and I can open that up from time to time and place links…  but my mind doesn’t quite think in that way. I should say, yet. There’s something missing. 

I’m not resisting the work. It’s just that it can seem overwhelming from where I am sitting now. My mind already seems filled up to me, and somehow I keep cramming more and more in, and somehow it sticks. And my mind hurts. 

It’s this way in every area of my life too! It’s all getting more complex and there is just more and more to do. My love life, my job, my writing, my interpersonal and online relationship; all are expanding and patterning in whole new and wilder directions.  

I seem to remember, in elementary school, my teachers saying that a human being only uses about 10% of their brain. I keep having this feeling that maybe, just maybe, that numberis 25+ years old and completely outdated. Because it seems to me that we are processing more and more on a daily basis. Today, we deal with order of magnitude more symbols than that elementary school teacher in 1984 could have dreamed of. In 1984 there were like 8 channels of television in Los Angeles.  That was the maximum bandwidth of information in. Libraries were organized according to the Dewey Decimal System and that was the most effective way to get to information. The idea of answering machines were just catching on. 

Think about how much we process on a daily basis. It’s insane. And it keeps getting faster. 

Damn, I have a lot of work to do.

As you know, dear reader, I have been thinking a lot about total economic collapse these last few weeks.  It’s dark work, being a harbinger of disaster; I am stuck being the guy who is looking at the outcomes and the signs with no answers. I feel like Chicken Little, a paranoid little naysayer screaming about the sky and it’s impending doom (DOOM!).  I am finding quite a bit of agreement in the world for my particular world-view.  Between the stories I am finding on google reader, watching the incredible Story of Stuff and Zeitgeist: Addendum, and reading Get Back in the Box by the super-genius Douglas Rushkoff, I have been getting a lot of input and have been brewing some thoughts of my own. I have a few minutes in the quiet of the mountains to get them out. 

The problem I have been having with the idea of economic collapse is that I can’t really see a social collapse along with it. As fun as it is to imagine a Fallout/Mad Max/ Burning Man reality becoming the dominant form, with Spaceman running around with a glock, a battleaxe and a camelback, it really would be a nightmare scenario for everyone (but it would look cool, you must admit). I can get that kind of thing from video games (read Fallout 3). While our monetary scarcity based system is like a house of cards ready to tumble down all around us, our social connections and communities are very strong and very interconnected.  Interconnectedness gives strength. 

We are moving into this heavily networked era of Humanity. An era where we are connected instantly and powerfully. Think of things like twitter, tribe and facebook. Hell think about this blog and how quickly I am able to get out information to the world.  Think about how many of our career lives are connected with those that we are interacting with in social circles. I don’t really know the last grip job I worked that wasn’t connected to someone I thought of as a friend, who I would invite over for dinner. My friend KT is a photographer, (maybe you’ve heard of her) and her business is all based on relationships. There’s a recession on, and she’s doing fine because she has strong relationships. My friends Roxy and Chris, they have an acupuncture/chiropractic business, same thing. The needs we have as people are not going to go away if suddenly the almighty dollar isn’t anything more than fancy kindling for our furniture fires. Our relationships aren’t going to go away, either. 

So what I have been wondering, is WHAT are we going to use as a basis for trade?  The Burning Man gift economy seems to work pretty interestingly. It is also a meritocracy, where those who give the most, somehow get a much more rich experience. (Did you know that those DPW people, the ones that build the city before you get there, they get a shower truck, and three hot meals per day?) But, it is also centered on abundance, like we all spend a metric shit ton at Target and Santee Alley before we ever get there so we can gift the hell out of that playa.  And then there’s trade goods? What would we use as currency? Oatmeal packets, silver coins, Clif Bars, bullets, clothing, pints of gasoline or water? All of these things? I read an article about prisoners in the state prison system using packets of mackerel  bought from the prison store as their currency when the system outlawed smoking. What I fear is that it will be force that takes what it wants, as in “I have the uniform and the gun, I will take what I want.”  This is the trouble with placing our well being into the hands of a few, who are armed to the teeth. In honesty, it will probably be some combination of these things. When things go sideways, I just hope we have some serious leadership nationally and locally to keep some semblance of sanity. 

Our power in times of trouble will be from two sources. It will come from connectedness and social currency.  Being networked to our communities is paramount. This means pay your phone bill and keep your internet access going almost above all else. Being able to twitter that you are hiding in your apartment and roving bands of hungry and angry former bankers and insurance salesmen are ransacking your building looking for tasty bites, could be the difference between getting help and being left to those monsters. Being able to know where people you know are gathering, and building new things: Essential. Knowing what resources there are, and where to get access to them, essential. Of course, I am an internet dude. I am biased. But I think the networked reality offered us by the web is probably the most important innovation to human connectedness and communication, yet.   

But then there is this thing, Social Currency.  What is it? It is an intangible. You have it through interactions with others. It is what you bring to the table in relationships. You may be someone who has a vast music collection and you share it. You may be someone who tells great jokes. You may be a great listener or communicator. You may be that person who can build things, or you may just give great hugs. It is your connection with others, your generosity to others.  It is something that is not easily measured, but something that is easy to get. It is sharing.  Going back to Burning Man, it is that thing that works with a really great theme camp (like mine this year) where everyone keeps giving and the pool of social currency keeps growing.  Everyone is giving and sharing and building it up.  The cool thing about social currency is that it, like love itself, is a perpetual motion machine. The more you give, to the more people you give it to, who then give, extending this abundant model. At it’s very core it is participation. It can only work in a networked reality. 

A networked reality is our current ability to communicate to many and have instant feedback. It is a natural state. You send out communication and broadcast to everyone. Like this writing, for instance. It hits everyone, and those who it resonates with or effects read it and process it. They then have some social currency in the form of conversations, ideas, memes, new ways of thinking.  I also get some social currency for bringing it to the electronic page. It is a zero loss kind of game. Meanwhile thousands of these communications are traveling back and forth through our networks, building up social currency among the community. Social currency can also be lost by being a jerk, or squelching communication, or making really poor choices (Dick Cheney lost some social currency when he shot that guy in the face, even though his friend was okay, for instance).  But for the most part, it is an intangible, expanding aspect of our collective self.  

So I am in just the very beginnings of working this out. Already, this may be my longest blog essay.  But there is much much more. I am just excited that there is a reality I can start seeing that isn’t some survivalist wet dream.  With Social Currency and Networked Reality I can start to see my lifelong dream of abundance and innovation for all coming to pass. It fits in with my commitment to the new Golden Age.  It is emerging faster and faster, just before I posted this, I found this.

It is for us to work out the details, so please contribute by commenting on the blog or on the facebook feed. Comments = Social Currency. 

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. 

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw 

So,  a few months ago, I decided to move my blogging into a more public forum.  Tribe.net was a safe haven for my ideas, but their inherent slowness and unreliability had me seek other things. But to get my blog out to the most friends, I had to use Facebook, which is tied to my real name. Now this is a problem if in your head, you are this underground freedom fighter. Because the evil forces of evilness are always going to want to link back to you and your loved ones. I read Spiderman, you gotta have a secret identity.

And then there is the possibility of really making a difference.  That is going to come from transparency and acceptance of who you are. That kind of power is going to come from taking full responsibility, radical accountability for your actions and your words.  There is standing for something.  I’m not saying that this is the most important blog on the internets or something. I’m just saying that it’s me.

We are living at the end of the industrial age. The internet has given us a voice. It is millions of voices, talking right back to mainstream media. In the last age, communication was a top down, lord to serf kind of relationship.  TV, News, Magazines, Books… they all came to us and we did nothing but listen. It had been that way for as long as these technologies have existed. Media has always been the world of elites. It has also been the most effective way for agents of change and intelligence to get their word to the masses, at various rare points in history. The Internet made it possible for all. Anyone with a internet cafe can now change the world. Now, they joystick and the keyboard have given us a way to have a conversation back. Blogs and videogames, they are our access to taking control of the stories.

But, we must tell the stories to make the networked system work.  By decentralizing the communication sources, by making every man woman and child becomes an editor, newscaster, videographer,  humorist, eroticist, priest, magician, political pundit, distributor… and we become the voice. Honestly, if you have even thought about it, you MUST start putting your stuff on the web. get a wordpress.com blog. Open a facebook account, and link it to your videos on youtube. Twitter your whereabouts.  Post photos of yourself from your phone.  Find me and network yourself to me!

We cannot stop them from watching. The Genie is out of the bottle on surveillance. They can watch and read everything. They can link whatever we write to almost any email or IP address. But by the same token, we can’t stop them from masturbating while watching us either. As we flood the system with chaff, we become more invisible. In an age of reality TV, the only thing more cameras is going to achieve is to make me think I am even more a rockstar than I already know I am.

Networks communicate from every node. The radical thing I am suggesting is to tell everything. Be wholly yourself without reservation. Of course, that is easy for me, I work in Hollywood, and don’t have to answer to corporate masters. But ultimately, your corporate masters or the various tentacles of the American Law Enforcement Community will be able to find anything about you anyway. Wait until the tagging facial recognition software comes out for the public. Be smart out there, but express yourself fully and don’t hold back.

The system is in a state of upheaval right now, and everything is changing. It’s painful for the system too. Change is coming, and we are on the fast first wave.  Be free.

edit: this just in: naked pics of yourself can be trouble.

Dark marketing n. Discreetly sponsored online and real-world entertainment intended to reach hipster audiences that would ordinarily shun corporate shilling. McDonald’s is the latest mega-brand to adopt this paradoxical promotional tool, with an alternate-reality game called The Lost Ring, nearly devoid of golden arches.

Another example of this would be the Camel “underground” party at the Mayan a few weeks back with the Mutaytor at the Mayan. They gave out free smokes, airbrush hats and shirts (I got a trucker hat that said “Spaceman” on it) and really lame furry hats (I used mine as a punishment hat, like if you said something lame, you had to wear it).

I am no enemy of marketing. I like marketing. I also find it very interesting, this new breed. Marketing is like a virus, right? We, as media savvy consumers have built up pretty strong immunities to most types of marketing. We generally don’t watch TV or fast forward through commercials. We choose brands based on “objective” reports on the internets. We shop for clothes that specifically do not advertise. We know music because our friends play it or give it to us. We are the hip, elusive market they are looking for.

This viral dark marketing is a way to circumvent all that. It’s a way for our participation in the marketing to invest us into it. We can get mad at the corporations for trying to sell to us, or we can just learn to stop worrying and love the man. They even gave it a cool, secret name. Makes me think of black magic or something. And in a way, advertising is like that. It’s a dark art.

The thing is, the way that these companies are going to reach us is through us. We are both the medium and the target.  How do we practice dark consuming, i wonder?  How do we use their financing to entertain ourselves and our friends?  Its already happening all around us. Why should we resist?

By the way, this post was written on a macbook.

It took me a little longer to get back into the swing of life after getting back from the forest (and i certainly did not work as hard as some!). I have spent the last few days trying to get back into life in the big city, and it has definitely been challenging.