Before we delve into the depth of ideas I need to put up a little disclaimer. You see, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this subject myself. I have some on-going internal battles whether all ideas should be shared and/or to what extent. Perhaps it should be okay to keep some ideas to yourself? I don’t know. But if we widen our perspective from the rather narrow self-centred to a broader more fellow-being-greater-good type of perspective it makes very little sense to keep any idea secret.

Right now, as I write this there a lot of questions are popping up into my head and I’m having a difficult time keeping myself focused.

• Despite the fact that competition is part of human basic nature, could a collaborative mindset overcome this?
• Would society and economics as we know it still function in a society where sharing is paramount?
• What exactly are the incentives for innovation?

It’s the human nature

The Neuro Revolution

I’m currently reading a book called ‘The Neuro Revolution’ and they wrote one very interesting thing. While competition is part of human nature, nothing swings weight like collaboration. Through experiments it has been scientifically demonstrated that we are more creative and better thinkers when we collaborate.

Our society is very much built around the notion of scarcity and creating competing products. It has allowed for a somewhat diversified market where there are an abundance of products. Whether or not they are useful I’ll leave for you to decide. I honestly can’t judge whether this ‘abundance’ is a good or a bad thing. Would this alleged product abundance disappear if ideas were shared? I personally don’t think so but I can’t be sure.

In some industries, like the car-industry, we can pretty much only choose from petrol driven cars. I do realize that the last couple of years have brought us a few alternatives, hybrids, hybrid-plugin and pure electric cars. The electric car have been around for a good few decades, but it’s only now that it’s becoming a viable alternative through improvements in battery-technology and so forth. Still, the market is very much driven by a few big corporations, and they wield a massive amount of power.

I don’t know if an idea sharing society would be able to prevent these mega-corporations from getting a foot-hold in our society. My main problem with our economy today is that there is simply way too much money ‘stuck’ in companies. What’s the point of having lots of money if it’s not spent? I read somewhere that if we took the money of the top so-so-number of rich people every single person on earth would have one million pound each. Even if it’s not entirely accurate it’s still some pretty staggering numbers. Imagine if we combined this with the top companies I’m pretty darn sure that we could guarantee every person on earth a very good life indeed.

Industrial-espionage paranoia

One of the biggest problem facing innovation is that we are so very afraid of sharing our ideas with others, even our close friends. Suddenly we go all industrial-espionage paranoid and seem to think that everyone around us is out to steal our idea. As if most people aren’t already too self-absorbed. Steal your idea… right. I’ve not yet managed to reach my own conclusions regarding idea ‘hording’ but I’m starting to believe that too many ideas never see the light of day because we’re just too afraid someone might steal it.

Don’t for a second think that I’m not thinking this myself, I certainly do. But I’m trying to understand my motivations for doing so. What exactly am I afraid of and is it a reasonable fear? As humans we tend to greatly overestimate dangers and risks so in that regard I’m somewhat confident that my fear of sharing ideas is not necessary.

Why should we share our ideas?

I think one of the primary reasons of why we should share our ideas is because we couldn’t possibly act on all of them. So fine, let’s keep a few to ourselves, but we shouldn’t keep all of them. If we do they will only become a thing of our mind-history and eventually be forgotten. Even if we have to do some sort of transition into a society built to reward sharing, we need to find those transitional steps, and perhaps one could be to start sharing some of our ideas. But how do we effectively share and communicate our ideas.

Well, that’s where my portal comes into the picture. I won’t talk more about it here, but keep an eye on http://www.stay-open.com, the doors will open in December or January 2010. I’ll start talking more about this idea of mine soon and it really gets me excited!

Another reason for sharing is that we need to start trusting each other. My future ideal society is very much built around trust. Our current one, is not. You can see it at work or at home, the trust is just not there 100%. I guess it might be naive to believe that we could ever get a society built on 100% trust, but we should try to strive for it at least. In a society where trust becomes implicit idea sharing wouldn’t be a problem.

Oh, just thought of another reason of why we should share ideas. Not a single person on this earth have done absolutely everything themselves. We have to rely on other people. I’m definitely a victim of thinking that I can do everything myself. If I have an idea, I want to execute it myself entirely. Clearly it’s not worked out that well for me and yesterday I realized this. Obvious one might say, but it wasn’t for me. I felt I had to be in charge of absolutely everything.

Ops, the post is getting a bit long, I’ll stop now.

There I was on my way to the train station from work after yet another day of labour. While walking back it struck me that perhaps I’m approaching this whole guiding life purpose from the wrong angle. My usual approach in understanding things is to break them down into more manageable components. This has worked fairly well… actually, maybe not but sometimes it works well. Perhaps I should first begin with a simple experiment that require very little effort and action, but could potentially bring some powerful results. I don’t know, but have decided to try.

I’ve been trying to figure out my purpose without actually thinking about the context in which I want to apply the purpose. I’m lacking the reference frame. Today I thought that I should attempt to imagine my ideal life. How would I like to wake up? How would I like to approach my day? What would be my ideal routines and habits?

Pixie dream (mehmeturgut/devitantART)

As a wildly crazy and imaginative guy this is not all that strange to me, I’ve often drifted off into the far-away-land of dreams. What I’ve never consciously done before however is to dream about a life that I actually want to live. I don’t mean the kind of life where you walk around in a robe surrounded with bunnies, but a more authentic and real life. A life not rooted, or derived, from already existing societal ideals such as a shallow career driven by something that really doesn’t matter. (Sure, maybe some actually strive for that life, good for them, but I don’t.) I mean a life where I feel my desires are fulfilled and where genuine and authentic happiness is part of my daily routine.

Even from a scientific perspective this makes sense, even though I couldn’t even begin to explain the chemicals involved or their composition, but still. The content of our mind is a result of our own conscious construction. We choose what goes in and stays there. We give our thoughts meaning. We decide how to approach any given situation. I have mentioned in a previous post about the power of association which I find applies particularly well in this scenario. Associations in my mind are mine to create, no one else can do that. (Even though they can obviously influence me!)

Actually, I’m not even sure why I brought up the science here, it makes no sense, disregard. I’ll try and figure that out later, assuming this helps me, how science plays a part here I mean. Why would it help me to imagine an ideal life? How could that be explained through science? Maybe it can’t?

This is how I imagine my ideal life

I’m in love with learning and understanding how things function. When I began writing this blog I kind of already knew that reading and learning was a big part of me. But it was only when I started writing things down that it occurred to me how incredibly sexy learning is. Intellectual stimuli is pretty darn high up on the list of awesome things. Hence, my ideal life would be filled with books and opportunities to learn about anything and everything. Sure, I have that now too, but on a much more limited scale. I mean to be literally paid to learn and share.

My hours would not be determined by anyone but me. I would be the sole determinator (awesome word!) in how my day would be spent. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep should only be determined by choices I make alone, period.

I would want to share everything that I learn and hopefully inspire others to do the same. One of my most ambitious and long term goal would be to ‘advance’ the human race to a higher level of thinking. A time where communal knowledge generation is valued much more than individual knowledge hoarding. Sharing would be key in my society. Wisdom would be paramount.

The people around me would themselves be driven, engaging and full of ideas. A constant influx of new, fresh thinking should permeate my entire life. Together with my closet friends (I currently have none I would consider my close friend) we would create, innovate and drive society forward in a meaningful manner that benefits not just us, but everyone.

(Hey, this is my ideal life, so… I can do this!)

Then I would want to be able to leave, travel at any time when the mood strikes. To create, to express my emotions through music (I play the Piano, perhaps I should compose some music and upload?). To finally unwrap the drawing kit I got for x-mas a few years ago. To be able to do all those things I long for. A life without boundaries, only those I myself impose. To live like the earth. Constantly moving, constantly changing, evolving… living.

I do not wish to be trapped in this invisible cage. I want to break free from these chains. I need to.