George Carlin was an American comic who died in 2008 at the age of 71.  Carlin had a long career as a stand-up comic.  Toward the end of that career he became increasingly concerned about America’s direction, and his later appearances focused on the excesses of American politics and culture.  

On three consecutive nights I had dreams in which I sat down and interviewed Carlin.  They were detailed, vivid and strangely morose and humorous at the same time.  Carlin on the first night was wearing a bunny outfit.  He was dressed as a big white furry bunny, with a fuzzy tail and big lop ears.  Even stranger was it somehow made sense, and I never asked him about it.  What follows are the notes I took of the conversation when I awoke.

Q:  how are you?  What is the afterlife like?  And why are you and I sitting here conducting this interview?

Carlin:  You might want to hone your interview skills a bit.  Those three questions cover a lot of ground.  How about we focus on one at a time? (Carlin’s eyebrows stretch high as he says this, highlighting the glaringly obvious interview gaffe I have just made)

Q:  I always liked that when you would bug your eyes out and raise your eyebrows after making an obvious point during your stand-up routine.  It dramatized the point you were making and underscored the irony in that unique Carlin-esque way.

Carlin:  Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me about me, the ‘me’ that is dead and has now had ample opportunity to review my life.  (eyebrows are up again)

Q:  Are you ever out of character?  I mean, even now as we sit here, with no audience, you seem to be doing your schtick anyway.

Carlin:  Is dead out of character?  I think it is.  But hey, you said it.  Irony does well on either side of the curtain.

Q:  So, speaking of “the other side.”  How are you now?

Carlin:  I am actually quite similar to the way I was before.  I’m still funny as hell, or so other souls tell me.  I am still quite cynical.  And I still marvel at the plight of America, only now it is more of a fascination with the details about how people anesthetize themselves to the obvious plight of the country.

Q:  what you called, “swirling the drain?”

Carlin: Circling the drain….Yeah, the slow yet now accelerating decline that is characterized by pulverizing stupidity, an almost suicidal penchant for overconsumption of carbohydrates that make people fat, and endless diversions that contribute pretty much nothing to the betterment of the species.  Other than that everything seems to be perfect.

Q:  ok, I want to come back to that, because I am curious as to what you now know that could help us out, especially since you have now “crossed over.”  But first, share some of your afterlife experiences.

Carlin:  What I know now?  Excuse me, but what I know now is exactly when I knew then, which nobody seemed to know was true…know what I mean?  (George is now grinning ear-to-ear, because he has delivered this in his trademark staccato machine-gun style of rapid fire facts.)

Q:  uh…

Carlin:  Ok, first your “afterlife” question about what that is like…Well, I always wanted to be 12 feet tall and invisible, and now I am.  Or at least in my mind I am, which isn’t really true either.  You don’t really have your own mind here; after death you leave your body behind, which is actually quite nice.  I don’t have to floss and clip toenails anymore, and my bunions were kind of bothersome.  Though I do miss the gallons of ganja I inhaled.

Q:  No mind of your own?

Carlin:  Yeah, it’s kind of like America, only smarter.

Q:  So with no mind, and no body, what is left?

Carlin:  Your essence.  And I know that is an abstraction, which people in the west seem to hate, but it is what it is.  It is beyond the world you are familiar with, the world of form and content.

Q:  so, how are you and I communicating?

Carlin:  hey, I died, I didn’t become God.  I don’t have all the answers.  And this is your dream.  You explain it.  You have the burden of proof.

Q:  I’m not sure I can do that.  But dreams happen.  I mean, everyone has them.  Scientists have proved that we have dream states.  My question is about how this communication is happening.  I can’t explain it.  But it is happening.  I am experiencing this.

Carlin:  of course you are.  And so am I.  The fact that scientists have verified dreams doesn’t matter.  The majority of the world’s credible scientists have evidence of global warming, but the kooky right-wing conservatives deny it’s veracity. Just this past week the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, a group that doubts climate science, surprised the science-deniers by corroborating previous research. I don’t think that will matter much. That’s something true about America; while the facts are interesting, in the end they don’t matter much.

Q:  how can you say that?  America leads the world.  We are a beacon of freedom to millions.  Our way of life is the envy of most of the world.

Carlin:  No, No and No.  Geez, now I sound like the politicians.  You think you lead the world.  You don’t.  While you may be a beacon to some, I don’t think it is virtuous to brag about third-world citizens fleeing grinding poverty and political repression.  And by the way, you have your own political repression, only it is much more subtle, sinister and pernicious.  So much so that your own citizens either don’t recognize it or are in denial about it.  And no, you aren’t the envy of most of the world.  Have you traveled to Europe lately?  They don’t wish to have the American way of life.  Just ask them.

America is the sole remaining industrialized nation that has not made a political commitment to acknowledge global warming and do something about it.  Think about that wall of denial.  I think it’s Denmark that has a 200 year plan for flooding that they have in place as a response to the rising sea levels that they have projected as a consequence to global warming.  They have spent billions.  They are preparing.  In America?  You argue and have food fights about whether it’s happening.

The American infrastructure generally is crumbling.  But instead of investing in that, the empire building goes on across the globe, with literally trillions spent on weapons systems and war efforts.  It’s sad.

Q:  hold it.  That’s just plain wrong.  I can cite many examples of how America leads and how our way of life is superior.

Carlin:  America leads in terms of Imperialism.  With over 250 military installations around the world, you have no equal.  America leads in supplying weapons and arms to the rest of the world.  America leads in defense spending, because that makes profits for the war machine that none of you even question, because you live in a culture dripping with fear.  Too bad, because that is exactly the kind of spending that bankrupts and brings down nations.

Even on scales of world rank on numerous items, America has fallen behind.  In measures of upward mobility, which is the likelihood that a person can rise to higher socioeconomic levels, America has dropped to 12^th among industrialized nations.  That’s like Sweden ranking 12^th in Swedish meatballs.

Q:  Hey, that’s a Bill Maher joke!

Carlin:  Yeah it is, I ripped off Maher on that one.  You can get away with that here.

And speaking of getting ripped off, America leads in ripping people off.  Your own Academy Awards gave the best documentary award to “Inside Job” by Charles Ferguson.  That movie exposed the reasons for the financial collapse, primary of which was deregulation and a lack of oversight of the financial industry.  Get this; tens of TRILLIONS of dollars were lost in that debacle, and not a single person went to jail.  Why?  Because the political system is corrupt, from top to bottom, and that corruption is sustained and condoned by politicians that have included George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  The stench of corruption goes to both sides of the aisle, and in this case the aisle is more like a sewer.

Try ripping off the local convenience store and see if anyone reacts to that.  The local newspaper is all over that.  But guys in suits on Wall Street?  Nobody touches that.  Obama’s poster boy Tim Geithner was hip-deep in the mess, and he is a big deal in your government.  I guess having the fox guard the henhouse works for America.  Or some in america.  Do you mind if I don’t capitalize it?  It seems out of character.  It might even raise an eyebrow if someone saw that I continued to capitalize it.

Q:  Funny.  But this is a dream.  No one is gonna see whether or not you capitalize America.

Carlin:  Exactly.  And no one in America is gonna care what I say about it either.  They didn’t before and they won’t now.  They are too busy being distracted and scared about some contrived boogeyman somewhere.  (The current flavor of the month is Quaddifi.) Or watching “Jersey Shores.”  Or eating at the mall after running up the credit card.  …they are getting on with the american dream.

Like the song says, “logic and proportion have fallen softly dead” in america.

Q:  George, you sound bitter.

Carlin:  Yeah, but it’s all a dream, right?  Everything is forgotten in the morning.

Or is it?

That is to say, how well do you understand things?

If understanding and meaning are proving to be somewhat elusive for you, there is a good chance you are doing just fine.  That is the good news.

The flip side is that you may be feeling somewhat isolated.  And that can be disconcerting.

According to George Herbert Mead, the individual mind can exist only in relation to other minds with shared meanings.   So if you aren’t connecting, maybe that is a good thing.

With that in mind, I am prescribing to anyone feeling adrift some therapeutic exercise time on Facebook.   This may cause you to feel very good about yourself.

If this post is confusing to you…good.  Construct your own reality around it.  Better yet, construct it with one of your Facebook connections.

Here are just a few things I have heard recently that were humorous to me. Perhaps you will enjoy one or two as well.

1. This first one comes from a college football television sports announcer:

‘you know, offensive players love going into halftime with a lead.’

Really? You don’t say? They like to have a lead? And I wonder how the defensive players from that same team feel about it?

2. this is a comment from my friend, after I told him my 93 year-old mother had recently started wandering the halls after bedtime, knocking on fellow residents’ doors at her assisted-living home:

‘hey, I bet those other folks like getting a visitor. You should celebrate this.’

my buddy almost always finds a creative way to look at things.

3. An acquaintance, after the recent news about The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers on the brink of collapse:

‘newspapers are f______ 8-track tapes.’

‘old industries don’t die, they just fade away.’

4. the same acquaintance, after a recent blogpost by Dallas Mavericks owner and all-around crazy guy Mark Cuban (ok, maybe he’s not crazy- how about annoying?) that offered his ideas to save the newspaper industry. Cuban feels NBA basketball teams like his need newspapers , so he suggests that professional sports teams pay the sportswriter’s salaries, which would reduce costs to the newspaper:

‘That will never work. The newspaper industry is a dead man walking.’

‘maybe Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean could also say a few prayers for the industry’

5. Remember the incident in Minneapolis last November at a Minnesota Gophers vs. Iowa Hawkeyes football game? Around halftime a man and woman were caught having sex in a bathroom stall. And apparently a crowd had gathered to cheer the two trysters on. Turns out the deed-doing duo consists of one 38 year-old married female and one 26 (at the time) year-old male who has a girlfriend.

After the incident, the husband of the woman said that ‘he felt bad he let his wife go to the bathroom by herself before halftime, and that he ‘didn’t realize how bad off she was.’

That was probably an awkward ride home.

‘People, people…where are your boundaries?‘

The column below is from Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Friedman is the author of “The World is Flat” and “Hot, Flat and Crowded.”

Op-Ed Columnist
How to Fix a Flat
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Last September, I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning. They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?” If we give you another $25 billion, will you also do accounting?

How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers.

This included striking special deals with Congress that allowed the Detroit automakers to count the mileage of gas guzzlers as being more than they really were — provided they made some cars flex-fuel capable for ethanol. It included special offers of $1.99-a-gallon gasoline for a year to any customer who purchased a gas guzzler. And it included endless lobbying to block Congress from raising the miles-per-gallon requirements. The result was an industry that became brain dead.

Nothing typified this more than statements like those of Bob Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman. He has been quoted as saying that hybrids like the Toyota Prius “make no economic sense.” And, in February, D Magazine of Dallas quoted him as saying that global warming “is a total crock of [expletive].”

These are the guys taxpayers are being asked to bail out.

And please, spare me the alligator tears about G.M.’s health care costs. Sure, they are outrageous. “But then why did G.M. refuse to lift a finger to support a national health care program when Hillary Clinton was pushing for it?” asks Dan Becker, a top environmental lobbyist.

Not every automaker is at death’s door. Look at this article that ran two weeks ago on autochannel.com: “ALLISTON, Ontario, Canada — Honda of Canada Mfg. officially opened its newest investment in Canada — a state-of-the art $154 million engine plant. The new facility will produce 200,000 fuel-efficient four-cylinder engines annually for Civic production in response to growing North American demand for vehicles that provide excellent fuel economy.”

The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.

Indeed, if and when they do have to bury Detroit, I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers. And no one has earned the “honor” of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator.

O.K., now that I have all that off my chest, what do we do? I am as terrified as anyone of the domino effect on industry and workers if G.M. were to collapse. But if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper.

“In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company … Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

I would add other conditions: Any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol.

Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.

I think the path to salvation for mankind is connected to our ability to tap into our unconscious. The final frontier is the human mind- not the sub-atomic world, and not space ‘out there’ extending for millions of light-years.

From where I sit, the path looks pretty long.

By the unconscious, I mean that (keep in mind I am a rank amateur who professes no expertise) part of the mind that consists of the warehouse of instincts, desires, repressed thoughts, past thoughts and memories, etc. that affect our conscious thoughts and feelings, often though we are unaware of these influences.

Recently, with a group of good friends, the tool we used to tap was wine. I can’t say that we made any significant discoveries, but it was fun trying.

The effort wasn’t about anything as lofty as salvation. Maybe salvaging is more accurate, as in salvaging or saving a relationship.

As we shared stories and asked questions of one another, I was reminded of this seemingly counterintuitive truth; many of our problems are self-created. And the ones that aren’t are never ‘solved’ by blaming others.

The essence of blaming is wasted energy. Actually, it may be more accurate to say that excessive blaming is wasted energy.

As we review our life problems, and the conflict in relationships, sorting out who did what and how the other persons’ actions or inactions were unsatisfactory- assignment of fault- is normal and perhaps useful to a point.

But it doesn’t take long before it becomes wasted energy. And often an exercise in ego protecting indulgence.

The answers for difficulties reside inside us. For me, it seems like scouring my own behavior is usually the best place to start.

And I have been guilty of some doozies over the years. I have made mistakes. Plenty of them. My treatment of others has been at times shameful, both in commission and omission.

Wish I could take them back. But I can’t.

So it seems like learning why is a useful effort. And I think our unconscious holds the information that can inform and instruct. But we don’t know how to go there, are too afraid to go there (is real self-knowledge something to be feared?) or we lounge lazily in that garden of perennial delight, the blame place.

All roads (or nearly all) lead back to us.

Did you come from a family that didn’t provide the necessary ‘tools’ for life? Did they provide enough to make you strong? Or were things cold and distant? Were you ignored? In what ways were you told- maybe not overtly, but the message was there- that you were unimportant? Were boundaries weak? Were there substance problems? Did you have valuable role models, or was that missing?

For those reading this who can claim, correctly, that you were provided everything you needed- good for you.

There seems to be, however, a number of ways we reach adulthood without the tools we need. Those gaps show up in the crucible of relationship development. Sometimes they are critical deficits that bring down primary relationships, like marriages.

I am not suggesting self-blame as a solution. I am saying that wounding we experience as children from incorrect or inappropriate messages we receive (and perhaps beyond) can sometimes hinder our ability to problem-solve and overcome difficulties in our relationships. We often interpret these things as faults of the other person. Indeed, many times there is truth- or some degree of it- to that interpretation. But as a path to meaningful progress, this is not a satisfactory way. We need to look deeply at our own culpability. Bailing out with “he/she did it” is a shallow, incomplete solution. When we dig deep, we make discoveries.

The road to interpreting these things leads back to us. Find out how to do that. You will do less blaming, and more growing.

For good information about the unconscious and the richness it can provide for your life, go to THE authoritative source- Carl Jung. There’s a reason why The Beatles put him on their album (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and why Sting refers to him on The Police album Synchronicity.

I will close with this little gem about ‘blaming’ from Eva Pierrakos and Judith Saly in their book Creating Union:

When people whose spiritual development is on different levels are involved with one another, it is always the more highly developed person who is responsible for the relationship. Specifically, that person is responsible for searching the depths of the interaction which creates any friction and disharmony between the parties.

The less developed person is not as capable of such a search, being still in a state of blaming the other and depending on the other’s doing “right” in order to avoid unpleasantness or frustration. Also, the less developed person is always caught up in the fundamental error of duality. From his or her perspective any friction is seen in terms of “only one of us is right.” A problem in the other automatically seems to whitewash this person, although in reality his or her own negative involvement may be infinitely more weighty than the other person’s.

The spiritually more developed person is capable of realistic, non-dualistic perception. That person may see that either one of you may have a deep problem, but that does not eliminate the importance of the possibly much lesser problem of the other one. The more developed one will always be willing and able to search for his or her own involvement whenever he or she is negatively affected, no matter how blatantly at fault the other may be. A person of spiritual and emotional immaturity and crudeness will always put the bulk of the blame on the other. All this applies to any kind of relationship: mates, parents and children, friendships, or business contacts.”

Does packaging ever frustrate you? It seems like it could be done better. So many items are, well, nearly out of reach. Or at least beyond easy accessibility. Or just poorly executed.

I consider myself a fairly strong guy. I have big hands, and I can tell you that I sometimes need all that strength to get things open. I don’t know how folks without a strong grip do it.

Other things are difficult in other ways.

Here are a few things that are harder to open than they should be:

1. teeth whitening strips- wow, where are they? it’s like someone decided to give them their own special kind of camouflage. Come on, manufacturer, with just a little effort these could come out of hiding. Don’t be bashful. We want you. We bought you, didn’t we?

2. string cheese- what the hell? Ok, the idea to pull apart the wrapping makes perfect sense, but the part where you (the manufacturer) fail to do your part- namely, to make the two different sides in a way I can grab onto…what gives? The packaging sure doesn’t.

I have two requests with these. I’m not asking for much:

a. I want to see the two sides, preferably without an electron microscope.

b. I want to be able to grip them without having to flick, flick, flick, flick, flick (unsuccessfully) at two wafer-thin pieces of plastic until the cheese molds before my eyes.

3. new shirts- does there have to be 35 stick pins in these?

4. cd’s- don’t even attempt these without a tool. No wonder sales are off. Sure, the wide availability of downloads is the main reason, but this packaging isn’t helping.

5. how about those plastic covers that entomb things like, oh, staplers, a new mouse for your computer, a kitchen faucet, those types of things? These plastic covers are like WORK baby. You need a Skilsaw to get into your stapler-mouse-faucet-whatever thingy. It’s like a gym workout. You need to shower afterwards.

6. how about those bags with shredded cheese? They often have a ‘peel this strip back’ design that gets you to the main zipper opening. But all too often the ‘peel this strip back’ antecedent is a disaster. You pull at the spot where it says, and the plastic gets all mucked up. I now just start with a scissor.

7. pop cans- ever notice that these cannot be opened without that one or two drop splatter? I want that fixed. Come on, we built Alcatraz and Guantanamo…we should be able to contain that renegade pop drop.

8. cereal box/bag combos- 35 years of Fruit Loops (or is it Froot?) and still no better way to split that bag at the top? Geez, ask an intern. What, is there some kind of calculation that says a million boxes opened poorly that lead to spilled contents means buyers return to the grocery store quicker?

I know there are many more but I would like you, the reader, to now weigh in on this weighty topic. Come on people, vent.  Rip this subject open!

Quick, it’s almost Thanksgiving. (oh yeah…that wire harness around the turkey’s legs!…man you almost need the jaws of life to sever that piece of steel)

I know how you can make a million dollars. Make that a billion. I have a billion dollar business idea.

And you don’t have to send me $29.99 to learn more. I will just tell you.

When you go to get your hair cut, they often wash your hair, right?

That massaging of the scalp during the wash and rinse is my favorite part. It is heaven.

It rivals sex. I like it better than a conventional massage, the back and body type.

Ok, so….offer THAT as a service. The head massage. Add it to the list of other items, along with a cut, a perm, color, what have you. That is my billion dollar idea.

I have shared this sunburst of insight with my stylist. She likes the idea. Or at least likes it enough to say, “yeah, that’s a good idea.” Maybe what she actually likes is having me as a customer, because thus far she hasn’t added the head massage to her list of services.

Maybe she is afraid to tell me it isn’t such a great idea, fearing I may not take the rejection well and would leave her. I don’t know. I think I will ask her the next time she delivers one of those orgasmatrons of head-massaging pleasure.

I imagine the conversation going like this: (names, uh.. the name has been changed to protect Carol’s identity. All IQ’s remain the same, however)

Me: Mary, remember you said you liked my head-massage idea?

Mary: Uh, yeah.

Me: Well, I was thinking. If you agree it’s a good idea, why don’t you do it?

Mary: Uh, I don’t know.

Me: Ok. That’s hard to argue with. And to understand.

Mary: Huh?

Me: Never mind.

Mary: Whatever.

Now, I believe massage therapists offer this service but I am told that they don’t do it while washing your hair. So, there is no water and lather to make it just right. I understand that when they do the head massage it is actually noisy, as the human head of hair is a veritable deafening instrument to the possessor of that head when said head is rubbed vigorously without the necessary lubricating ingredients.

If my stylist doesn’t move on this idea soon I am going to take action. I am going to schedule a massage with a massage therapist and I will bring along some shampoo.

This may just be a marketing issue.

A few quick queries for you to consider……

What do you secretly dream?

What would you do if you were brave?

What controls your choices?

What would you be like at full potential?

Take out a pen or pencil and describe your authentic self.

What is your capacity for love?

What have you learned from life?

Step back from things.

Way back. Climb up above.

Like gazing out the window of an airplane, see the entire landscape below.

Not what is happening at work. Not the latest story about some celebrity. Not the latest political food fight.

What this post is about are the THREE BIG TRENDS that I see affecting everything.

Those three large scale phenomena are as follows:

1. globalization

2. increasing complexity

3. information overload

These things are re-shaping the world we live in. They have been pointed out before. In one way, shape or form these things have been described and written about previously. Nonetheless, they are turning our lives upside down and inside out.

Globalization is fairly obvious. Examples abound. We can now communicate with people virtually anywhere, anytime, in a manner we couldn’t have dreamed of just a few years back.

The internet functions as a kind of world-wide telephone, only better. Information exchange now occurs on a huge scale. People who would have never connected just a few years ago now can. This makes for a much more complex and interconnected network. More people, more contact opportunities, more idea exchanges, all contributing to an information base that heretofore could not have been possible.

The most significant trend on the globalization front is the interconnection of economies. This is the development that I believe will push the most change. As markets become more intertwined, look for the very concept of the nation-state to begin eroding. Nationalism and patriotism notwithstanding, shared economies are the ‘trump card.’ My prediction is that within 100 years this will change the whole notion of ‘my country.’ Like it or not (and just the thought of this probably sends some folks into apoplectic rage) I believe it is inevitable.

I was listening to a Nobel prize-winning astro-physicist on public radio a few months back- I can’t remember his name, but if anyone reading this blog knows it, please share- and his views on this topic were fascinating. He described a kind of typology of planets, and he said earth was at something like a level 2, but we were soon to reach a level 3. In his address, which I only heard part of, he said that the internet, speaking english as a world language, and a global economy were key factors that would take us to the next level. The interconnection that these things would bring would contribute to a kind of elevated world intelligence. This would in turn allow us to make continuing scientific and technological leaps, such as proving string theory, (sometimes referred to as the unified theory, bringing together the previous gaps between the subatomic and atomic physical laws) and making new time and space discoveries that could perhaps allow time travel.

Needless to say, the guy was pretty interesting. And since he was a nobel-prize winner, I assumed he wasn’t some crackpot. He went on to say that he had been asked what era or time period he would most like to live in, and he said his response was right now, since he believes we are right at the cusp of some of the most fantastic discoveries in history.

He also said one thing threatening this advance was global terrorism.

Increasing complexity is next on the hit parade.

The progeny of all the new connections that are now possible is increased and increasing complexity. I believe we are experiencing right now a manifestation of that complexity in the financial markets. It is such a vast, interconnected and complex dynamic that no one really understands what is going on or what can happen or how to best remedy the situation.

I think a real danger with respect to increasing complexity is the opportunity for bad guys to take advantage of situations. In the political realm, I think this allows people to win arguments, elections, and exert influence by gaming the system. You don’t have to use facts honestly- you manipulate. You don’t have to have integrity- you take advantage when you can to maneuver things and situations that benefit your cause. Because things generally move so fast, change so often, and with unrelenting pace- the average joe checks out. We collectively shell-out, or give up trying to sort out, uncover, discover. Finding out the real story, the ‘truth,’ is left to a few people. That is often the media, and they seem to be more interested in “balanced coverage”- kind of splitting things down the middle- than in real journalism. That kind of “60 Minutes” scouring of people/events to reveal who is playing fast and loose with the truth is apparently too expensive or too uncomfortable for media conglomerates that have big advertisers and owners with vested interests.

In the competition between competing values, I believe economic considerations consistently defeat openness and transparency.

This leads to information overload. Increasing complexity, increasing population, increasing connections, improved technologies and more are creating a tsunami of information that is a kind of data frankenstein. And it is scary. And, I believe, a phenomenon that has far-reaching repercussions we are only tangentially aware of.

I suspect that this condition is changing us as a species. We are morphing- and I hope I am wrong about this- into a people that is somehow less sensitive, delicate and concerned with justice to something more coarse and tough and centered on power. It’s as if we are moving toward a Mad Max or Lord of the Flies world.

These changes happen slowly over time, but inexorably and unmistakably.

Today’s story is a short one. But I love this quote from the German philosopher/poet Goethe:

“Whatever you can do, or dream, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”