Goodbye January, Hello February

Yes, one twelfth of this year is already gone.

How many of your New Year's resolutions have you kept?

Hey, let's try something different.

Make a phone call to arrange lunch with someone for Wednesday.

Instead of watching to find out if the groundhog will see his shadow, you can cast your own shadow on the table cloth while you have a conversation with someone. (Yes, table cloth means you should NOT do the cheap lunch.)

Who knows what good will come of it? (and don't say "Only the Shadow knows").

Digital Identity - Must See

Yes, if you have read any of the discussion on digital identity, this clip from the ACLU is a must see. They have succinctly taken the identity question to the end in this brief video. It could be our worse nightmare. Thanks to Kim Cameron for the lead.

The question is will it? Or will humanity maintain some sanity?

Good decision Molly

Molly writes that after her Marqui contract expires, she will not accept any more pay-to-blog opportunities.

"The reason? I've found myself spending too much time thinking about marketing now than ever before, and I don't like the way it feels or influences the topics I write about on my blog. Especially when I'm traveling, I have precious little time to write, and I don't want to force a post rather than feel a post."

Bold is my emphasis.

She will not accept ads that generate revenue.

I blog for the fun of writing, sharing, and making connections. That's my choice.

Go with your feelings Molly. You write well. Keep up the good work!

Disclosure: I did buy her DVD on Learning Blogger but have not completed it yet.

Bingo: Halley, Yo-Yo, Ludacris, Neil Diamond, Kabir

I see Halley posting a series on Ludacris. She must have been listing to his CD as she got up this morning. Or had the songs stuck in her head from last night. Either way, she writes about the poetry of hip-hop and the comparison to blogging.

I wrote earlier on the connection of the singer singing his/her song and the blogger writing his/her blog borrowing one of Neil Diamond's songs to riff on.

Yo-Yo said: "So much of human expression is longing. You're trying to go toward something-- some sort of vision."

Kabir said: "When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the guest that does all the work."

This intensity by another name is called passion. It powers the voice to do wondrous things.

Halley said: "And the way he downshifts into the rhythm of the words 'I know you like it like that' -- the whole beat changes and if you could write it out in musical notation -- well, you never could, it's exquisite the way he does it."

I believe that is does not matter whether the voice is hip-hop (Ludacris), or written (Halley), or instrumental (Yo-Yo), or any number of other artistic expressions; if there is passion driving it, it is wonderful.

It is not work or play, it is exquisite!

And that brings us joy, joy that reinforces the cycle, so we can go on.

Kabir, translated by Robert Bly

From The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir by Robert Bly.

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think... and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you do not break your ropes while you're alive
do you think
that ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten ---
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.



From: Beacon Press; Reprint edition (February 1, 1993)