It shouldn't be this hard

For the past week I've been wrestling with the Blogger interface. It is not intuitive at all. I know I've made things worse by being impetuous and trying to recreate things that didn't need to be recreated, but every time I come to a screen where I expect to be able to do something, I end up not being able to do that thing. I think somebody in charge needs to actually walk through a user’s experience of the site and take note of the frequent logical snarls you're likely to run into.

I've been thinking a lot about what I would write about. Most of my experience with blogs -- the really personal once I've read -- have either been about politics or technology. (mostly politics, though.) They daily news spew provides enough grist for the proverbial mill, I guess, and it's easy (well, it seems easy to those who are good at it) to be linked into a self-reinforcing network which will pick up ideas and themes in commentary and carry them forward. It's an impressive ecosystem, which I've observed closely on the left, and which I'm sure is paralleled on the right. The fortunate thing is that it's been an opportunity to tap into the vanguard of progressive thinking in a structured and rational way, and feel like your not missing anything, because the network you're tapping into is so large and has such disparate focus, that very little if anything can slip through.
I want to use this blog to re-find my voice. The strident voice that was shouting on the Well, lo those many years ago, about the intersection of politics and technology. There are so many levels at which this operates. Part of my praxis deals with the definition of work, and how the multi-mediation and cellularization of work affects politics. I still don't know too many people who are addressing this. If I look at the state of politics right now, I think we're still in a weird, interstitial state. I think that politics has regressed -- it's still fighting the agrarian versus industrial war. Hmmm, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of that before -- this Red State - Blue State tension is an eerie echo of the Civil War. Now I'm not an historian or sociologist, and I'm sure not the first person with such a facile analysis, but I don't think the nation has even gotten this notion that we've evolved through the knowledge economy into what I call "the design service economy". There's a lot to explore there. It's a platform, I'm happy.

Back in Business (re-redux)

I posted an essay by the title "Back in Business" last Monday. I then proceeded to lose access to the account on Blogger. I haven't run into anything this stupid for a while -- I must have made a type when I entered the e-mail addressed to be tied to the account, and then I couldn't access it anymore. The Blogger automated help robot was NO HELP. So I took matters ion my own hands, and started a NEW account. Over at http://designaticipation.blogger.com there is a solitary posting, and ever more shall be so.

When I lost access, I took it as an omen, although an omen of what, I don't know. Maybe I should become a Blogger. But I have plans! I finally want to develop a single all-encompassing web presence into which I can pout all my thinking -- content, opinions, connections -- just like I wrote about 12 years ago. Building the prototype of ideas that were way ahead of their time when I first mapped them out, but which are no read. Ideas that have lain dormant for lo these many years, and which now may blossom, in some form. There are so many things to tie together -- I'm certainly juiced at the prospect. Additionally, there's the chance to add media -- podcasting or videocasting, or whatever.

For the past 10-and-a-half years I have mostly devoted my energies to getting to a job outside my home, working there, and then spending effort to get home.

I calculated recently that in that span I spent over 100 solid days commuting. I thought to myself that I wanted those days back. Maybe with interest. But how?

The remarkable fact is that Design Anticipation never died; certainly not after its apparent doom on October of '94. I kept the torch burning, somehow, lo these many years. I found myself despairing all too often that I didn't have access to making any part of the dream come true. I had to do what I had to do. Get out of debt, buy some real estate, establish a retirement account. All the things that were not happening when Design Anticipation was an active concern. And I may yet need to work to develop a constituency and an equilibrium in my life.

As I transition from an intense full-time role into a more...shall we say...contemplative period, I'm surprised and heartened at the amount of flow I'm experiencing -- at least at the moment. Life is my oyster right now. I'm really happy. There's joy in my heart. These are truly unusual assertions; it's certainly not consistent with my experience of the past few years -- in fact very little of the past 10.5 years of engagement in the full-time workforce.

I'm fortunate to be energized and hopeful, rather than disillusioned and burnt-out. I've worked hard to develop an optimistic sense -- it's certainly learned optimism, developed and encouraged by numerous influences and stimuli, not the least of which is the amazing network of loving and supportive partners I've had the good fortune to associate with over the course of my life time.

So now I set off on a new quest..to be a new Renaissance person. I think that's what Bucky Fuller, to who this blog owes its title (if somewhat obliquely) set out to teach us -- how to be interested in all the vital areas that encompass "making the world work for everyone, with no one left out." The degree of engagement with matters in a spherically-defined realm -- 360 by 360 in every direction -- and how to develop adequate degrees of freedom to function inside these every-widening spheres. (And now I'm feeling totally self conscious and pretentious -- renaissance person indeed!)

There is so much more to develop and so many more ideas to weave into the web of wonder. I just want to have fun. And learn something in my own way. We shall see...