I'd Do it For Free (part 1)

Today, I'm beginning a series of posts on work, fulfillment, and compensation.  I've been thinking of these quite a bit lately and have some thoughts and questions to share.  To get us started, I'd like to refer you to a video clip from the documentary, "Hackers Wanted."  If you have some time, the entire documentary is thought provoking.  Check it out and see what you think.  There'll be more to come from me soon.

At any rate, theYouTube video clip is entitled, "desmond morris @ monkey painting experiment" and is narrated by Kevin Spacey.  Here's the transcript for the clip:

In 1962, Desmond Morris published his book, The Biology of Art, which details his experiments teaching chimpanzees to paint.  The chimps enjoyed painting immensely, and eagerly created works of energetic colors and strokes.  One phase of Morris' experiment involved rewarding the chimps for producing their paintings.  Whenever a chimpanzee painted, he received a peanut.  Surprisingly, very soon the quality of paintings began to degenerate until the chimps produced the bare minimum that would satisfy the experimenter.  Any joy found in the act of painting was lost as the chimps uncaringly slapped paint on their canvases and ran to collect their peanuts.

A Beautiful World~Sacral Nirvana by Oliver Shanti Video

Let's make everything FREE! An introduction to The Free World Charter Video

A friend of mine posted this on his facebook page. It seems like interesting food for thought to me. I've always thought doing something just because it has always been done is crazy. What's the best way of doing something?  Ideas are fun!

3 Chakra - MANIPURA Video

Long Time Sun Video

Saturday's featured video:

Om Purnam Video

Sunday's featured video:

Sacred Pause Video

Saturday's featured video:

"The Story of Cosmetics"

This Sunday video is somewhat in alignment with the Cosmetics Database link on my "My Influences" page.  A few years ago, my neighbor raised my consciousness about what goes into the products we use on our bodies.  I started researching it and found the Cosmetics Database online.  I've used it as a resource to select my personal care products ever since. 

While I think I'm too much of a libertarian to agree with everything in this video about government responsibility for what goes into our cosmetics, I still appreciate it. 

"Sometimes the Best Things in Life are the Simplest"

Jimmy Carabbia & Durango Guitar Works

 Get Inspired Feature Presentation...

Jimmy

Inspiring Person: Jimmy Carabbia

Inspiring Attitude: "For a lot of my life, people told me I couldn't do what I dreamed of. I'm pretty used to criticism. I just don't let it bother me."

I met Jimmy in Durango, CO where most Durangoans met Jimmy--at Stonehouse Subs. It was a sandwich shop he opened when he decided Durango didn't have a good enough sandwich shop. He's a kinda picky guy and when he can't find what he wants, he just goes out and creates it. Like when he was a kid and couldn't find brake levers he liked for his BMX bike. So he made some. Back then, he wanted to mass produce and market them, but was a bit young to do it on his own.

These days, it's a different story. After spending years in competitive BMX cycling, he found himself revisiting an earlier passion--guitars. However, several broken bones and lots of repetitive bread baking left his hands and wrists with limited range of motion. He discovered playing short scales guitars let him play with the speed and accuracy he demanded, but wasn't happy with the quality of short scale electric guitars on the market. So, he hand made his own. He'd found a short scale neck he liked, but wanted a guitar body that was in better proportion to the neck. Then he wanted better pick ups. And so on. I can't tell you how many iterations I saw him go through. Then he decided that he'd learned so much making his own custom guitar, he would get them mass produced so other people could also enjoy a quality short scale guitar.

As you can imagine, there's a steep learning curve in starting an electric guitar company, and I'm sure many people thought he couldn't do it. But in spite of it, Durango Guitar Works was born. Here's a YouTube video of a guy reviewing one of his guitars. 

The guitar is getting great reviews.  Best of all, Jimmy's happy. He feels he's making a difference, building community by helping people who want a new choice in electric guitars. Thanks for the inspiration Jimmy!

"Meditation Then and Now" Video

I working on developing a weekly structure for i live in a barn posts.  I'm thinking of making text posts during the week and sharing video posts from YouTube during the weekends.  I'll try it for a while.  Let me know what you think.

"A Good Day" Video

dedicated to my grateful, swimming sister who practices this already

"Love Now"

I'm putting this up for no particular reason.  No comment from the peanut gallery.  But it does remind me of the lovely people I did the World Summit for Humanity with!

God

These days, it seems like anytime someone writes about God, they end up giving a lengthy description of exactly what they mean and don't mean by saying that.  And give the reader a list of alternate words to substitute "when I use the word God" like creator, Great Father/Mother, etc.  Just so no one gets goobed out I'm thinking. 

Mostly I just want to use whatever language I want to use and not have to explain myself, but I find myself explaining myself all the time over little things. Hmmm, the word God is pretty loaded and doesn't really fit into the "little things" category does it?  I guess I'll go ahead and get it out of the way.  What I mean when I say God I mean.

First, what I don't mean.  Not talking about a white bearded man in the sky.  Here...I'll let George Carlin explain what I'm not talking about when I say God.  It'll literally only take a minute.  You can even stop listening at about 40 seconds to get the idea of what I'm not talking about...

Honestly, I want it to be simple.  When I say God, I mean the divine thing we all know in our deepest selves to be true.  I'm gonna leave it at that for the time being.  The key to that sentence is the IN OUR DEEPEST SELVES part.  That is the tricky part.  But if you get as deep as you possibly can and meet God, that's what I mean when I say God. 

Ha, maybe I'll expound more later, but if you would be so kind as to comment on this post, I think we can get a lively discussion going. 

btw--How did you like all the sentence fragments in this post?