We (humans) make lists.

1. Lots of lists.
2. We love lists.
3. We have lists of lists.
4. There are people who write about lists of lists; we also make lists of those people.

In this respect, the web has been both gift and curse. The immense popularity of Remember the Milk,  Stickies (in many formats), and Evernote makes it clear that we value tools for putting down on “paper” the things that we will do…someday. We make lists for just about everything:

• Buy lemons

  

  Hahahahahahahahahahaha

• Set up doctor’s appointment
• Pick up Jenny at airport 8/14
• Write thank you letter for Jamie
• Alec’s party
• WORK OFF THE HOLIDAY POUNDS (still valid in July)

Oftentimes these lists are things that will better our own lives or the lives of others. Here’s an example of the latter:

• Mail $25 to Heifer International
• Help start a small business in Kenya with The 1010 Project (plug for my old agency)
• Mentor a kid
• Send my old crutches to Crutches for Africa
• Talk to my nephew about his drug problem

And so on. Sometimes the banality of our list-driven world hits me very hard, like when I remember that I forgot (remember that I forgot?) to donate to the Red Cross. Oops, I’d better get on that! We make lists of lives to save.

It is all too easy to use lists as a convenient black hole. I once had a colleague who took copious notes, usually in the form of lists, during our department meetings. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that once an important action item made it onto one of his lists, it was effectively dead. His lists were black holes for things that he either didn’t want to do or that weren’t important.

How can we move past list abuse and get some stuff done, yo?

Photo from Flickr user Great Beyond. It’s a pretty funny picture. :)

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

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Pictures of the INCREDIBLE DESTRUCTION follow this post. I returned home the other night to find a series of Gchat messages from my mother; she likes Gchat. Here’s an excerpt (names changed for some reason):

I once wrote a poem recounting the family procedure during a tornado: put on shoes, grab a snack and the cordless radio, and run down into the basement. The punchline came when we emerged after the “all clear” to find Dad on the couch reading the newspaper. So for this storm, I knew it was bad when she said that my dad was concerned. If HE’S worried about the weather, you know it’s some pretty serious shit.

My mom has an extensive garden. She’s the chieftess of a CSA (community-supported agriculture), wherein people buy vegetables and chicken eggs from her every season. It’s all organic and biodynamic, and the shareholders get to know my mom and dad pretty well. It’s a sweet system. A storm like this is devastating. When I phoned them up afterwards, I jokingly said, “Well that’s farm life, isn’t it?” My mom’s wry comment was “Fun on the farm.” I know my folks, though, and contrary to what my mom’s message said, they’re not actually going to give up.

I had the unique opportunity to visit my home farm twice in the span of two weeks this summer. Even in that short span, I marveled at the enormous growth of the plants in the garden. I know that if I head home in a few weeks, I’ll have a hard time telling that the garden was beaten down by a storm (ignoring, of course, the destroyed fence, trees, and corn crib doors).

That’s the level of growth that happens “back on the farm”, and it’s one of the reasons that I love returning home. The tornado (more likely high winds) that hit the farm are troublesome, to be sure, but one of the lessons that you learn growing up on a farm is that setbacks occur. You have to persevere and work through them.

FARM POWER!

UPDATE: I spoke with my folks recently and they said that the garden is recovering well ahead of expectations. Like I said, my mom and dad are good at what they do. :)

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

PICTURES:

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I sent a friend an article by Deepak Chopra earlier today with the note “Read this – it’s a window into what is running through my mind all the time!” Chopra’s article was about the Higgs boson and its implications for billions of religious people the world over. Or at least, that’s what it started out being about. He goes on to talk about different view of quantum mechanics. You know, waves versus discrete states and superposition and all that good stuff that makes blood shoot from your nose if you think about it for too long. At one point, he talks a bit about how consciousness itself is capable (due to the relatively high gravity of the brainpan once you leave Planck space) of collapsing waveforms into observable pieces of reality. Whew.

Instead of the conventional view that consciousness emerges from complex computation among brain neurons, they [the scientists in question] propose that consciousness involves sequences of quantum computations in microtubules inside brain neurons, not between them in the dendrites and synapses. The quantum computations in the brain are also ripples in fundamental spacetime geometry, the most basic level of the universe.

At time’s beginning

that beauty

which polished creation’s mirror

caressed every atom

with a hundred thousand suns.

But this glory

was never witnessed.

When the human eye emerged,

only then was he known.

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The Souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of Lights; Each takes a Taper (candle), often only a spark, to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls of rare fortune, are detained longer and have time to grab a handful of candles, which they weave into a Torch. These are the Torch-Bearers of humanity, its Poets, Seers, and Saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, towards the Light. They are the Lawgivers and the Saviors, the Light-bringers, Way-showers and Truth-tellers, and without them, Humanity would Lose its way in the Dark…

This quotation is attributed to Plato, the namesake of our favorite non-toxic modeling compound and one of the fathers of western philosophy. I’m not going to research the likelihood of whether or not he actually said it, of course, but it’s a fantastic meditation on why some people come into the world to change it, rather than be changed by it.

Maybe this is why Play-Doh, Legos, K’Nex, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and all sorts of other toys are so wildly appealing to young children. They live in a world created for them by adults and others. Toys that allow us to create allow us to create our own reality, and even if what little kids create doesn’t look like…anything, it’s still an expression of inherent creativity and the desire to make the world in our own image.

These days, it’s not practical for us to build with children’s toys – toys can’t (necessarily) save the world. Instead, we create dazzling print and video campaigns that stir the heart. We develop and distribute inexpensive medications to treat preventable diseases. We write amazing speeches and stories that change the ways people see their world. We construct green technologies that give as much back to the earth as they take from it. And in so doing, we help humanity find its way in the dark.

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He’s pulling on my shirt. I’d guess that he’s about 7 or 8. He’s not speaking English, so I have no way of knowing what his “hook” is. He keeps rubbing his right eye – it looks terrible, like something exploded in it. This is my first interaction with a child of the street. I say, “No, thank you. Teşekkür. Allahaısmarladık.” and wave him away. He lets go. My friend, familiar with the holy city, tells me not to concern myself with the street kids. “They put mascara in their eyes to make you pity them,” he says. I try to believe him as I watch the little kid latch onto the next foreigner.

The young couple is sitting on the slab of tile between the northbound and southbound trains at Holborn station on the Central and Piccadily lines. There is a small dog between them. They hold a sign that reads “Hungry and homeless.” I feel silly throwing them a pound coin, more because I can’t run the exchange rate in my head just yet than because I don’t want to. But I look at the sign, at the dog, then back at the sign, then to the faces of the couple. I think, “Why on earth do you own a dog?” It’s late, and I’m trying to get back to the hotel in time to have a few drinks.

He asks me for some change to get something to eat. I’m feeling generous, so I pull about eighty cents out of my pocket and hand it to him as I exit Union Station. The snow is falling lightly, and I’m walking upriver to a bus that will take me to my friends on the North Side. As I deposit the coins in his hand and walk on by, he says, “You know, for thirty cents more I can buy a hot dog.” I stop and look back at him for a split-second before continuing on my way, thinking of all the ways I should have responded to his comment. I’m glad that I don’t speak to him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see them…shuffling towards me. They both look about twelve years old. They’re wearing identical, dirty windbreakers that look like hand-me-downs from the early 90s. I’m waiting for the minibus to show up so I can get back to the edge of the slums and have some proper dinner. I acknowledge the plastic bottles that they’re using to huff glue before I get a look at their faces. “A little something?” he says, motioning towards his mouth. “Mister, a little something?” I shake my head and say, “No, hapana, asante.” The minibus isn’t in view yet. They both inhale deeply on the bottles and stare, with me, across the dusty road. They’re not waiting for anything in particular.

He’s standing next to the booth at the gas station. He wears a great big coat; it’s hot out already, even this early in the morning, and I can’t understand how he isn’t boiling. Of course, he is standing in the shade of the booth. He shouts out, “Hey friend, can you spare some change?” as I fill my tank. I don’t mind this fellow. He’s a regular at the gas station near my house. I tell him that I don’t have anything – it’s not a lie. I get back in the car and I recall the two red apples in the back seat. I put them in the car three days ago and still haven’t eaten them. I take the apples over to the man and head back to the car. He thanks me. I wasn’t going to eat them anyway.

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Hello friends,

I’ve taken to eating giant salads at around 5 or 6 PM each day. It allows me to go light on lunch and avoid going to bed feeling too full. My estimate is that each such salad has about ten servings of vegetables. I also use dangerous levels of turmeric and cumin. And yes, I’ve finally changed the name of the Dispatch of Doom. Until such a time as I find myself in a more permanent location for work (more on that later), this will remain the new title.

My life as a Faiths Act Fellow is drawing to a close here in the Bay Area, but not before we knock out a dozen more events and hold aYouth Leadership Summit at a conferencethat we’ve helped to organize. Next Sunday the 25th is World Malaria Day.We’ll be joining our voices with thousands of advocates and activists across the world to help eradicate deaths from malaria. The Fellowship terminates at the end of May. To be completely frank, I don’t think we can beat malaria by then, but I’ll do my best to make the deadline. :)

I’m a supporter of the religious response to issues of social inequity and global crisis, but the last year has totally changed my grasp of the scope of just what faith communities and individuals can do. I have a deeper sense of the potential of common action for the common good – if there’s one thing that people of faith have by the boatload, it’s hope. That incredible energy is something that I’d like to continue exploiting, in the most benign sense, of course. Which brings me to the main thrust of this Dispatch: your help.

I have two “asks” of you this time around. The first is that you swing over to the fundraising site that Hafsa and I set up: http://www.firstgiving.com/bayareamalaria and make a small gift towards the purchase of lifesaving bed nets. The money goes to Malaria No More at the end of May. $10 will buy a bed net that protects families from the mosquitoes that carry the disease. Also, until the end of May, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, will personally match every dollar (or pound, for that matter). That means two nets for the price of one. All the Fellows are working furiously to bankrupt him – join in on the fun!

The second ask is some help in extending my network. You all knew this message would come someday – consider this the formal announcement of my free agent status. I’ve been actively searching for employment since February, and I’ve had promising telephone interviews and more than a few rejection notices. I’m not discouraged (yet); I have many weeks before June 1st, and am still waiting for word on other applications. Click here to download a copy of my current resume as well as a sample cover letter that lists a few ideas about my direction in case you’re not all that familiar with my past (a few keywords: grant writing, writing/copyediting, social media, project management). I don’t want to abandon the interfaith sphere if at all possible, and I’m still very much interested in pursuing a career in international development and the nonprofit world in general. If you could pass my name along to possibly interested parties, I’d be eternally grateful. That was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.

So I bid you all adieu until my next report, which in an ideal world will still be called the Bay Area Dispatch of Doom (I love it out here), when I can hopefully talk about next steps as well as the successes of the Faiths Act Fellowship.

If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Cayenne pepper has astounding anti-inflammatory properties. A teaspoon a day if you can manage it will do great things. Also, eating an avocado by scooping it out with Wheat Thins is surprisingly tasty. And as always, keep up the good work.

N.B. Poetry break for this Dispatch will be “Postscript” by Seamus Heaney. Enjoy:

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
From THE SPIRIT LEVEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996

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I told myself a while ago that I would pay close attention to what Jason Calacanis said; the guy’s as close to tech as you can get and he’s got his brain in lots of different pies. Now, unfortunately, he occasionally offers opinion in some of the pies that he has no business talking about. By “occasionally”, of course, I mean “always”. That’s not a reason to stop reading him, mind you. The last major example, and there are many, was his rant (read: hissy fit) about the “Middle East” and other geopolitical realities that he understands merely by dint of being the Tesla Roadster’s most high-profile cheerleader.

I’ve written before about Calacanis’ misguided attitudes online, especially in regards to the way that he spends his money, and I know that I’m not alone in criticizing him. Normally, I would just bitch to a few other techie friends, but this time it’s personal. Here’s a section of a Calacanis Rant (we should trademark them) where he describes Millennials as  generation whose members have “never lost in their lives”:

I am 26.5 years old. Do I count myself as a Millennial? Yes. I’ve blogged about Millennials and the internet before; it’s something that’s important to me. If blog posts can take the temperature of my generation, I would swear for half of the time that Gen Y is the most selfish, self-involved, and low-achieving group ever; and for the other half that Gen Y is the last, best hope for mankind. Which is it? I’m inclined to think that it’s a mix of both. Jason Calacanis, who is 39 years old and thus not a Millennial, is not of the same mind. He says that we’ve never lost, that we are in fact losers, and that all the great dreams that we have are junk because we are morally and spiritually and imaginationally bankrupt. Watch the video again – his sputtering is positively 19th-century.

Here’s a few observations about Gen Y that he may have missed while he was raking in cash and offering free iPads for new followers (http://twitter.com/Jason/status/11647997218 – on a serious note, this is a neat contest idea) while speeding down the road in his Middle East-less Tesla (let it be known that I would gladly pimp such a vehicle, given the chance):

1. Yes, Jason, Millennials have lost, big time. You cheerfully made up a statistic of 80% of Gen Y people being losers. I’ll cheerfully say that 20% of us were led to believe that participation was, in fact, important, and that winning was secondary to being in the game. Here’s the thing: 80% (another made-up number) of us lost, and lost often. Now, we’re set adrift in a jobs market that is going to affect our long-term income [negatively] forever. Even the 40% of us who were endlessly told that we were winners no matter what don’t seriously believe that. You’d have to be crazy to think that we’re that dim. We know that participation is not the key to “winning”, however you define it, but we do know that being a part of something is sine qua non for being productive and worthwhile.

2. Gen Y has “No motivation, no killer instinct, [and they're] all on some kind of antidepressant drugs, and they cry in their coffee all day, and they don’t want to win.” We  need to have a killer instinct because Gen Y has more motivation than you think; we know that we’re going up against other people who have used the internet and the information age to democratize the field of information management. We do cry. We don’t all drink coffee. We have to want to win because it’s the only way for us to succeed and outlive the previous generation (unlikely for the first time ever – thanks Gen X for dragging your feet and forgetting to tell your parents to give a shit).

3. Gen Y has a “good worldview, you want to save the planet, that’s all noble…being successful, making money, and being powerful will let you do more good in the world.” Mr. Calacanis, of all people, should know how much impact we can have, even without high levels of “power”, in a world as interconnected as ours.

4. Jason is so angry about the mystical 80% of Gen Y who are screwing up this country, but he’s also angry for them because they are “so stupid, and so lame.” Thanks dude. Super professional. We’re pretty angry, too. We’re angry that people like you, who don’t know who we are, think that you know what we’re about. Keep telling us. We love hearing about how sucky, yet potentially powerful we are.

5. We are losers. Jason has a new mission in life – he wants to take the 80% of Gen Y “losers” and turn them into the 20% of winners who have tech startups that he covers (for his daily bread) and change the world. Awesome! Start spending money to empower Gen Y social entrepreneurs instead of being an angel investor for tech startups whose social benefit is unknown. Help us help you. Here’s a quote from a Millennial friend of mine who works every day with young people focused on social change: “Perhaps he’s [Jason] spent too much time in the tech world.  I invite him to the ground floor to meet grassroots activists working their asses off, harnessing technology to do something useful instead of spewing nonsense.”

6. All of our jobs are going to “Eastern Russian countries”. Again, he’s a master of the geopolitical landscape. (Note: this is a cheap-shot. I also make mistakes when I’m talking quickly without thought.)

7. My mom and dad are “gonna die” and I therefore have no inheritance because they bought nice cars and went on fancy vacations. I cannot even begin to describe the anger and frustration that I feel with this portion of Jason’s rant. I grew up on a farm in northern Illinois. My mom and dad don’t, never have, and never will, make lots of money to buy nice cars. They have never gone on vacation. I watched them make sacrifices to send me to college and I made sacrifices of my own. I’ve never stepped on anybody to get where I am, and I don’t intend on starting. Don’t you goddamn try to tell me about who I am and where I came from.

In short, Gen Y suffers from an overabundance of opinion on both sides. One says that we’re destined for failure because we’re disconnected from reality. The other side says that we can’t possibly fail because we’re digitally empowered and we understand the world between us. I’m seriously inclined to believe that most of us (Jason’s magical 80%) live somewhere in between. We recognize our limitations but we know that we can do a lot to move beyond ourselves and change the world. Maybe do us a favor and stop telling us what we’re about – let us figure it out like your generation had to.

Jason even goes so far as to tell me about my tombstone – the only trophy that I’ll ever get for participation: “It’s not even going to be that big when you get it,” he says. Like many other Millennials, I plan on living forever through the good works and kind deeds and responsible life that I live.

I don’t need your stupid trophy.

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Not sure why I’ve chosen to post this today.

I am troubled, deeply, by the billions of people worldwide who will go to bed tonight hungry, fearful for their safety, or sick from disease. These days, it’s not worth mentioning the statistics concerning how many people live on less than $2/day. I even hesitate to use the word “statistics,” since it cheerfully allows us to ignore the very human lives behind the numbers. We know that it’s bad.

Facts and figures like these only serve to dishearten us, to make the problem seem insurmountable. But there are other statistics. Successes against disease and poverty are on the rise, many times on the local level, and the momentum of those successes is carrying over from the international development community onto the streets of America.

In grad school, I worked with The 1010 Project, a humanitarian organization that operates a robust advocacy program in the Denver area to raise awareness about issues of global poverty. Our community-based partners live in Kenya, so we didn’t get to visit very often, but frequent Skype conversations reinforced the intimate relations with those we served.

Case in point: We were speaking to a partner who operates a fish farm. Some thieves had broken in during the night and stolen all of the fish. This was bad news, to be sure, but when asked how he felt about the theft, his response was, “I am not angry that they took the fish. They must have been very hungry.”

That level of self-sacrifice and commitment to the greater good inspires me to help the poorest of the poor. Stories like that need to be spread widely. I am committed to treat all humans as I would like myself to be treated, with dignity, understanding, and compassion. That’s why I try to help.

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I recently headed back to Colorado for a wonderful weekend of R&R with my girlfriend and her family. We went skiing at Crested Butte, an absolutely amazing mountain way out in the center of the state. Here’s what happens when I ski:

…traditional religions with their beliefs in non-material divine beings are in decline…new forms of spirituality have been filling the cultural niches previously occupied by conventional religions. I argue that the forms I document in Dark Green Religion are much more likely to survive than longstanding religions, which involved beliefs in invisible, non-material beings. This is because most contemporary nature spiritualities are sensory (based on what we perceive with our senses, sometimes enhanced by clever gadgets), and thus sensible. They also tend to promote ecologically adaptive behaviors, which enhances the survival prospects of their carriers, and thus their own long-term survival prospects.

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Edward Brown, relief director for World Vision, debunks five myths around disaster relief. I offer my thoughts on each point in place of Brown’s remarks. This came in the form of a Facebook note:

1. Collecting blankets, shoes and clothing is a cost-effective way to help – When I worked with The 1010 Project, we collected things like computers and notebooks for our partners in Kenya. In the aftermath of election violence in early 2008, we were able to provide materiel that aided in reconstruction and job training.
2. If I send cash, my help won’t get there – Sure it will! Even the most incredibly effective aid organizations have to “borrow” off the top of donations to fund operations. In the case of Haiti and other emergency situations, aid dollars are earmarked for immediate use, even if the funds aren’t technically immediately on hand. EG: The Red Cross has raised many dozens of millions of essentially borrowed dollars, but since the actual donations won’t balance for a few weeks, the Red Cross will essentially be working on borrowed money.
3. Volunteers are desperately needed in emergency situations – Yeah! Volunteer, just not in a disaster zone. Many nonprofits operating on the ground in Haiti need help recording donations and processing the flow of other donations. Help them out, or offer to handle other mundane tasks. Vacuuming an office during a busy week can make a world of difference. :)
4. Unaccompanied children should be adopted as quickly as possible to get them out of dangerous conditions – Unless you are a charity that deals directly with “orphans”, maybe you could just cool it for a little while. Let proper guardians step forward, and if none are available, then activate your networks.
5. People are helpless in the face of natural disasters – Absolute nonsense.  Give a social entrepreneur a dollar, and they’ll stretch it in a dozen different directions. Small-scale aid projects can be carried out by on-the-ground partners while larger orgs debate procedure and directives.

That being said there is still a lot that has to happen in Haiti to make reconstruction work. Let’s hope that we dump the disaster-emergency language and move towards reconstruction-help dialogue.

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