Is being paid to perform an act of creation in some way counter to the purity of art, science and creation?

In a sense, it would seem that the creation of artistic and scientific work would be impossible, especially today, without a financial backer or benefactor. Having the resources, and let us not forget that time is perceived as a resource, to perform any action is prerequisite to any achievement. However, is getting paid really the proper compensation?

A mother who provides the necessary care and personal investment in to her children is not persuaded in to releasing her efforts for perceived value. The metaphor is not quite the same, except that some creation embodies a significant amount of emotional investment. Time is really immaterial when the muse has you and your entire being is enthralled in the creative act.

So we tell ourselves that we don’t do it for the money. We say that we want to do important work and to help others. We want to make the world a better place.

When we get done with the justifications, we would do what we do anytime and anyplace if the resources were available and all we care about is the work. Someone will have to clothe, clean, feed, and care for our needs lest we forget our good manners and ability to operate within polite society. When the fervor is done and we are spent, then we want our reward and benefits from our work. (As an aside social structures are important, so are manners, moral guides, familial bonds and personal relationships. We are not presently civilized and should make the effort to create a civil (lawful) social order. Technology does not create civilizations, individuals do. People who respect and appreciate one another. Not people who tolerate, and rely upon artificial ‘rights’.)

We do not want to be thrown aside or taken advantage of to benefit those jackals and vultures who wait by the sidelines to collect our bounty while we are too weak to defend it. They swoop down with their legal (not lawful) fangs to nip and tear at the flesh till we are persuaded to release our prize to them. They will say that they took care of you and supplied you with the necessary building materials to start with. But, having said that, they are welcome to the pile and not the prize. The raw material is theirs, and what we do with it is ours.

So the banks, investors, and other people whose priority is to collect the results and get a return on their perceived value (i.e. money) have no sense of what creation is. The money they deal with is created in their imaginations without any emotional investment or creative act. Money is a great invention in principle. How it is used is another story all together and really one of the great tragedies of mankind’s civilization. Usury is the vulture’s beak, the jackal’s teeth, and the hyena’s laugh.

The true value is humanity. We should value the individuals and not their creations. The creation has only provided value to its creator by honing the skills and shaping the destiny of that one individual.  Money has no real value, it is a faith-based system akin to religious fervor and is tolerated because people believe they receive some benefit from its creation and use. We place so little value on people and the very ground upon which we stand, that our perception has become like that of a mole operating in the dark. We keep digging and digging without a sense for where we stand in relation to the world and only recognize the small patch of earth we call home.

The study of art, the pursuit of science and the act of creation are some of the highest forms that we presently understand. They are not the end of our journey, they are a way-station on our path. We need to survive the journey on our path to higher forms of creation and understanding, and the only way we know how to achieve this survival is to rely upon payments for our services. However, whom are we servicing and what to we serve?

When something needs to be done, or even if it just wants to be done, there are two ways, technically three, to get it done. You have the wrong way, the right way and the no way. The way something gets done is often not practiced or even eloquent in its execution. We stumble our way through the various demands placed upon us each day achieving results for other people. Sometimes we do this to ourselves.

Working with other people to get things done often produces the most stumbling blocks. We don’t know each other or the varied methods that are used to achieve results. These may be good or bad results. The expectation is that everyone is attempting to provide good results and that is what professional behavior and respect are about. There is not an expectation that someone is trying to get away with anything that lacks true effort.

Reality and expectations are quite different. Putting forth the minimal effort to satisfy someone’s demands seems to be the new paradigm as people resent their positions and pay. As the economy is almost entirely shifted to a service base, there is very little pride in achieving the transitory successes available. There is joy in a well crafted object. The time provided to produce results is shortened and the robustness required of the results is minimized to achieve a ‘cost-effective’ solution that provides maximum yield in the marketplace. This provides us with manufactured goods whose life cycle is intentionally short. Corollary to this is the statement “You get what you pay for”, and the fact that a bargain will make you pay over and over again until the perceived value is gone. The cost is much higher than you were led to believe and you continue to pay in the performance quality of the object. This is fundamental to the cheap (poorly manufactured) goods, inflated costs and marketed perceptions that separate our earnings from our possession. This applies to most things that people contract to buy. This applies to your house, car, food, appliances, and supplies. Buying something for the short-term only provides it as a source of waste in to the landfills for the long-term much sooner. Most products cannot be re-worked, repaired, or otherwise re-purposed. Recycling cans, bottles and paper is flawed logic. It only supports the same system of short-term consumables.

The approach for the future is not about making it work, it is about making it right. We will bear the burden of our decisions. No one can escape this. Really they can, and people’s memories tend to be short, so they are abused and taken advantage of time and again. Some people pursue this path, they create havoc, reap the rewards and then move on to the next opportunity. The reality of this situation, is that eventually, there will be no more undiscovered country. By then, they will have made their money, in reality public debt, and have achieved the comfortable life they have sought. They didn’t directly kill or harm people, so there cannot possibly be anything to regret. They were just “doing business”, “following orders”, “working for a living”, “feeding their family”, or “doing what everyone else was doing”. Acting through paper, rather than getting your hands dirty, does not avail you to a clear conscious. Guilt is not inherent in people, it is learned, and if there is no other mechanism to guide your decisions (morals, etc.) then the only recourse is physical action against you to cease your activity. Civilization has recently, and most often historically, been about providing an opportunity for a few to leverage the work of many for their own benefit. Deception, lies, and violence have been used to achieve these ends. The use of force disguised as a “force of protection” for the community is in reality a force for regulating the community through the enforcement of administrative regulation. Law stands above these and requires justice. Justice is not fines, fees, incarceration, or the relinquishment of freedom.

Look at your actions and try to make it right by taking the time when you are working to achieve.

The development of creation stems from the branches of growth, destruction, process, definition, creativity, need, desire, and consumption. We have been led and taught to believe that all of these things are somehow counter to living and the changing existence we refer to as life on this planet.

Building, machining, sculpting, forming, stacking, and bending materials to provide for human needs has existed as an activity since our inception. The world provides the necessary structure for us to achieve and strive. We excel in changing forms, from minute to minute and day to day. We create needs and demands to force our adaptation and maintained interest.

We are also taught that matter is neither created nor destroyed. However, contrary to that, we are presently taught that our resources are diminishing and that we consume too much, we waste energy, and that the planet suffers under the cycle of conversion from one form of material to another. It is more than likely that we create materials and products that greatly exceed the typical life-cycle of materials found naturally. The question becomes one of time and renewal.

In reality, energy and matter are converted, changed, merged, fused and expended in our lives. It is the process by which food is ingested, digested, and processed through the body system. This is the process for all living systems. We have unfortunately not learned the lessons of the millions of years of adaptive process developed by other systems on this planet. We create materials that cannot be processed effectively for their structure. We create foods that no longer provide any benefit to the body system. We create materials that are toxic to living species, including our own. We infuse our structures with materials that do not endure and require active maintenance.

Our process is developed by a variety of factors. Economy, availability, social demands, personal desire and profit. When balanced, these factors are not counter to viability, sustained progress and evolutionary product development. Counter to the belief in abundance and intelligent use, is the idea of loss. Loss is preceded by consumption and the perception that consumption engenders loss or lack.

What we have failed to learn is the entire process and consequences of our activity because we have divided the consequence from the utilization. There is no opportunity cost for having chosen one action, product or process over another. The creation process is allocated to one field, production to another, distribution to another, consumption to another, and waste management (post-processing) to a final. Each field lies separate from the other, and yet the actions of each is felt by the total population. We are not running out of anything. We are just not finding materials in the form that easily provides for our needs and rapid processing. We have water, metals, oil, wood, land, vegetation, air, and sunlight. They have not gone away.

The economic costs have just risen because we have spoiled the pot from which we take our needs for the appearance of success. Commercial success will not feed the soul, it will not house humanity’s continuity, and it will not purify our mistakes. No amount of perceived value, which is all the concept of ‘money’ is, will save us from our ignorance. It is a perception of value that is created by trust between ‘authorities’ and ‘consumers’ who deceive each other in to believing that each is in control of their economies. The true demands of the marketplace are often driven by locality and culture. Operating a successful venture depends heavily on sourcing, efficient processing, and a customer base that perceives value in your product and are willing to exchange their medium of value (money) for your labor and costs.

The new economy will be finding the means to process the materials and sources we have taken and converted. We are running out of virgin material, for now. The renewal process takes time and it seems we are too impatient to wait it out or to find alternate means for our success. We have been framed onto a runaway train, and mislead to believe that we cannot change direction. That is not truth. Change happens instantly. Change is choice. Choose with knowledge and understanding. You will discover an everlasting supply for generations to come.

Managing a project requires the vision, or sometimes the sense to know and understand what must be done to move a project to successful completion. Lists don’t work (to do’s are just an opportunity to write it down and sort it in your mind) as they do not provide the visibility and relational nature of multi-tasks. You need a visual reminder in your workspace that you refer to constantly to direct and update your work plan or process diagram. So my suggestions are as follows:

1. Make files and not piles. Make a binder, label the outside, use dividers (even if they are not labeled, where you use colors to remember what section holds which information). This makes information available readily and repeatably. You save time not looking for something over and over.

2.Get some blank calendars, you can find Excel templates online, or make one. Sit down with some colored pens/highlighters (assign a color to either a task or project) and fill in the days leaving a day at the end for each project to wrap up loose ends. Plan for 30-60-90 days, depending. Use a common calender and put it someplace visible that you can see everyday. If you want to take it with you, scan it to a pdf, tif, or png file and then print it double sided with two pages per side. This is a one page three month planner that you can put a copy of in each project folder and won’t have to worry about losing.

3. Breathe regularly, take walks.

4. Use post-its for same day emergency actions or put them on the page or in the material you will need to do something with containing whatever notes or starter information is relevant.

5. At the beginning of a project, make a contact sheet of people, numbers, email, etc. If you like Outlook, then use tools to organize people into project groups (it gets easier the more you do it).

6. If you do the same type of work, it might be worth making a high-level checklist of the steps/processes that need to take place for completion and success. Put a copy in each folder right up front, or inside the clear sleeve in the front or back of a 3-ring binder so you can see it without opening the binder. This will help you outline dates (which you can use the page for by working back from the finish date) by putting in the number of days for each task.

7. Put things away. When you are not actively working on something, get it off your desk and on the shelf/in the file. This will clear clutter and your mind. “First things first”

8. Keep supplies in one place. It always distracts from work when you have to go look for something you’re sure you have and just can’t find. Big waste of time. This also applies to your computer. Come up with a simple folder structure that gets you what you need in 3-clicks or less. Make a shortcut for each project on your desktop for active projects only.

9. If you can, find out if any of your date deadlines can be completed early. Waiting on others is just an excuse for enjoying company down time. If a critical piece of information is held by a single person, then maybe they need to do the task. Make your schedule fit your time demands and not necessarily the project schedule.

10. If you are tied to email as your primary form of communication and rely on computer software to organize your life, then take the time to learn and use the full functions of the software. If the phone is your friend, then keep a small notebook (3x5 or 5x7) to carry with you to take notes when you are away from the office. It acts as both a log and easy to use resource for making sketches-diagrams-figures that you can scan and email to people if the need arises.

Good luck and plan well.

Structures are behavior deployed utilizing a strategy to optimize for interaction in a particular environment. In short, structures are made to survive. We often think of structures in terms of the physical objects in the world. These are buildings, organisms, vehicles, and the matter that make up the many wonderful elements that we are blessed with. It is truly a wonder to have so many differing structures that can be manipulated, combined, and placed together with such beneficial results to our own survival. We have other structures, discovered and re-discovered by humanity, that develop from our minds and varied experience. We have languages and the construct semantics that embody ideas, strategies and methods for expressing a behavior or desired response.

Language is perhaps our greatest structure. This single structure provides the means for knowledge to be leveraged among large groups and resources. We define a structure whose common understanding and expression provides us the foundation to our highest arts and methods. We develop codified actions, beliefs, and strategy for achieving reproducible results. This is our science. Science is an expression of a belief structure and is no more real than any other belief structure. Perception is a part of the belief structure, and with some structures we have developed a sense, sometimes a feeling, for what structures are correct and will be capable of enduring. Structures that ‘ring true’ will endure and survive change through their robust nature and adaptive qualities that encompass a vast range of demands.

Our structures must endure the environment, our use of them, and the challenges from competing structures that vie for position in our consciousness and social structures. They must contain principles that are functional, reproducible, and robust to perform in their particular environment or realm of action. We use language, symbols, and defined constructs to define what we feel to be truths of our experience. A ‘column’ behaves as such and exhibits the response mechanisms to the loading under which a column is defined and expressed. If it were to be and do otherwise, it would be expressed and defined differently than it presently is.

One of the weaknesses of language is the ease with which its meanings can be manipulated by cultural mandates that redefine fundamental elements that have the test of survival emboddied. We make way for these new expressions of our structure, our very foundation, by making commentary regarding the ‘antiquated’ state of a particular meaning. We often detract from the semantic strength of a structure by belittling it relevance. We ‘know better’ in the present. Most people lack the understanding of principles and forego any past knowledge for their present perceptions. They have not come to leverage the history of meaning. We build structures to endure. To do otherwise is a waste of our energy and resources.

The present adaptation and application of language looks not to the past, and only to the immediate future. Our goal seems to make meaning that is ephemeral and relevant to only a few individuals for the sole benefit of personal recognition. Our vast archive of structures need to be considered and incorporated into the future. We cannot be lazy or indifferent in our understanding of the many structures that have been utilized by humanity. Unique structures that embody fundamental principles have the potential to survive the many demands of the present social and environmental expressions.

Structures are our records and the embodiment of our many cultures. We cannot fail to understand what structure is and how to make a proper structure to define our human experience.

What we do is often just as important as how we do them. There are obviously a number of ways to achieve a goal or plan. To the moon and back is a way to cross the street, and often the journey provides all the benefit, while the destination just provides closure.

We are often provided, through education or agreement, the structure under which we may operate to achieve our goals and plans. This begins in the home, continues in the formal education structure, and endures in the world of the employed. Now, when you are employed, it is based upon an agreement with another entity, whether it be a person, company or government. You and they have agreed to interact within a given framework that is supposedly beneficial to both parties. It is an exchange of labor for a means to transact trade within the larger community. You are being paid in accordance to your acts, skills, and perceived efforts. The payment varies in each country, and it is often a currency of exchange valued according to some principle agreed upon by the government, financial, and manufacturing industries. All mediums of exchange are just agreements made when operating in the realm under which the medium has authority. Take your medium to another realm and it has a different value.

Value is not only the perception of things, it is the perception of actions. Achieving something with the least amount of effort has value to some people. It is a perception that becomes embossed upon the minds of people who are educated in the present age (I don’t agree we are the ‘modern’ age). Another element to achievement that holds great value to some people is repeatability. Doing something once may be incredible and holds its place historically. Performing an act repeatidly provides the opportunity for gain through mass appeal.

Mass appeal and mass markets are the present standard for operations and the structures by which acts are achieved. Employees get compensated to achieve the same tasks on a daily basis. No long term account is held for these acts and they are forgotten as soon as they are performed. The act is the yield and the history of acts fails to provide any present value. We are told not to value the past, not to cherish our acts, and to seek to perform better in the future. We cannot help but do better if the conditions are the same as the past, for we now have the power of knowledge to leverage our present actions against. So clearly, forgetting past acts is a hinderance that leaves us with no lever upon which to improve ourselves and our actions.

Structures that involve defining the realm of our actions and operations are often defined to maximize yield and not secure the past actions. We are forever on the wheel unable to recognize when the past has returned. We have structures that regulate our actions in every form of our public lives. These structures regulate how we move, where we travel, what we eat, what we drink, where we get present information, where our monies are spent, what our homes are like, what our children will know, who we will elect to guide us (don’t laugh or cry too hard at this one), and any other number of actions that we want to do. Some acts we choose to do, and others we act in response to. These are the response mechanisms of the operational systems under which we act. Start your day and ask:

• Am I rested? Why am I choosing not to be?
• What am I eating for breakfast? Is it sufficient and healthy? Why not?
• What shall I wear or adorn myself with today? Is it comfortable and expressive of who I am?
• Is this the path I want to take to my work? Is this the best time to go?
• How do I do my tasks? Is it my choice? Do I know a better way?
• Is this how I choose to be treated and to treat other people? Why do I treat others the way I do?
• Is my work complete for the day and am I satisfied? If not, why not? Is it my own dissatisfaction or somone else’s?
• Is my life outside of work structured for me to act freely? Is my family free to act and operate? Do I bring other non-relevant realms and structures into my home for my family to operate under and did they agree to it?

Structures provide many benefits and convenience. The structures of operational methods and techniques allow for repeatible acts to be achieved in a consistent manner. In fact, this is the whole underlying priciple of ‘Science’ and the ‘scientific method’. Structures are also embedded in the things that we refer to as ‘tools’ and ‘toolsets’ in either a physical or electronic form. These efforts are just the codification or dogmatic isolation of a set of beliefs, acts, and materials. The world constructs many tools and methods for achieving repeatability, convenience, and mass appeal. The principles allow institutions to train, educate, and provide experience in a controlled method that can be shared across many platforms and locations around the world. It is the means of industrial revolution. This provides equal opportunity, though not necessarily equal access, to convenient services, equipment and goods.

We presently indoctrinate our children and adults of cultures unfamiliar with our operational structures with the benefits of convenience without explaining the agreement to which they are making. All agreements bare a cost that sometimes is not worth paying. Our costs are paid based upon our past acts and the account upon which we rely. That account is now empty and we cannot afford to pay for the agreement any more. Other people joining the operation structure have no history upon which to leverage their present actions. Their medium of exchange hold little or no value in our realm.

Plainly, the present American market method is an agreement that does not translate across this world. Our structures are based upon an agreement made with our resources, people and history. If the conditions are not the same, and we have learned nothing to leverage our future acts, then the wheel that is our ‘American dream’ will crush and exhaust all those who try to ride its benefits without understanding and baring its costs. We used to value our history, we used to value our families, we used to support our community business and now we just blame them. We forget the acts and just recall the feeling. We have no longer learned to leverage and cherish our actions. Art and creation are just commodities that have left behind their inspiration and historical mark for the convenience and feeling of equality best expressed in a socialist democracy. Operations and structure surely provide a temporary relief from the feeling of fear and insecurity regarding the unknown and choosing to act.

These strategies and methods are not the only way to live. They are not the best way to live and they certainly will no lead us anywhere except to the next rung of the wheel.

If you are going to ask for a business to provide you a price based upon specific requirements within a limited time and with a skeletal information structure, then provide them with action. When something is bid and the deadline comes and goes, award. Do not string people along on your intentions.

If you are shopping, make sure your intentions are know. Cash flow is more relevant during a period of slow activity. Businesses cannot afford to waste their cash and effort on unfunded intent. People are not relying on your money to make it day to day. People are relying on forecasting to spend money. If your information is bad, then their information is bad, and so on.

Marketplaces work on purchases, and not promises. If you have not secured your monies, then do not offer them up to others as work. All of the leveraged intent and promises of growth and return have provided a mentality that operates on just-in-time actions with the cost of services inflated to make up for poor planning and execution. Make an effort not to contribute to the problem in your own practices.