Frittering Our Lives Away

Today I saw an amusing picture someone shared on a social media website of a zebra clinging to the top of a giraffe's neck, peering over its head into the far distance. The caption asked, "Can you see Friday yet... ?" It seems that all around us, there are messages about wishing we were at some other time or some other place than where we are right now. Like candy, these mental bon-bons are harmless enough as occasional sentiments. But, also like candy, it is easy to over-indulge, leading to consequences one might not expect or prefer.


Used Courtesy of MyCommentSpace.com
Where does this desire not to be "here", "now", come from? How is it that we can live week to week, month to month, year to year, always yearning for some other day or situation to arrive? A good bit of this tendency no doubt comes from our environment. We grow up hearing our parents, relatives, and friends bemoaning their circumstances. We get sent to school where we come to feel that homework is a chore and that looking forward to Friday and the weekend is a normal emotional state. To resist these attitudes is to risk alienation from a vital circle of society. The path of least resistance is to go along with it, adopt the outlook, and mimic acceptable catch-phrases, such as, "Thank God it's Friday!" Well before the weekend is over, it hits us - Monday is coming! Soon, whatever joy we may have been experiencing gets overshadowed by the dread we've learned to affect from those we love. By the time we join the working world, it is almost a competition, at the coffee break, to be the first one to exclaim, "I hate Mondays!"

But not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of our acquaintances and institutions. Some of us take the ball and run considerably farther. We learn that we can distinguish ourselves by the thought and creativity we pour into our expressions of elation or vehemence over the periods of time approaching in the near future. There's a cost to doing this, however, and that cost adds up. Expressing ourselves in these ways tends to define us, in the minds of those we spend time with as "John, the guy who loves Fridays" or "Maria, the girl who hates Mondays". And, having trained others to see us in those ways, we tend to then reinforce that image as part of our own search for meaning and belonging. We can be counted on to say or create or share ever-cleverer expressions of ourselves as people who somehow get by in life based on the promise of a better day to come - like the caption on the photo of the zebra.  In time, we believe this definition ourselves.

You have undoubtedly asked yourself some form of the age-old question, "If I could go back in time to a specific point in my life, which one would I choose to make it all turn out differently?" The mind loves contemplating hypotheticals like this. And yet, the joke is on whoever asks that question because doing so virtually guarantees you will ask it again in the future and come up with: the current period in your life. Why is that? Because to contemplate it at all is a form of escape that steals your focus away from the present moment. It robs you of the presence of mind required to soberly assess whether your current situation and activity are steering you toward the kind of life you would rather live. And just now we have gotten to the heart of the matter. Escape. Somehow, many of us have bought the message that we're just supposed to press forward in a life filled with circumstances and situations we never would have chosen if we had known better the first time around. Contemplating all of the disruption and energy it would take to press the "Reset" button, face the stark, naked unknown, and escape the gravity of expectations from all the loved ones we've trained to accept us in our default form just seems so... daunting. So we take our minds off of the subject. We distract ourselves with gadgets, amuse ourselves with content, numb ourselves with substances, and press on. No wonder Thoreau made the observation (still true today), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  Living such a life is unpleasant, so we find ways to not notice that it's happening - chiefly in the form of occupying our thoughts about the past or the future.

I have come to believe that the attitude one has toward life is the most precious mental commodity he or she possesses. More valuable - by far - than a sharp wit or a quick memory. Intellect and recall will always serve to the best of their ability. But the thing that they serve - the one who calls the shots - is your attitude. The good news is, unlike your other mental faculties, attitude can be changed. And yet, how rare it is to meet someone who actively works to improve his or her attitude toward life in adulthood! I heard someone once define "personality" as "the set of social strategies for survival you came up with in Middle School." Are you the Joker in your group? The leader? The cynic, the quiet one, the critic, the facilitator? When was the last time you examined the fundamental building blocks of how you respond to life and asked the question, "Does this way of expressing myself really serve me anymore?" If the answer is, "Longer than a year", I suggest it's time to get your journal out, jot the question down, and let it work its magic. You'd be amazed at what you come up with when you take yourself seriously enough to call yourself on your own assumptions and allow what is really important to come up to the surface.

A surprising and delightful benefit of learning to focus in on the present moment is that life seems to slow down considerably. A lot of the mental chatter you needed to sustain in order to distract yourself from your former sense of drudgery just melts away. The daily commute is no longer an unpleasant necessity for getting from point A to point B. Instead, it becomes a fascinating adventure that's new each day. You stop avoiding "certain people" and take on the outlook that you're going to deal with them as if you were meeting them for the very first time. You give that restaurant another try, even though they messed up your order once upon a time. And so on. Perhaps some of this sounds far-fetched or even naive. People who have invested their lives in cleverly pointing out snarky angles and flaws in every situation might make fun of you. Friends who've known you for years might wonder what the hell has gotten into you. I guess there are trade-offs for every path one may take. But for me, the price has been worth it.

I get on the elevator at work. A co-worker I've never seen before exclaims, "Thank God, it's Friday!" The door opens at my floor and I reply, "Oh yeah - Friday is one of my favorite days of the week!" I step out of the car then I turn and add, "Just like Monday." The look on his face as the door closes: Priceless.

My First New Song In Over A Decade

Something about today being Good Friday unblocked a latent avalanche of creativity in me. This is the first new song I've written in over 10 years. The words "I used to cry when I heard you died" have been with me for much longer, but it just wasn't time to set them into jewelpiece of a whole song until now. Why now? Because instead of feeling desperation about them like I did in my 20s or contempt about them like I did in my 30s, I now feel a calm serenity.

Look What We've Done To You, Jesus
words and music by Bernard Valor
(c) 2012 All Rights Reserved

Look what we've done to you, Jesus
Look what we've done to the things you said
Chasing a ticket to heaven
We pass by your baskets of living bread

I used to cry when I heard you died
I used to cry, but now it feels, kind of cold inside -- 'cause all the preachers lied!

You taught us to love those who hate us
Asked us to turn the other cheek
But you must have been mistaken,
'Cause that'd only make us feel dumb and weak

We'd rather have the prize behind door number 3
Yeah, we'll take the the grace and all the mercy
Because you died on the tree --
Now won't you please let us be? [Ohhhhhh!]

Look what we've done to you, Jesus
Look what we've done to the words you said
Transformed you into a "savior"
Lost all the meaning you might have had

I used to cry when I heard you died
Nails in your hands, thorny crown,
Spear thrust in your side.
Yeah, that's why-y I cried

But that ain't the worst we did to you!
No -- we made you a god then we worshiped you.
Threw out the words that you taught us and made them a LIE....
We didn't even try!

Look what we've done to you Jesus

Why I Believe In Open Relationships

Twenty years ago, while facing the end of my marriage, I happened upon the late M.Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled. In a footnote to a section about "The Myth of Romantic Love", he mentioned a book by a couple named O'Neil entitled Open Marriage, commenting,

My work with couples has led me to the stark conclusion that open marriage is the only kind of mature marriage that is healthy and not destructive to the spiritual health and growth of the individual partners.

I was certain he was wrong at the time, but not certain enough to dismiss the idea completely. I put it on a back burner of my mind.

For seven years after my marriage ended, I entered into a series of relationships with the best of hopes and intentions, collapsing my identity into each new "us" and then suffering great heartache whenever a relationship ended. I was convinced that if I were simply wonderful enough, the other person could not fail to reciprocate the contributions of devotion and attention I lavished upon her. Except that she actually could. This was a shocking revelation.

During this time, I picked up Peck's book again and much more of what he had to say about mature adult behavior began to sink in. In addition to other ineffective behaviors, collapsing my identity into each relationships created a mutually suffocating situation that was never sustainable. In becoming so interested in her, I was failing to be interesting. What she needed was a man who she could respect and admire more than a sensitive, doting devotee. As I reflected upon these facts, I knew that I deeply desired to love someone who I could respect and admire as well. My romantic relationships improved dramatically.

Around 2005, I was exposed to a worldview which taught that true happiness could never come from another person or, indeed, from any source outside of the self. For, if it came from outside, it could be diminished or taken away by something outside the self and was therefore not true happiness. I swear I heard a band of angels singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" when the full impact of that insight penetrated my mind. All of my life to that point, I had been waiting to find "the one" who would complete me and make me happy. And the joke was on me: I, myself, was that one. Not only could no one else do it for me, it was unfair and unrealistic to hope or demand that she could. The women in my former relationships hadn't left me at all. Instead, I had inadvertently pushed them away.

As I started to pull all of these insights together into a coherent framework for living, a number of unexpected implications arose. Since love is infinite and unlimited, it never makes any sense to say "I love you if ..." or "I love you as long as ..." Also, there is no because to love. If I love you, I love you because I love you. Having a rationale for your love would be like like calculating a mathematical formula for why you like your favorite color. It follows therefore that true, authentic love can never depend upon the behavior of the one who is beloved.

And, if you think about it, you have never changed for the better because someone has demanded it. You may have altered your behavior to assuage your own guilt or to avoid unpleasant confrontations. But real change only happens under the nourishing rays of openness and acceptance. When you realize that someone truly believes in you and trusts in his or her heart that you'll turn out just fine in the end, there are literally no lengths to which you will not go in order to to prove that person right.

And now for the part you were expecting me to address much earlier in this article: monogamy. Here's all you need to know about monogamy: jealousy is rooted in fear. Perfect love casts out all fear. Therefore, insisting on monogamy as a condition of love is a contradiction in terms.

That may be all you need to know, but I'll develop the idea a little further for the benefit of the uncynically curious among my readers. Consider that if you and I share true love:

• I can no more hurt you by having a romp with someone else that I could by eating broccoli or washing my car. The source of your happiness and completeness remains within you.
  
  
• Worrying about what your family, friends, neighbors, or co-workers will think of our situation may be an interesting concern, but it has nothing to do with the love that we share.
  
  
• Imagine the powerful bond of intimacy we could build if we would laugh at one another's weaknesses and trust that nothing in this world could threaten what was real between us.
  
  
• Prohibition has never been an effective behavior modification policy. It usually only serves to create a flourishing black market where people with perfectly normal human tendencies go in order to find what they are looking for and a bloated prison system with millions of lives wasted and prevented from reaching their full potential.
  
  
• Dr. Peck was right. Only adults treating other adults as adults get to escape the myth of romantic love and discover a life where interesting, whole people can share in each others' lives without suffocating one another.
  

First Day of Oil Spill Cleanup Work

Reminisces of my first day reporting for oil spill cleanup duty on Friday, August 13, 2010:

It is 4:20 AM. I've just gotten up and turned on the coffee maker. The head supervisor at the oil spill cleanup staging area told me yesterday to come in today. There will be many workers like me at the staging site, a local elementary school parking lot. Because of the crowd, I've been instructed that when I get there, I should stay in my car until 5:30 AM, when we're supposed to line up and have our badges scanned to clock in by 6 AM. I put on my work jeans, a special long-sleeved white shirt made up of breathable fibers treated to reflect heat and UV rays, and my steel toed work boots, pour the coffee in a travel cup, and head out the door.

At 5:15 AM, I arrive at the parking lot. It's difficult to see what's happening at the clock-in area because there is a line of large charter busses in the circular drive. We're supposed to park in the "grass" - there isn't much grass left, it's mostly red clay mud, but it's not too wet. As I park I notice that none of the other workers is waiting in his or her car. I gather my hard hat, safety glasses, and fluorescent vest from the passenger seat and head up toward the front of the school. My heart stops - I see that there is already a long line of workers snaking around the edge of the circular drive. My brain starts calculating whether there are already more people here than bus seats, but I keep walking anyway until I reach the end of the line.

At 5:30, the line moves through the two badge scanning administrators surprisingly quickly. We workers are herded toward a number of tables labeled "Strike Team 1" to "Strike Team 5". I recall that the supervisor told me to look for Strike Team 1 or 2, so I head to the Strike Team 1 line. We are signing in (in spite of the fact that we were just scanned in) and printing our names on the Team Roster list for the specific team to which we belong. After 15 minutes of worrying that Strike Team 1 will fill up, I get to the head of the line and look for my name. It isn't on the list. I ask a supervisor behind the table and he asks me what my name is. When I tell him, he says, "Oh, last names L through Z are on Strike Team 2, get in that other line!" So I get in the other line, just certain I'm going to be put on standby. But it turns out that they've had to change the rotation, so some of the people in line aren't supposed to be here today and they are instructed to leave. When I reach the head of the line, I locate my name on the sheet and sign in. I locate the bus for my team, climb inside, and find a seat along with about 30 other workers and a few foremen.

It's 6:15 AM. A couple of men have spoken to us on the bus about why we haven't left yet, though none of them has identified himself as a foreman or a supervisor. One of them has started passing back a notebook and pen, instructing us to print our names and phone numbers so the team foreman can contact us in the days ahead if need be. Then the notebook is passed through again, and we're supposed to put our names, addresses and social security numbers on a different list. The foreman explains that he wants to make extra sure that the administration department has this information for all of his team members so that our paychecks will be processed correctly. After about a dozen people have already filled in this information, a general uproar from the workers convinces the foreman that we should only have to put down the last four digits of our SSNs. He locates the list and scratches out the first five digits for the people who've already begun the list. As a software engineer, this constant duplication of information is driving me nuts. I start designing a web-based oil spill team management application in my mind...

Our bus rolls out of the staging site and we arrive shortly along with a second bus at a location that has an access road to a long stretch of ocean front in Ft. Walton Beach. Some logistics people are already there, they have all terrain vehicles (ATVs) that get loaded up with the equipment stored in our bus. We wait for what seems like a long time after the ATVs leave. In the meantime, various people get on the bus and address us, only one of whom, a safety enforcement person, bothers to tell us who he is. Since we are still waiting, I get the sudden urge to stand up, pretend to be someone in authority, and make a speech about what is going to happen today. But I successfully resist this temptation and we are off the bus at 7:30 AM.

I ride with 13 other people to one of the work sites in an open-sided trailer pulled by a farming tractor. (think of a covered hayride with bench seats) My team's site for today is not too far from the beach access road. We exit the people carrier and set up a the site by erecting a portable canopy near the dunes for a break area and laying a large rectangle of plastic sheeting in front of it for a decontamination area. (where we will put on and remove our protective gear) The team is divided into two squads that will rotate between working and resting due to our exposure to the heat and humidity. Spilled oil from the BP well has been weathered by the sun and the sea over a period of days, so it is no longer off-gassing dangerous fumes like benzene or tolulene. (unlike the oil from the Exxon Valdez which was much closer to the shoreline) There is no smell of anything on the beach but salty ocean air.

It is 8:15 AM. My squad is chosen to work first. We line up at the decontamination area and don the special oil resistant gloves and boot covers. There aren't many visible tarballs on the surface of the sand but I soon find out that there are many of them hidden below the surface. Our squad has four roles to fill while looking for the oil tarballs. Some of us use plastic rake shovels with metal mesh to rake the sand. Almost immediately, oil tarballs ranging in size from a dime to a quarter pop up from beneath the surface. The rake person could scoop these up and sift the extra sand out through the mesh, but it's more efficient for them to keep raking while a second role uses a long handled net to capture and sift the tarballs. A third role follows the rakers and sifters with buckets or thich plastic bags to hold the captured tarballs. A fourth role uses a plastic shovel to dig exploratory holes in the sand at various locations around the work area. Occasionally this person will find much larger veins of oil tarballs (some of which are as large as a human hand) that the rest of the team can concentrate on. Sooner than I realize, 30 minutes has elapsed and it is time for our team to be relieved by the other squad. We lay down our tools at the far end of the decontamination mat and remove and discard our protective gloves and boot covers while the next squad puts on fresh ones.

Our squad shifts continue to rotate like this throughout the day with a general break at noon for lunch and an occasional stand down due to rain or nearby lightning. Lunch happens under the team canopy but safety stand downs require us to be transported back to the busses. In the early afternoon, we strike the work sites and head back to the busses. The logistics people retrieve the work site gear in the ATVs. In the meantime, various foremen and safety personnel get on the busses to tell us how we did and what general work habits they observed that were either exemplary or borderline dangerous. After what seems like a long time, the busses are loaded up. I make a mental note to bring something to read with me on future shifts. By 3 PM, we have arrived back at the staging location and have clocked out, the work day is over.

Overall, a very positive experience. The work is not back-breaking, but it is definitely back-aching - the sand can get heavy, especially after a rain shower. Yet, I am glad to be participating in the cleanup effort. I was lucky to be at a place in my life that made it easy to drop what I was doing and come to help out. There were times when I felt a little discouraged by the obstacles on the path to becoming qualified for this work. It's gratifying to have persevered and achieved the goal that I set for myself. And there are the bonuses: I'm making some new friends and enjoying my time living in the Ft Walton Beach area. I won't be doing this work for too long, but doing it makes me feel like I was able to help out my country in a time of need. And that has been worth more than all the rest of it.

Weighing Separate Wisdom Paths: Business Choice 2010

It's springtime in the American economy - time to plant seeds of enterprise that may, with some luck and a good bit of determination and skill, bring forth a bountiful harvest as the recovery kicks into high gear over the next few years. And I've been reading and listening to a lot of great business educational material lately. I find that there are two broad categories of advice with regard to the choice of a business.

The first wisdom path is the "Do What You Love And The Money Will Come" school of thought. This line of reasoning dates back at least as far as Confucius (500 BCE) who was the first person we know of to write, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." It is tempting to take this advice just to prove to myself (and to my slice of the world) whether or not it is really true. If, as Deepak Chopra writes, I choose the path that I would have chosen anyway (were I already rich), the path that most completely matches my gifts to the needs of the world, I would unhesitatingly choose to become an author and speaker in the field of personal development. (AKA "Motivational Speaker") I've got a great life story that already sounds like something you'd read in a movie script and it lights me up to pass on the wisdom that had made such a dramatic difference in my life. Any of my close friends could attest to the truth of these assertions.

I've recently gone far enough along this path to create stubs for chapters of a book that I think would be timely and relevant to America's current economic situation. It's entitled, "How To Thrive During The Recovery". It has specific, practical advice about how to take advantage of our developing economic upturn - whether the reader is interested in employment, business, real estate, or stock investing. I've also created the opening portions of a free, 90-minute seminar that I could give in cities as the book is launched to help introduce it to the public. (as well as enroll people in future advanced seminars offered for pay)

The drawback with pursuing the first path is that I'm currently a completely unknown commodity to the public. Even though I feel confident in the value of what I have to say, I'd be starting from scratch without the benefit of having created a "brand" as a person of well-known or easily researched accomplishments. To say it more plainly, it would be a heck of a lot easier to put butts in seats and sell my books if I'd already developed a certain level of authentic celebrity. There would be hard work involved either way but there's nothing wrong with having as many factors as possible in your favor when you attempt something big.

The second broad wisdom path says, "Find out what the market wants, crunch the numbers, and then choose the opportunity with the best bottom line." Jim Rohn would say something like: Don't worry so much about discovering your passion; find a great opportunity and then pour your own passion into it. When I crunch the numbers, it is obvious that the field of wealth management offers me the greatest upside potential for financial success given my marketable skills. While it is true that I'd be starting as an unknown commodity in this field as well, the rewards of doing well over time dwarf the rewards I could reasonably expect from a speaking career or even starting up a new tech company. My close friends could also attest to my skills in the stock market, so I feel some confidence in my abilities here. I'd have a lot of growing to do to sell and market my services successfully, but I view that as a growth opportunity, not a problem. And I'd need to develop these skills for the motivational speaking career anyway.

It's by no means a done deal, but the second wisdom path looks more and more attractive to me. Assuming I created a wealth management practice and did well with it, I could use that track record later as the marketing springboard for the motivational speaking/writing career. Although this seems to be common sense, I have an innate sense of aversion to anything that looks like putting a dream on hold for a mythical "someday" when one is finally ready to get started on it. So I'm still percolating on these things. Maybe this time around the lesson will be to overcome that aversion and go with the practical path for a change. No matter which one I choose, I intend to devote my sole focus to that choice for at least the next decade or longer. This is why I'm sitting with the question for now... The outcome of this process will mean saying "No" to something I'm very interested in pursuing, whichever choice wins out. And (simply as an acknowledgement of my lack of omniscience) until I decide, I am open to discovering an even better path than the ones I'm currently considering.

I don't intend to take long to decide. Springtime doesn't last forever. One is better served by planting seeds and getting some crop than by staring at the field for too long wondering which crop would be best.

Starting Anew In Austin

I moved to Austin, Texas the weekend of April 10. I drove a rental truck with my car in tow from Orlando, Florida, and the whole trip took about 30 hours, including a five hour stop at a motel to get some rest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Packing and getting underway was made a good bit easier thanks to the help of some good friends in Orlando who helped me organize and box up my stuff. Much appreciated!

So now I've been in Austin almost two weeks. It's gone by fast, and I'm finally just about settled in where I'm staying, a room share in a beautiful four-bedroom house up in the Arboretum area (northwest from downtown). Although my ultimate plan is business ownership and development, I have allowed myself to be courted by a couple of software companies for full-time employment. One of them had previously extended me an offer in spring '08, but I took a competing offer in the DC area instead.

Why would I participate in job interviews if I want to go into business? This is the question I am living with currently. There are a few ways to look at it: 1) I'm selling out on my dreams by pursuing full-time work, postponing the "real" life I keep telling myself I'll have someday. 2) It's something practical to do while I keep my ear to the ground and get a feel for the best avenues of business opportunity that are available. 3) It's a way to practice some of the best wisdom I've ever learned, being willing to be "open to everything and attached to nothing". (Wayne Dyer)

I am truly blessed. I followed opportunity back in 1995 and built the kind of career and skills that get me noticed in the job market for very good pay. But sometimes I wonder if this situation has also created a kind of gravity that keeps me from moving up into an orbit that is higher still. When I read the business stories of people like Richard Branson, Felix Dennis - even Bill Gates and Michael Dell - I feel like I may be settling for something less than what I have the potential of becoming by taking on a salaried position. You see, it's always a good time to take a job, and it's never a good time to jump into business. A software job offers me good money. The benefits are nice. There's a lot to like about it and I would never dishonor the value of working for a paycheck. It's just that something deep inside of me wants to the one who creates jobs, who puts capital at risk, who makes a difference (of whatever magnitude) in this world by creating and promoting his own products and services.

I was recently re-reading a chapter in Ken Fisher's excellent book The Ten Roads To Wealth where he writes about managing other peoples' money. Wealth managers make up the largest percentage of the annual Forbes 400 list of the world's richest people. Fisher himself is on the list for that reason. He was saying in his book that the most important part of getting started (from a business survival standpoint) is learning how to sell. In fact, he recommends a person interested in this path to learn selling even before learning investing. That got me thinking - maybe what I want to do is take on a sales job and get some more real-world experience there. I say "more" because I have worked as a salesman in the past - my first job was concession sales at the Toledo Zoo, after which I sold computers at KMart. Back in the '90s, I occasionally took up holiday sales work at Circuit City. Most of my friends think I have this skill in spades, but like so many areas of my life, it's mostly raw talent that hasn't been developed in a focused, sustained way.

One thing is for sure, I feel as energized now as I did when I first took computer programming seriously back in 1995, when I had a sense that the world was my oyster and only opportunity was ahead. As my dear friend Mimi Munroe would remind me, "You can't get it wrong." No Mim, I can't. I remain clear about my eventual outcome, yet the path to that destination is an unknown adventure that I embrace with abandon.

"Getting" Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter.com, it was through a co-worker in the computer games industry. He didn't get Twitter and he described it to me in a way that made it sound like a crack pipe for narcissistic ADD sufferers. It was only recently, during emergency relief efforts for the Haiti and Chile earthquakes that I even gave Twitter a second thought. Turns out Twitter was very useful as a communication tool of last resort for hundreds of thousands of people during those crises.

I'm currently attending South by Southwest Interactive, a conference that features the latest information about all the cool technology that makes Web 2.0 happen. (Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, etc) I arrived here without a Twitter account set up and with a very basic (read: non-"smart") mobile phone. It was a riot. Whenever I introduced myself to someone, they either wanted my Twitter ID or they wanted me to use a smartphone to scan their badge barcode to get their info. I felt like an armless man at a canoe-rowing party. It certainly didn't help that I decided to come just two weeks ago and didn't print up any personal business cards. Yes kids, it turns out that spontaneity can have its drawbacks.

But being immersed in this conference and it's amazing sea of digitally connected people had a very positive effect on me. I came to understand that Twitter's model of following others and very short update messages really does enable something positive. It allows the rapid creation and destruction of networks of helpful acquaintances who have the information you are interested in right now. It helps break people out of the dreadful fright they have about "tooting your own horn." As the wise advice goes - if you don't toot your horn, who is going to toot it?

So Twitter isn't about narcissism in a negative sense. I've come to see that it is a useful platform to allow natural leaders in various areas to emerge organically, based on their insight into topics that matter in any given context. It basically allows instantly formed chat rooms around topics that suddenly become relevant. The readers and other contributors to the topics can get to know very quickly who is and who is not relevant with regard to the topic and can choose to follow those who distinguish themselves. Since we all are more conversant on some topics than others, it is a true democratization of information - each of us can contribute to the benefit of all of us, based on the topics that matter to any of us.

I hope you will go to twitter.com and give it a try. Create a free account, upload a profile photo, and let it's introductory screen try to locate your other friends (based on your email contacts). Then start "tweeting". Go one step further in the setup screens and turn on the ability to send updates from your mobile phone. It's really easy and it allows you to "get the word out" to the people who matter to you very very easily. (even if you have an old phone that only sends text messages - btw, standard text fees apply of course) Open your mind to the possibilities, and you'll be surprised at the benefits you gain, both socially and personally.