newnoise1 Darwin wears Prada

I read somewhere this week that Darwin did not say that the fittest survived. He said that those who adapted the best to change survived.

This makes much more sense to me than the notion of the fittest surviving. It also reminded me of how difficult it can be to deal with change when what changes is not to your advantage. Even if you are human and therefore, according to Darwin, extremely well equipped to deal with change.

We have come a long way since we were mostly living in the wild or on farms and had to register every detail of relevant change if we wanted to survive. There was constant change. You either understood the signs and adapted to change or got jumped by a giant panda intent on ripping your head off. Tracking footprints had its uses.

Today change has got so weird and is such a big issue that we actually need 'change management'. As if dealing with change is no longer a natural thing forming part of our inborn talent for survival.

Organizational change is orchestrated behind the scenes where mere mortals don't often get to venture into discussions unsupervised. They only watch the signs of nature to see if they will have to face the traffic home in a deluge. Therefore change hits suddenly like a spitting Cobra.

I am reading The Devil Wears Prada the nightmarish, hilarious novel by Lauren Weisberger on her year of hell working as an editorial assistant at a fashion magazine in New York. I find it amazing that she survived to tell the tale. The Panda still lurks waiting for unsuspecting humans who are today fashionably dressed in stilettos and pencil skirts wherein they can hide but not run. Camouflage had its uses.

The organization is a blitzkrieg in change management for those poor students picturing a career filled with fun and never a dull moment, glamorous to the point of . . . of throwing up in case anything goes glamorously wrong. As they soon find out. Change happens.

I am not saying organizational change is a conspiracy. Only that if you don't notice and adapt to change your predictions and reactions become less effective. Soon you won't know how the stock market will react to the discovery of a butterfly beating its wings somewhere on Mars. Then what will you do?

This is quite confusing. I will clear it up a bit as soon as I've read what Darwin had to say on change management. Watch this space . . .

Contemplating The Unlimited Nature of Life

Contemplating The Unlimited Nature of Life

As mentioned in one of my previous posts I am also writing articles for Triond. Here is the most recent one. Triond only allows originally published articles so I publish it at Triond first and then provide the link on my blog. Triond placed this article on the Socyberty website in the politics category.

Remember to click the 'I liked it' icon once you've read the article! Send me an email with your physical address if you hated it.

newnoise1 on web writing and volcanic mind explosions

Ever feel as if smoke is going to start bubbling from your head? In our times you probably feel as if you're suffering from information overload quite often. It's amazing how you can do so much reading you forget that at some stage you'll have to write it all into a blog post without making it look like some kind of volcanic mind explosion.

So, after much searching, I still have no real answers to how your amazing talents and abilities can lead to overnight riches writing for the web. I can only make some suggestions of things you can try.

If you write short stories, search the web for sites that compile anthologies. Some of these sites pay you for your contribution on acceptance. I can recommend bridgehousepublishing for the fact that their requirements are written in a considerate way without the usual clever, sarcastic, witty and highbrow wording often found under publisher requirements.

Sites that compile anthologies can show you what the latest trends are in writing. The trend at the moment seems to be of the horror/demon/devil variety. Don't despair, there are thousands of sites out there compiling anthologies and one of them will surely want what you write.

I am not sure if this is still relevant but an anthology like Chicken Soup for the Soul paid something like $200 a few years ago on acceptance. I found this information on absolutewrite a site I can recommend.

Another site worth mentioning is theshortstory .
See the excellent article Principles of a Story written by Raymond Carver at
theshortstory.org.uk/features/prospect.php4
They also have a list of about 79 British magazines you can investigate for writing opportunities.

I have a list as long as my arm of other writing sites I'm investigating. Have patience. There are so many items that can be researched when looking for writing opportunities that it's easy to get side tracked.

Other sites I picked up during my reading include:

Writing product reviews
Have a look at the site sponsoredreviews . Joining is free.

Increasing traffic to your blog
Here I found a site called blog-connection that lists all the networks you can submit your URL to and hopefully increase traffic to your site.

Writing for publishers
I am trying out triond . It's still going to take a while before anything happens . . . I've only managed four articles so far.

About.com is also looking for writers. You will need to work very closely with editors so you will need a lot of time to write and probably have to be some kind of expert. about.com is one of my favorite sites. They have the Investment for Beginners section that is filled to the brim with advice and information.

Researching the internet
If you want to do internet research and write about it I can recommend
internetworldstats as a good place to start.

Leave a comment and let me know what's working for you when it comes to writing for the web!

newnoise1 reviews the genius of Robert Kiyosaki

Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat after a recurring nightmare. In this dream Robert Kiyosaki first publishes his books on money, saving and investment in 2030, five years before I retire.

I feel like Allison DuBois in Medium when I wake up and realize I still have a year or two to get what he's saying. My only wish is that he said it when I was twenty and not forty. Not that I would have cared one dot about what he was saying then. I felt, as a writer, that money is not what it is about. Little did I know that, even if you are some kind of artist, money is still what makes the world go round. Like someone once said show business is one part business.

Like most twenty year olds I never imagined I would make it to forty. Like the majority I am just as surprised. Frankly, during that time my life was about pursuing experiences as a writer. These experiences often centered on going to dozens of parties in the tradition of The Great Gatsby. Don't let me go there . . .

No matter, even if you are 80 years old you can learn from Robert. However, it would help if you can start reading Robert's books when you are 6 years old. This will provide you with a priceless foundation to start off your investment career and your life in general.

Writers of genius make their readers adjust their focus. Robert's magic is that he turns how average people think about money on its head. He bluntly reveals that the average salary earner has many reasons to panic. He forces you to take a reality check on what you think of as a safe and secure monthly income.

He will inspire you if you had a hard time at school. He had a worse time. If you lost money, he lost more. Don't be fooled, no matter how easy he makes it look it's hard, hard work that takes extreme discipline.

His books are not textbooks. You won't need a degree in Economy or at least an MBA to understand them. His sophistication and knowledge is of such a quality that he can share his life experiences in simple terms. You have to concentrate or you will miss what he's saying.

Which is basically don't buy crap. Rather save or invest your money until you find something worthwhile buying. Something worthwhile is something that will provide you with an income in the long term something that will not depreciate in value.

Furthermore, learn about money, know how it works. Not knowing anything about money, savings and investments is the root of all evil. Ever heard of the guy who won a million in the lottery and was bankrupt three years later? That explains why having money does not mean you know what to do with it.

Don't go overboard with Robert's advice. Once you get what he's saying in Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant and Rich Dad Poor Dad don't hand in your resignation and start your own business or buy three houses with your nest egg. First read Before you Quit Your Job and The ABC's of Real Estate Investing.

The minute you think you know it all read Rich Dad's Guide to Investing.

We can't all be Robert Kiyosaki but we can at least find out how and why the minds of the rich and wealthy work.

newnoise1 writer's guide to surviving the festive season

Writers are sensitive beings, even if they hide it behind rough exteriors. They are often overwhelmed by the festive season for obvious reasons. Here I have listed some points to make it all a bit easier:

• Remember, blood red is only in vogue in December, that's only one month of the year. Except for February. But Valentine's Day is still far away. Notice that bloody red and think about how you can use it in your stories. Think of The Red Badge of Courage. No, you don't actually have to read it but think about it.
• Even if you didn't write or publish anything this year a fresh new year is coming. Plan the articles you want to write next year. Write frameworks. There are thousands of international and national public holidays you can write about. If you don't want to write about the same days that everybody else is writing about make up your own international holidays. For instance: Day for writers who do not write or Day for the stumped or Day for writers who have writer's block.
• Listen to your own voice. Does it seem to complain about life in general often or non-stop? Listen to it and consider that everybody else must listen to it. If people must read what you are writing they might start off by first listening to what you are saying. Be interesting, be fascinating, develop your arguments, build your plot, show insight. Don't talk the hind leg off a donkey.
• Avoid a hangover. Remember a tomato cocktail, the known cure for a hangover, is . . . yes, very red.
• Write a children's story and read it to all the children in the extended family circle. If they like your story give them each a copy as a gift. If they don't like your story write one where Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer meets up with several mishaps and give that to them as gifts.
• Notice things you can write about. Live in the moment, see the immediate moment. Suspend your cherished beliefs and open up to the cherished beliefs of those around you. If you all have the same cherished beliefs change yours as soon as possible.
• Rest if you need to after a hard year of writing.
• Think of all the millions of writers typing away at their keyboards. Your ideas are worth repeating. Picture yourself writing the best piece you have ever written. Picture readers telling you how they liked what you wrote.
• Think only of titles. Rudolf joins in the fun at the barbecue, How green was our Christmas tree, The electric shock I got when I blew all the lights in the neighborhood quite easily while rigging up the Christmas lights. This gets the creative juices flowing.
  

Have a wonderful Christmas and fantastic 2010. Thanks for all the support in 2009!

newnoise1 gets stylish on money and investing in 2010

The subject of money is never far from my mind. This is in line with the psychological principle that we often can't stop thinking about things we don’t have.

Especially when all our neighbors, in fact entire neighborhoods, have things we don't have. The wanting trend is so common among humans that a spiritual law had to be created against it. This ancient law proves that even before capitalism everybody wanted stuff and thought all the time about stuff they didn't have. Today, some become obsessed and either go for therapy or work in financial areas where they can skim off the top and do other such clever things, legally, at the office, on a daily basis. But that is not what I'm blogging about. I'm off on a tangent.

I have ignored money as a topic worth thinking about at my own peril. Since realizing this mistake I have elevated it from its place in my topic catalogue where it use to sit next to the likes of subjects such as dress making, WWE wrestling (sorry don't know what WWE stands for and don't care) and how to peel a carrot if you don't have a knife.

I wrote about my fits of fear and hyperventilation about being aged and toothless with no prospectus a few months ago in an article on frugality. Since then I have done much in the way of spending less. Sad to say I am not yet rich. If you are clued up on money you will know that four months mean nothing. In Money World four months are only like sands through the hour glass and such are the days of our lives.

Nevertheless, I have come across a number of principles with regard to money that seem to provide a clue on how to approach the subject.

One book I read was written in such a weird style that I only noticed it was really about saving and investment by the time I reached chapter four . This is the kind of money book I like. The style fascinated me because well, listen to this:

'If thou select one of thy baskets and put into it each morning ten eggs and take out from it each evening nine eggs, what will eventually happen?'
'It will become in time overflowing.'
'Why?'
'Because each day I put in one more egg than I take out.'

The words to notice here are 'thou' and 'thy' in the first sentence. The book made me feel as if I was reading and understanding Shakespeare at a remarkable pace. The other remarkable thing is the basic arithmetic (ten minus nine) that's normally absent in writings on saving and investment where it is often more important to hide service fees among a bushel of complicated graphs. But this kind of arithmetic I can live with. Easy peasy, as they don't say in Babylon.

The book, The Richest Man in Babylon, is filled with Babylonion words such as 'doth' and 'upon' and 'setteth' which make you feel as if you are indeed walking down Babylon's dusty ancient streets clutching your little purse stuffed with gold and silver coins. Feelings are important to.

The book will inspire you to think about how you manage your money and advises confidently on how to get your lean purse to overflowing.

Some of the rules of engagement include:

1. Pay yourself first. Keep some of your money for yourself, about ten percent. Live on less than you earn. (see ten minus nine reference above)
   


2. Hang on to the money you saved. Or in Babylonion: 'You do eat the children of your savings. Then how do you expect them to work for you?'



3. Learn and know everything there is to know about your trade.



4. Be careful who you invest with. As they say in Babylon: 'Usurious rates of return are deceitful sirens that sing but to lure the unwary upon the rocks of loss and remorse.' (This is pure Babylonion. Notice the stylish repetition of the s-sound that aims to multiply your fear of risky investments.)



5. Budget. As they say in Babylon, 'Budget then thy necessary expenses. Touch not the one tenth that is fattening they purse.'



6. Make your money work for you . . . 'Put each coin to laboring'.
   


7. Buy your own home. 'Then will thy own heart be glad because thou wilt own right a valuable property and thy only cost will be the Kings taxes.'



8. Start early with a pension plan and protect your family from loss of income.



9. Do not buy on credit and do pay your debts. 'Thereby shalt thou acquire confidence in thyself to achieve they carefully considered desires.'

These doth include only some of the Babylonion saving and investment methods.

George S. Clason was a financial author who wrote a series of essays on money and investment that was later compiled into book form and published as The Richest Man in Babylon. First published in 1926 the common sense advice and story telling style made it a winner that is republished about every four or five years.

You will notice a absence of reference to inflation. I suspect the book was written Before Inflation. Inflation means that the ten percent savings Clason suggests could be worth less than ten percent over time once you minus inflation. Such are the days of our lives.

Please note that I am not a financial advisor (God forbid). I am only recommending this book as a good read. Remember, one day you will look up and notice that there is really absolutely nothing worth watching on television, this will be the ideal time to read this book.

newnoise1 reviews Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Wow! Why did I write the longest review in blogging history on this book? Firstly, the author is saying something that's worth repeating. Secondly, trying to get clever with this book review will be like jumping into a bog and expecting to float around safely on a crocodile's back. Even if the review is lengthy I tried to keep it as basic as possible to avoid being swallowed alive by the bog wildlife.

This is not an easy book. You get the feeling that in real life it would be impossible to have a conversation with the author, Robert M. Pirsig. Half of the book is about his struggles to communicate with his ten year old son.

The manuscript was rejected 121 times until a publisher at William Morrow finally described it to his managers as a work of genius that will attain classic status. This is exactly what happened once the book was finally published in 1974.

Why would an author try 121 times to get his book published? My guess is that it was extremely important to him to let the rest of the world understand the implications of what he had to say.

The book is a descriptive 'thought journey' that the author undertakes to cover a subject he has been thinking about for 20 years. This subject is how rational thought and traditional ways of thinking have taken centre stage in our lives to such an extent that the actual experience of reality has been placed on the back burner.

The book can be compared to Ayn Rand's Fountainhead where the entire focus is on rationality. Rand had an axe to grind with those who, she suspected, did not think for themselves at all. I have no idea if she would have been in agreement with Pirsig's view that the rationality tool has been sharpened to the point where it manages to cut the freshness and newness of everyday life from our sight.

However, as a trained scientist and philosopher Pirsig is in an ideal position to confront the subject of rationality and reality. To him this confrontation became a matter of life and death. It is fascinating to read how he becomes completely preoccupied and obsessed with the subject, looses his mind, is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, receives shock treatment and wakes up from that experience with his memory erased and a new identity.

It all starts with the term Quality. Pirsig uses the term Quality to refer to reality before it is intellectualized through rationality. Quality is the immediate here and now reality. Science misses a large part of this reality as its focus is mainly on the rational part of reality, including logic, labels and words. Science can only describe this exact moment trough logic, labels and words. Furthermore, science ignores the hip, artistic or feeling parts of life that Pirsig terms 'romantic reality'. In scientific terms 'romantic reality' does not exist. The term Quality combines rational reality and romantic reality into the one actual reality.

Pirsig's point is that Quality (reality) comes first and rationality is secondary to this. He writes:

'Romantic reality is the cutting edge of experience. It's the leading edge of the train of knowledge that keeps the whole train on the track. Traditional knowledge is only the collective memory of where that leading edge has been.' (page 287)

Pirsig describes how these thoughts inspired him to help the students in his freshman writing class write better. They had become so stuck in the rules of writing that they had nothing to say, their creativity disappeared. He recounts how he helped a student get rid of this 'stuckness' by advising her to write about the upper left-hand brick of the Opera House in Bozeman:

'She was blocked because she was trying to repeat in her writing, things she had already heard, just as on the first day, he had tried to repeat things he had already decided to say. She couldn't think of anything to write about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before. The narrowing down to one brick destroyed the blockage because it was so obvious she had to do some original and direct seeing.' (page 197)

Zen is all about gaining insight through seeing originally with your own eyes in the here and now. In the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu (reality as described by Eastern philosophy) Pirsig finds long descriptions that correspond with his understanding of Quality (reality).

At the other extreme Pirsig considers the motorcycle as an example of a rationally developed machine. Mechanics cross out the 'romantic reality' part of the motorcycle. Yet, the motorbike is in fact much more than the mechanical methods used to develop it. Ever heard bikers enthuse about their motorbikes? The real, actual motorbike is about much more than the rational, analytical and mechanical methods used to develop motorbikes. To mechanics these romantic aspects are beside the point. To Pirsig missing these points limits our view of reality.

According to Pirsig we have been using the same methods to find truth and knowledge for too long. Knowledge has become mechanical. For instance, consider the child bored to death by the same learning method repeated day after day. Has she learned anything new? No, millions of children had to study the same material she is now studying. Once romantic reality is removed she is left with the cold hard facts. Insight is beside the point as long as the facts can be memorized. Yet, memory always works in the past and can never, like insight, operate in the immediate present.

Robert Pirsig managed to write a book that tells a fascinating story and that contains a mind blowing message. A large part of life, the actual experience of each moment as new, fresh and creative can be missed through an obsession with rational methods of thought and traditional knowledge. By now it must be obvious that no matter how many times you read this book you'll always find something new. Read it, often.