Dystopian theories: the social controversy of global problems in relation to social equity issues

I have always been a fan of science-fiction movies, some of my favorites in recent times are The Martian and that excellent sort-of-fiction documentary of National Geographic with that unassuming title: Mars. Then perhaps more fictional and more dystopian, the two Blade Runners, both the original and the one that was made 25 years later. 

There are obvious many more movies and series out there, but these are the ones that are the best ones by far. Partly because of the story, the acting, the special effects and the overall idea. I like the speculation in both The Martian and Mars of what it would be like on that first manned mission to the red planet, because as it seems now, either of those scenarios might play out: a man going solo, or a group of folks establishing a base. Then there’s always that unsaid notion that a trip to Mars might very well be a one-way trip, which always makes it feel even more claustrophobic and heroic in some warped way. 

Blade Runner hits closer to home with a future Los Angeles where few people live, and where the land outside the city has become a desert wasteland because of some big thing gone wrong. This one is so powerful on atmosphere and the tech in this movie is so plausible, in fact it’s too plausible, with robots gone rogue and the story centering around this underdog who lives his lonely life in this big old town. 

In a way I wish there was some sort of bridge between those two vastly distinct, but also vastly interesting universes. The thing is just that neither of those universes in the Mars-movies or the Blade Runner-movies are places where you would want to live. They are more like the kind of places where you would want to spend some time, as some place in some far of future, or just to spend time with that notion that one dystopia might just be that everything turns into one big Chinatown, a place that’s so alien to most of us, and that leans so overly heavy on tech, that it’s a place that you might contemplate or consider, but it’s ultimately not a place where you might actually want to live. 

What if it actually turns out to be a mix

Overly crowded, overly expensive, overly everything. Just considering the fact that a root problem for a lot of folks is that they feel entitled to this-or-that, and because of that people get into debt to start living above their means. This is kind of the overly that I’m getting at here, and a very simple fix would be to start living a simpler life, more than just one notch below overly.

Then the next question is how that will dodge a dystopian future, because all those futures will have become ‘unlivable’ because of the big problems that are caused by all of us. This is where it relates to that ‘disaster’ that turned the land outside of Los Angelos into a wasteland desert. We all know this, we all see this, but it’s very few of us who are actually able and willing to small initial sacrifices that might end up not just dodging the wasteland, but it might also end up dodging our own demise. 

The apocalyptic as a social dilemma

Of course these movies are fictions of what the future might actually be like, but at the same time they are metaphors of our lives as we live them right now. We’re all aware of the big dilemmas of our time: one is the decay of democracy and the rise of social inequalities (1% vs. 99%), with expensive housing, healthcare and education. 

If we look beyond that then we reach the social dilemmas that are in some ways more obvious: to minimize the impact of climate change we should all use less fossil fuels. To solve the waste-problem we should all buy items that produce less plastic waste and that can be repaired and safely dismantled once no longer of use. 

The thing is just that, and I stated this before, when it comes down to it, most people aren’t all that noble in that they should care about the Big Issues, but at the end of the day we’re more motivated by Me and Mine, and by extension we don’t think that far ahead. And of course, this is an understandable mechanism, I mean, how else can you go on living? Most of us have enough problems to deal with ourselves. Right?

Maybe then it’s more about ideas

I personally refuse to leave things like this where they are at, because that just means caving in and giving up. That’s not the kind of attitude that I want to have when it comes to anything, and at the same time I realize that a lot of this comes down to government policy.

Now most of us are not politicians, but what we can all do is to put ideas ‘out there’. This means most of all to be in the now. That was more or less my reasoning behind writing the second installment of Gaze wide, aim far: to do anything and to realize any ambition, you need to know what’s going on in the world around us. 

At the same time, there are the obvious things that we can do, and what a lot of us are already doing: lean towards smaller houses, driving electric, composting and all such things. It may be a small start, but it might just pave the way towards a better tomorrow.

In summary

- The Martian, Mars and Blade Runner are great because they give a very visceral idea of our future

- The big problems of dystopian movies are ultimately caused by all of us

- The big problems are social dilemmas that can be solved with powerful government policies (to a large extent)

- To contribute to the solution, you need to be in the know

Continue reading

Persistence and determination: how to act more professional
On what it really takes to get an advantage and to get ahead.


Why do anything: thoughts on social issues and strength during tough times
On a very basic question that we have all asked ourselves at one time or other, and why the notion of it matters.


What makes a man (or a woman): how to deal with procrastination
On what makes a real man (or woman) and how you can take your first steps towards that today.

Persistence and determination: how to act more professional

For years I believed that statement that the reason that I’m not extremely rich and successful is because I don’t have any specific talent, that I’m not extremely smart and that I don’t have the proper education. But over time there’s this little truth that manifests itself, based on my experience and what I observe around me. 

Does the reason that I have over a decade in my current profession prove that I have some sort of talent that I’m born with, or does it show that I just ‘stuck it out’. I tend to lean more and more towards that second one. And this really is a sobering insight, because it’s one notch below approaching a profession as a craft that requires certain steps and procedures. This is much more primal, much more guttural, this is just toughing it out and sticking with something until you’re there (or you’re stuck, but that’s not what I want to get at here….). 

And if I look around me at folks of my age that have higher positions, or that have a bigger job that earns way more money, it’s more often than not that it seems to me that they aren’t that much smarter than me, but still they ended up in that different position. Based on that alone, you might reason like, maybe they’re better connected, maybe they have certain skills, maybe they have some insight in human nature that allowed them to position themselves as such. Or did they just board a train that ended up there?

It’s an interesting thought-experiment, it’s sobering, like I said, but it isn’t exactly ‘hopeful’. Just look at politics. A lot of the politicians that are in high places definitely have the people skills to manipulate themselves into high positions, but are they that bright, that talented and that smart? The only exception that I can think of right now would be Obama, I’m still a big fan, and a far second would be Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium. 

Those two definitely have the ‘It’-factor, and when you look at the world of business there are a few other individuals that have that same factor, but as a percentage of the entire work-force, they are definite outliers. Most people are like the rest of us, or worse. 

If it’s all going downhill from here, then what?

This whole notion isn’t exactly encouraging, but it does one thing for sure: it levels the playing field. If most people are just like you and me, then it means that it shouldn’t be that hard to create an edge. 

If the statistics of streaming services are any measure, then it’s almost like most people spend hours on end spaced out, watching pulpy series with little or no depth. I mean, if that’s what you’re up against, then this era that we’re in right now is better than ever, because the other side is that YouTube is full of the best teachers on any subject, career, mentoring and whatnot. 

And if just a skill-set isn’t what you’re after, then you can even unroll in online universities. That’s not to say that this is the only way, but it’s just part of that whole notion that most people don’t do what you’re doing right now. Most people don’t read informed articles, most people don’t try to get a deeper understanding into what’s going on around us right now, most people are content with just to go on living. 

And if that is what works, then there’s nothing wrong with that. I lost years to exactly that mind-set, by going out on the town on most nights of the week, with making a lot of friends, with having a lot of fun basically. I don’t regret it one bit and I still have many fond memories of that time. 

And if you’re in that situation where life just rolls out like that, then you should definitely dive right in, because there will always be this ‘end-point’ where you either had enough and you realize that it’s time to move on, or it’s enough because you hit rock bottom. The thing is just that live isn’t just about making a career and making it big, but more than that it’s about human connection.

And this might be a side-note, but in my experience there are always these stretches where I tend to work really hard on something, and then I take my time to relax, and to get a reorientation as to what’s going on. But what I always try to do is to keep track of that which is important: the people that I care about the most, my family. 

How does all this make me into a professional?

Well, this one ain’t that hard, or at least, when you want to get there half-way: act as if you’re already there. In psychology there’s this well known principle, and I’m just going to call it the facial-feedback-principle: the way that you express your facial muscles actually influences how you feel. So if you look happy, at least some degree, you’re actually going to feel happy. 

By extension, the same principle might very well apply to more overt behavior, and that’s how acting can be a first step of creating a mind-set towards a new career. Obviously it takes much more, because if you’re just acting, it won’t take too long for people to figure out that you have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you combine this idea with actual knowledge, from YouTube or pursuing an online master, then you will definitely stand a fair chance of creating the best opportunity that you can possibly have.

The rest should be obvious by now, and at the risk of repeating myself, a professional always acts a certain way, and that means that the actions of a professional are always deliberate. 

In my current profession there might be times when things get to you, and you get emotionally involved. That’s why we had this saying in one of the schools that I worked for: if you’re emotionally involved, you can’t act professionally. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t act on ‘what feels right’ and all such things, because if anything, we need more of that, it’s just that when you’re too involved you can’t always make the best decision. And like all principles, it’s a loose guideline. 

In summary:

- to make it in a career, to a large extent, has to do with ‘toughing it out’.

- to a large degree, most people that hold a higher function than ours aren’t brighter or more talented, they just stuck it out in a different trajectory.

- if most people aren’t smarter than us, and they binge watch on series and movies at night, then it’s easier to get an edge.

- when life is fun, when you have the opportunity to go out a lot and to have a lot of fun, enjoy the ride, until it’s time to move on

- make family a priority

- act as if you’re already there, and combine this with acquiring the appropriate skill-set.

Continue reading:

Gaze Finder TV: On principles and brevity
On the way principles can make us better at what we do, and the way brevity makes us seem more knowledgeable.


Axis pandemic-recession: how to solve social inequalities
On the real problems that the recession has unveiled, and how we as a society might turn all of that around.


Career change in your mid 30s: some ideas to get you started
On steering your career into a different direction, and the difference between doing this in your mid-30s versus mid-20s. 

Why do anything: thoughts on social issues and strength during tough times

When I was 19 I tried reading Either or, the first published work of Kierkegaard. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting to get out of it, possibly ‘wisdom’, ‘insight’ or basically anything that could confirm that I was heading in the right direction, that what I was doing was making sense, and that it was the right thing to do. Does anyone know anything at 19? At 19 you’re a year into ‘adulthood’ and even though it has been some years since for me, is what I’m in now ‘adult’?

I like the way Stephen King writes about being 19 in the introduction of The Gunslinger. It’s as breezy as ever, with many open doors, but it still hits a chord, because I can definitely remember feeling that way; that the world was at my feet, that I had jack-shit of an idea of where I was heading, much less that I had much of a notion of what I was getting into at the time. Yes, I have been there. We all have.

It was in Either or that I read that notion of a kid of 19, who was rich, but this was the 19th century, so that’s relative, and he asked himself this very simple question: why do anything? His reasoning was that he probably wouldn’t get any richer than he was at the moment, his life wouldn’t become more comfortable, and it probably wouldn’t become ‘better’, so there it was, that same question: why do anything?

Some time ago I was watching re-runs of The X-files, which was basically my favorite tv-show when I was growing up, and then there was this one episode where Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are stuck on a boat in the middle of a lake at night, trying to go after some murderous creature that was supposed to live there in the deep of the water. That scene on the boat must have been an improv by Duchovny, because there it was, that same question, and he related it to this notion that if you were a pirate with a wooden leg and a hook for a hand, then simply to go on living would be enough, but we, the rest of us, we have to be out there, we have to have a purpose and we have to make something of ourselves.

I really liked that scene, and if you’re interested, the episode is titled S3E22 Quagmire. That statement of Mulder really ties in to the why do anything?, because the fact of the matter is that if you have less to choose from, then there’s less of a choice to make. The statement works, because we know about those pirates from cartoons and movies, but they’re not flesh and bone people, but we can still extend the idea to folks that are nearer to our proximity.

So then, really, why do anything?
In a way this is a tough one, it’s one for debate, but it’s also a luxury to even ask this question. It’s also meta, in the sense that it’s almost a question about a question (just leaving out the ‘why’ turns from a future problem into an evaluation of the past), but at some point you just realize that the question is less essential than it seems to be.

Yes, you need to be deliberate about the way you spend your time. Yes, you need to do something that’s in line with your interests, character, temperament and all that. Yes, it needs to bring in enough money to sustain yourself and possibly your family. Yes, it needs to be something that gets you excited enough to be able to get up in the morning.

This last one is an ideal, obviously, because there are many folks who are stuck in their job, who either never liked it to begin with, or those who have reached that point where it becomes essential to move on to other and to bigger things. Over time the ‘why do anything?’ slowly morphs, it drifts away, and from time to time it pops up like a relic from the past, “Oh, yes, that old lot.”

To a large degree, a lot of this stuff is much simpler than we make it out to be. You may lean into philosophy, but you might also lean into it from a more nimble, and a much easier intent: it’s just human nature to do things. There are very few of us, hopefully, who are content to not do anything.

That in itself is a message of hope, and I fully realize that, and by extent I believe that it will be very hard for us to go on living without ideas and notions as such. Tied into this one is that most people are basically decent and are willing to do the right thing. With that in mind, it almost becomes child-like:
“Why do I have to do this?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

That in itself is so simple, but it’s also something that’s very easy to overlook. Even this, those two lines, show that there’s another element to that initial question as well: why do anything? It isn’t just singular and personal, but it greatly involves other people and new experiences. Which is the stuff that ‘kind of happens’, but that’s an inherent reward in anything that you commit yourself to doing.

That’s it?
There’s this other principle that I became more aware of as the pandemic unfolded: if more people are doing really good, then it ultimately benefits all of us. This is a very interesting concept, and it ties in to the way that a lot of companies go about their business these days: they freely give away knowledge, while they charge heavily for doing the work for you.

In itself this seems like a contradiction, because if you give away knowledge for free, then people don’t need your business. In fact, it will even make it easier for others to set up a business that might become a fierce competitor. In reality, this is not how it works, because what it does most of all is that it increases the size of the pie, but it’s also a way of building an expert reputation, it’s a peek behind the scenes and a way to build a customer relation.

Most recently I saw this principle being used by Louis Rossman (Apple repair), the Dutch Farmer (how to grow your food), the Courtney Project (self-publishing). This is also how society has changed: these three individuals are very active on YouTube and in their specific niche they tell you exactly how to turn an initial interest into a business.

The bottom-line here isn’t just that the best teachers are on YouTube, but most information is freely available, which in theory makes it much easier to turn thing around and to build that better life. But it doesn’t happen just like that. In fact, building a better life is a lot of hard work, but I do believe that the work-part is bigger than the difficulty-part. You know that statement, right: 1% inspiration, 99% hard work. Which you might even translate into something like: plan for a few hours once a week, and use the rest of the time to carry out those plans.

In summary:
- Why do anything? Is meta, but it’s also an over-analysis: we do things, because it’s human nature. Nothingness is anti-human.
- Why do anything? Is social, because doing things gets us in contact with other people, which is another inherent part of human nature.
- Doing anything, and doing it well is a step towards solving social issues.
- Doing anything and doing it well is also more ‘hard work’ than it is ‘difficult work’.
- The best teachers are on YouTube and they will show you the way.

Continue reading

Self-improvement retreats: determination to succeed
On deliberate activity and relaxation to get new perspectives to succeed.




Living autobiographically: how to use narrative identity
On writing the story of our lives in such a way that we can live with ourselves.




Choose another path: how to identify opportunities in life
On figuring out what you're made of and when to seize opportunity.

What makes a man (or a woman): how to deal with procrastination

“What makes a man Mr. Lebowski,” the old geezer in the wheelchair asked, “Is it to do whatever it takes? Is it to succeed against all odds? Is it to go the extra mile?”
“That, yes,” the Dude said, leaning into a pun, “That and a pair of testicles.”

I wasn’t exactly going for precision here, but you get the point, right. And hopefully you get which movie this line is from. The question is one that we should ask ourselves every now and then, and in this case it’s What makes a man? Sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple, and in its simplicity it makes total sense: a man gets things done. 

In itself an answer this simple is a bit disappointing, because you’d expect great things like warriors, pioneers, and adventurers and all that stuff that links to these histories when life was rough, violent and short, and ---- to these rugged ideas of manhood. Bar fights, saloons, lone warriors and all that good stuff. But no, just this: a man gets things done. And in all of this, man applies to women as well (obviously).

But the simplicity of this whole statement doesn’t cut close to one of the issues that most of us deal with, a lot of the time. How to deal with procrastination. And this one that we all fall into every now and then, when it’s early in the morning, it’s cold outside and you feel like staying in and doing nothing and everything. And before you know it, you have spend the day watching YouTube, playing video games watching movies and all that stuff. Which is good from time to time, but which isn’t the stuff that careers are build on. 

Then the other side is there as well, where you become so obsessed that whatever you do has become a compulsion that you spend every waking minute on. Even though, on a side-note, if you look at highly successful individuals, they usually spend an insane number of hours on what they do, and part of that hard work has contributed to their success.

So what you should aim at, more or less, is somewhere in the middle, that spot where you’re ambitious, where you get things done, but where you also make time for your family. Balance and all those things. To some degree you might say that there might be a woman that keeps you in check, live in some far off place without too many temptations, parenthood that shifts priorities, and all such things. But all this kind of revolves around that notion of what comes first: will you find a good partner and then get your act together, or is it the other way around?

I guess you know by now what I’m all about, and which comes first in my book: sorting yourself out is the best advise at any given time, because that will help you figure out what you’re made of, what you’re capable of doing, and all such things that ultimately give you a very fine view of what you want out of life. 

This want might be very essential, because that implies that you have a greater part in all of it than ‘circumstances that just happened to you’, and it gives you a clear indication of where to start. And just make sure that I spell it out so that there’s no miscommunication: anywhere. Of course it’s always good to read up on strategies such as in articles like these, but you should definitely check youtube and all that to get yourself all riled up and ready for action. 

Then your strategy becomes this: just get started. At first it doesn’t matter that much where you start. Just compare it to doing the dishes or mowing the lawn: cups first, plates first, utensils first? It doesn't really matter. At first it’s more about the habit of getting started, and then the rest will follow easily. It’s said that if you do something for 7 times, then the 8th time it has become a habit. 

And a habit is exactly what will pull you through when you feel yourself getting lazy, when you want to stay in bed, when you want to stay in for the day, and all that stuff. Creating a habit is the most important thing that you can create after you put yourself out there to just get started. 

Then when you’re in the habit you should do some definite soul-searching. Start close to home; start by figuring out why your family members and close friends ended up in the careers that they did. More often than not you will share character, temperament and interests, which will go a long way of lining you up for a certain career. I wrote about this at length in the first installment of Gaze wide, aim far, but I just wanted to put it out there, because it’s a definite and an early step in establishing a new direction in life. 

Of course there are all kinds of micro-management tricks from thereon. For example, the two-minute rule (something that takes less than two minutes should be done right away), using a timer during which you will work on nothing but your new career, dedicating a specific place in your home where you will always sit to work towards your new career, arranging with your family or other people that you’re in proximity that you will not be disturbed during that time, connecting with other folks that are in a similar process, or preferably one or a few steps ahead. 

Beyond that I don’t want to overwhelm you, because any new beginning will be hard at first, but as with everything, after that it will become much easier. Just get started would be the take-home message. 

In summary:
- a real man (/a real woman): he or she gets things done.
- the solution to procrastination is in balancing things out, and avoiding the other end (obsession).
- sort yourself out before engaging in a new path, be it a career or a long-term relationship.
- just get started, and start by building the habit of just getting started.
- after the 7th time, something has become a habit.
- start close at home by figuring out which professions run among your family and friends.
- consider micro-management after that.

Continue reading:

Self-improvement retreats: determination to succeed
On deliberate activity and relaxation to get new perspectives to succeed.



Living autobiographically: how to use narrative identity
On writing the story of our lives in such a way that we can live with ourselves.



Choose another path: how to identify opportunities in life
On figuring out what you're made of and when to seize opportunity.