Assume the following problem: You have a wire that stretches perfectly around the earth with no slack. Now you cut this wire, and add ten feet to it, then evenly distribute the resulting slack around the globe. Will there be enough slack where you’re standing to insert a piece of chalk under the wire? What does your intuition say?

The ideas and thoughts on this particular flavor of my life philosophy have been floating around my brain for quite some time. They were triggered by a series of events- The enjoyment I get from achieving something, the thrill of barreling down the long incline on the Ft. Duquesne Pedestrian bridge, that electric thrill that runs up my spine when an attractive young woman smiles at me across a dancefloor, the glee I get when I learn something new, the peace I feel when I close my eyes in the sunshine, the happiness when ingredients come together. All these things kindof meld together in my brain and mesh together and try to find some common ground, and sooner or later my subconscious spits out an answer. In this particular case, the answer was: “Love everything you do”.

Man, I love to cook. There’s just something reassuring about ingredients working together in harmony. There’s this really simple spinach thing that I’ve recently cooked… what, three times now? Ginger, garlic, onions, sautee’d in Ghee, toss in spinach, minced jalapeno, turmeric, coriander, cumin seed, salt, pepper, and a touch of ceyenne pepper. Real simple, really simple. Take me about 20 minutes to whip up a batch, and the only really unhealthy ingredient in it is the Ghee, which is also a damn sight better than normal butter. Of course, now I’m sitting here fat and happy having just eaten about a pound and a half of spinach, but for some reason I don’t really feel guilty in the slightest.

Am I the only person who likes the fact that gas prices are rising, likely to hit the $3-$4 dollar range this summer? Seriously, this increase has spurred so much positive environmental development that more can only be better. Go Gasoline Prices!

That quote has been running through my mind rather often recently. I’m increasingly discovering that there are only so many things I can keep in conscious memory. As a result, my brain has adapted in that it requires a certain amount of chargeup time to really focus on a particular task, but once it’s gotten there I retain the scary efficiency that I pride myself on- sortof like loading a program into Ram, ironically enough. There are other coping mechanisms- regulating most aspects of my life, ensuring that I lay a solid theoretical foundation underneath my applied knowledge so that if the upper tiers dissapear I can derive the necessary functions on the fly, associating musical styles with productivity, self-programming locations with particular tasks so it’s easier to ‘get into the groove’, as it were… and all of these methods are becoming less and less useful.

WTF? No, seriously, I remember these guys from the days of New Kids, A-Ha, Europe, and big-hair Metal… but here’s the catch: They were never really big in the US, so the only reason I think I know about them is because I lived over in europe during the 80′s. Now I’m sure many of you remember the legacy of the 80′s. Teased big hair, shawls, latex pants, stonewashed jeans, Miami Vice? Take those memories, and then realize that during that time European popular culture tried to emulate that of the US, and did it badly. Think David Hasslehoff’s Pop Star Career. That’s the environment in which I grew up.

One of the continuous problems in Knowledge Management is that of conflicting vocabularies. Take for instance the KM solution we’re trying to figure out for my place- likely to partake of this are Developers, Sales, Communications, Project Management, Designers, and SEO specialists. Each of these individuals have distinctly different ways of talking and communicating with individuals within their own expertise and individuals outside of it. A developer would have to lay a lot of groudwork to explain the concepts governing a particular algorithm to a sales person, while he can safely assume that such things as, say, the definition of an algorithm are already known to another developer.

What, precisely, would it take to rule the world? This is not a silly question. This is not a megalomaniacal question. This is a serious consideration to see whether or not the benefits outweigh the shortcomings. Given that I cannot imagine what the full extent of either would entail, a proper evaluation is perhaps pointless. Still, it’s dangerous to think it’s all good. The variation in currencies alone separates different markets in such a way that they can (mostly) support their population. Additionally, the task of overcoming the fear of losing the local cultural identity is significant (try to convince the French), and I suspect far more difficult in established countries than in countries that in dire needs of economic support.

While writing this OB paper of mine, I came to a rather startling realization. One of the reasons I believe I have been so successful in directing my life in a positive way (weight loss, body building, finances, studying, hobbies) is that my Locus of Control is ridiculously weighted towards internal. What does this mean? Well, a Locus of Control is the personal view of your environment and its changes. If you are Internally focused, you believe that most everything that happens to you and your environment is self-originated or self-controllable. Basically, if shit happens, you can deal with it yourself by drawing on your own resources.

Allright, mediocrity is a spiked term, but it nevertheless encompasses what I’m currently thinking about. I find often… very often… that through such things as drinking, conventions, large parties, clubbing, beach vacations, and other such things that we place the ‘exciting life’ on a pedestal, always pursuing it and the entertainment that it brings with often little consideration for what is lost. “Why work if you can’t enjoy it?” is a statement often heard from individuals who are constantly on the search for the next game, the next fix, the next ‘awesome’ thing. Sensationalism has become a culture, and those that follow it often ascribe transient value to something even though it has none of its own, simply because it’s new, different, or strange.