ideas and careers

Ideas are the foundation on which progress is made.

Without ideas, we would not have innovations in any area of our lives. If the wheel had not been thought of, we would not be traveling. If fire had not been discovered, our species would have died long ago. The intellect is a powerful thing, but an intellect that constantly creates new ideas is an even more powerful thing.

Ideas are created by leaders, not followers. Ideas are held by managers, actors, scientists, musicians, photographers. The more ideas you have, the more control over society you have. Of course, you don't want to take over society, you want to allure them, impress them, and this will in turn, drive your success as individual. You may not even earn money or fame, but you may earn the respect of others, which in the long haul may mean a great deal more than anything else.


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Sometimes life isn't a matter of what you want to do, rather, it maybe what you have to do in order to survive.
Growing up, I wanted to be a full time musician, or artist, but I now realize in order to survive, I cannot do that profession. There are a number of variables that determine my personal outcome(this is not the same for every individual) - competition, scarcity of income in this market, lack of new creative ideas, etc.
I very well could make a career in this field, but the ease in which it would happen would be close to none and my outcome would either be extremely large, or extremely small. I wanted to own a home and eventually have a family. I knew in order to do this, music would be an extremely tough career decision to progress with. Again, all this can be done, but it takes the utmost and unrelenting dedication of the mind(a feature that many people cannot access on a daily basis).

Career options are almost like life gambling. Moving into a new century, humans want life even easier, faster, and more free. We want automation, and things to do work for us, mainly because we have become smarter. Industries that will strive this century deal with programming that help automation to occur and creating ideas and technology that will make our lives easier. See robotics, nanotechnology, IT, programming, health care, biotechnology, etc. Industries will slowly die this century, but not completely vanish. See print media, land line telephones, certain mom and pop shops that don't offer something so unique and individualistic that it cannot be replicated on a mass scale. In order to survive, you may have to choose a profession that isn't always what you want to do. This is also were you decide to balance your personal life and do the things you love to do. Choosing a career in the things you love to do may yield wonderful results and days of joy, but it also may yield days of drudgery and even a loss of interest in what was first pursued as a career.

So I tell myself daily, choose wisely, because every decision I make now in my life and career may echo years down the road.

the wager of eternal life and eternal death

Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you—will quiet your proudly critical intellect...
-Blaise Pascal

Why does purpose in life constantly vex our species? Why do I wake up everyday thinking that I must have a purpose in this life, that I must make an impact, and do good? Why wouldn't I want to do nothing and be a bad human? Does anyone want that? I don't think I've met one human being on this earth that has stated they want to amount to nothing.

I've become isolated in the past 6 months of my life. This is unprecedented because in my latter years, I was constantly surrounded by others, living life with others and seemingly enjoying life. I own a house now. I am 26. I have grown up responsibilities and when I think about having 'too much' fun, it makes me feel inadequate, as though I'm trying to stay young. Sometimes, I don't want to own a house. Sometimes, I wish I had 4 roommates again and was in a location that I absolutely loved. We are all young at heart. I will want to have a good time and have fun until the day of my death. But there is something very, very large missing in my life and I can feel it. I'm not as happy as I once was, even though people think I'm the same person. I feel a void in my life, that I once had, but has now vanished. I have become more pessimistic about life and even scared to turn 27. I feel I haven't accomplished enough before I'm 27. I feel I have played my 20's away and haven't been trying hard enough to target a career. My idea of success is constantly skewed because I, like others, tend to compare myself to other 26 year old people. I feel burdened because I haven't married the love of my life that I started dating when I was 21 or 22. I know life is full of disappointments, but I feel as though they have just all caught up to me this year and it's weighing incredibly heavy on my soul.

As a professed Christian, I have stopped practicing daily Christian acts of devotion that I normally did in my late teens to mid 20's. I would read devotions about God, pray more to God and involve myself more in the church than I do now. I am still a member of a church and attend regularly, but the impact of it all has lessened. I spoke with a close mentor of mine, Marty, about all of this and he referred to it as a 'dark knight of the soul.' I did more research on this and was astonished at how many people throughout human history actually experienced this - Mother Theresa being one of them. How in God's name(pun intended) did Mother Theresa, a selfless, humble, straight A student for Christ not feel God's presence for the remaining 30 plus years of her life?? When I heard about that, it made me feel even more alone and isolated. I'm not asking God for a good feeling and Christian euphoria everyday I wake up, but rather, just a simple peace of mind. I haven't really been frustrated with God, rather, I've been apathetic, which scares me. When I realize that I become apathetic towards God, I realize I don't care as much about the morals I have held up until now. I also don't feel the scrupulosity or Catholic guilt that I once felt in my developing years when I committed sin. It's hard for me to admit sin, not because I don't want to, because I don't care to. As far as Christianity goes, this is one of the biggest red lights you can come to, because when you don't care about God, how do you expect Him to show up in your own life?

This will continue to go on for however long. This is one of the main reasons I started this blog as well, because I feel I could record my thoughts quicker and they would be more accessible at any given time. This isn't going to be an easy life, but I'm sure as hell not going to let my doubt get in the way of enjoying the only life I have.

the beginning

And so it begins, my writing has started up again, but this time on a new medium.

I'm by no means an accomplished writer, and I'm really not an accomplished anything. I feel as though my thoughts are a little too scattered to mean anything of importance or even engage readers or followers. That's not what this is about. It's really not even about me, even though it's called a 'personal muse.'

I find myself often thinking heavily in the day, but never putting the thoughts on paper. I'm weary of putting this on paper because a. ill lose it, b. it will catch fire and c. I want to constantly and consistently update this throughout the day. I want this blog to be a steady stream of thought. I don't want followers, subscribers, critics or anything of the sort. I want my identity sealed because I may say things on here that my peers would be confused by. So maybe this is a risk that I'm even putting this on the web, but judging by the way technology is going, everything including our subconscious will eventually end up here.

Typically, the thoughts that I wish I had started to write about sooner are my thoughts on religion, technology, the human race, socialism, faith, doubt, meaning and purpose. Sometimes, I think these thoughts so many times in the day that I can honestly say it changes my mood. Maybe this blog will become some sort of muse for me... allowing me to write out what I'm thinking, so that I can see the thoughts in a physical form, as opposed to a 'web' of linked thoughts that have no real beginning or end.

I hope that I give honest, mature and thought provoking ideas and comments on here. I want to be able to go back to this years from now and see the ideas that I had, but I never wrote down. I hope the server(s) this is stored on stays safe, and if there is a nuclear war, that these writings won't be in the country that is hit first. I don't want this blog to be silly, and I don't want it to be serious. I want 1 word entries and I want a novel of a blog. I don't want to waste time editing(to a small extent for the sake of my years of schooling in grammar), because really the web only sees rough drafts and never, ever polished works of literature these days.

My first thought is: I have noticed my handwriting has been slowly declining since the infusion of my fingers with keyboards. I wonder if anyone else is feeling the same way? Will hand writing become obsolete in the next 20 years?

Interesting link for the day:
Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web