convivial creativity

gaps in existing practice:
the satisfaction of underserved needs?
how and why this proposal is so different

Acquaintance and common interest are known occasionally to culminate in collaborative endeavor, or at least the attempt. But people who honestly believe in the feasibility of ambitious collaboration between equals at all, much less for themselves, tend to be those fortunate few already engaged in stimulating and congenial employment, already experienced with being provided for in what is called: low hierarchical distance, meaning: near equality, in the context of responsible creative work together within corporations and other institutional frameworks and settings. But that of little help for the masses in desperation for new beginnings from the grass roots, for opportunity in order to escape the rat-race. Alas, all too many living bereft of any encouragement, applicable mastery and rôle modeling, doubt the very feasibility of collaboration between equals, much less their own ability. Such individuals may respond poorly.

Even though the Internet has opened such celebrated new vistas of grass roots activism blossoming under new paradigms of cooperative endeavor, there remain significant gaps to be filled, poorly served crying needs yet unmet. Our world needs to reacquire the now atrophied and confused gregarious shared initiative and personal discipline that steadily came to be regulated and subsumed by such institutional behavioral structure threatened thereby. A renaissance of collaboration among equals, is yet to come. If you are reading this, then perhaps that signifies that you have self-selected at least even for acknowledgement of the frustrated desire.

All manner of transitory exercises and experiences in creative collaboration may be fondly remembered, though nevertheless not actually life changing. This is a proposal for an institution of ongoing long term creative collaboration. Both proposed fields of collaboration, joint authorship in fiction writing and the entrepreneurial (pre-) incubator alike, are conceived as complementary autonomy supportive and inclusive replacements for all conventional heteronomy reinforcing models of social order, outreach and interaction via skilled incompetence and willful mediocrity.

In brief, formal education is grounded upon certification and guarantees. This by itself is enough to effectively undermine any actual or conceivable curriculum for entrepreneurship. Graduation requirements can in any part even be redefined into terms of small business success so that at least coercion will be in any part redirected into a more relevant direction. But extrinsic motivation can always be relied upon to sour intrinsic motivation, thus creating addictive dependency upon extrinsic motivation. For such is the manipulative ulterior agenda of heteronomy, reward and punishment systems of oppression and codependency for the sheeple.

Notwithstanding all sheer hokum and snake oil of one brand of heteronomy or another, there is little of any much help in the literature or on the market for the most embryonic "kitchen table" inception stage or phase of new venture creation. The need for autonomy support and capability towards the yearned for freedom of aspiring entrepreneurship is simply not reflected in market demand, first of all because only already successful entrepreneurs can pay. And successful entrepreneurs already have a different set perception of their own needs. But what is worse is the ubiquitous failure even to recognize what is truly needed. Part of the lacking support for aspiring entrepreneurs is any culture of free conjecture and open controversy. Hence the vulgar exhortation and extortion to blind faith, the crank cult of the amateur and their doomed ventures. Because in a culture that resents criticism and fears original thinking, that is all that remains outside of institutions of formal education and employment. Social life too is eviscerated, as we have seen! The problem then, is self sustaining and the solution is systematically rejected. The result also, is that no one who wants to write seriously, wants to join in creative collaboration that, speaking of crank cults of the amateur and their doomed ventures, is associated with such wankers immersed in such awful travesty of collective fiction writing that gives fanfic such a bad name, and who simply do not want to write seriously or even ever face that reality about themselves.

Each of the two types of collaborative endeavor is subject to different and respectively appropriate critical preference. The criteria of drama and plausibility are central to fiction writing, whereas are the criteria of feasibility and ethics are likewise central, but to innovative new venture creation. Each consists in ongoing discourse of conjectural narrative futuring (extrapolation of events yet to unfold, from initial circumstances plus choices of actions taken in the present). -Such thereby allowing rational and creative people to play to our strengths, even socially, instead of, as all too often, struggling with our weaknesses in that very area. Because real substantive human connection is achieved via enhanced quality of discussion with psychological visibility, and on that intellectual level best facilitated by autonomy supportive cultivation of those more egalitarian creative and opportunistic problem solving and life long learning social aptitudes. -Aptitudes as recognized almost as an afterthought in Cultural Anthropology. This is because Cultural Anthropology views all human institutions as outgrowth from the extended family. And only creative problem solving in cooperation, relatively egalitarian, remains distinct from the range of inherently conservative normative hierarchically sensitive and predictive, compliant and all too often otherwise fairly lonely, bored and alienated heteronomy reinforcing toadying behaviorally conditioned socialization or social skills training.

Heteronomy also manifests in the irresponsible and somewhat delusional cult of the amateur. The cult of the amateur in creative witting, manifests in the rejection outright of the disciple of the writing craft as expressed in the maxim: Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time in all of the basics of drama, conflict and motivated characterization, not to mention the speculative element.

Similarly, all manner of grandiose pipedreaming that even to begin with denies even the very existence of any body of applicable knowledge to whatever task at hand, rejects not only conjecture and critical controversy, but all due diligence of feasibility study in planning and organization towards implementation. This includes pseudoscientific cranks with no patience for scientific method, along with crackpots, prudes, bullies, reactionaries and vigilantes dismissing due process as superfluous in fighting if not actually crime than whatever they themselves often obsessively hold to be howsoever transgressive and threatening. Above all, pipedreaming manifests the same anti-intellectualism and Anti-Critical Bias as the most amateurish dilettantery, all inspired by much the same conventionally perceived agreeability of agreement and disagreeability of disagreement and therein the self fulfilling prophesy of resultant strife. But the crucial priority of open ended conjecture subjected to freely exchanged criticism is exactly what creative writing and Entrepreneurship share in common, so crucial both to art for art's sake and for due diligence towards practical implementation of boldest innovation.

There are already all manner of writer's groups. Even with the plethora of, in essence, bogus support groups for pipedreaing dilettante malagenda, also many top notch excellent writers groups for the exchange of unflinching critique, already do exist and are well appreciated by serious writers. But despite all definite recognition, as a matter of course, of the crucial need and value of feedback, specifically of critique (criticism), that is as far as it goes. Freely brainstorming together, or actual close collaboration, are neither an part of what they even imagine doing very often, much less on any regular or ongoing basis. Perhaps the idea is that serious adult writing must remain reserved and apart, even in outreach to others.

Presently we shall discover why, in the alternative, real close creative exchange may have come to be dismissed as silly and childish:

By contrast, a prevailing collaborative excellence in shared World-Building (though in some communities closer collaboration and in others at all more piecemeal and at arms length) does bear honorable mention, despite entailed myopic neglect of entirely the rest of the discipline of the writing craft. Alas, aside therefrom, sad to say that hither to, joint authorship in fiction writing, has been willfully and even systematically much abused, online.

Downright dysfunctional collective fiction writing communities, cultures and formats prevail on the Web. These consistently tend toward pointless and irrelevant adolescent hypersensitive anti-intellectual cargo cult mimesis playing out a fantasy of fiction writing of which they care nothing and know even less. They participate in order to socialize. But the social interaction is sheer heteronomy for its own sake, because they seemingly have no other experience. We can see all that they have learned in school: Subordination, arbitrarily, is their sole priority. They are drones without guidance, and no understanding of the public figures they idolize. Little surprise, then, that the writing, virulent and indignant pretense aside, is of less than no concern. This is the crap that gives fanfic such a bad name! All values, social and literary alike, are so blithely and blatantly squandered. There is a dearth of any better options for joint authorship in fiction writing, than that sort of greasy kid stuff. Active literacy that is practiced and socially communicated, not just passively consumed via whatever media, is important, and the culture of interaction in freedom, all the more so, for all ages and in every context. The tremendous potential creativity and fun of serious and fiction writing collaboration all too seldom tapped, much less as a teambuilding exercise towards innovation in new venture creation!

Which brings to the similar gaps that exist for the masses of aspiring entrepreneurs: Serious professional services for entrepreneurs are targeted to be useful for the sustainable paying market comprised of already long active and at all successful serial entrepreneurs, who often tend, much like writers, to solitary workaholism, if not stereotypical introversion and misanthropy. Whereas the concept of FoolQuest.com is in striving to address the needs even of rank aspiring entrepreneurs, and even in terms of social support of actual collaboration. Such can only make for vast improvement over the prevailing exhortation to rugged self-reliance left to our own devices, even in order ever to reach out and connect. Because, while many look to entrepreneurship as an inspiring path to freedom, entrepreneurship only raises all manner of new daunting challenges in the alternative to the usual aggravations entailed in more conventional career paths and ways of life. Indeed, virtually any kind of logistical support for entrepreneurship at any stage, is also a vastly underdeveloped sector, well worthy of exploration.

But the most important crying need to be met, remains that of a ready and transparent access to a social context prioritizing the unique social aptitudes, freedom, fulfillment and power of collaboration in creative problem solving that nurture autonomy, -freedom, friendship and thought, even audacity, ambition and the will to power- all safe from the debilitating nuisance of heteronomy. This is the challenge of radical change.

The obsolete paradigm

What is the meaning of life? First of all, the question is just linguistically unclear, confusing and open to interpretation. Therefore: Make no mistake: The following is a conversation starter about that specifically which is most important and interesting to the needs and desires of the human condition for which we have been left so ill equipped, according to the latest bleeding-edge of science, in rediscovery of the wisdom of the sages of old. Is that important enough to hold your attention? Do you know what you want? Can you precisely describe exactly what sort of interaction that might be found missing in your own life? And how can we think and work together to attain it?

Social engineering challenge: Could you tailor design your ideal social environments or circumstances? What follows is a proposal towards producing and sustaining optimal reciprocal engagement, gratification so key to fulfillment and to success. This is an outreach for collaboration partners in order to initiate from feasibility study and follow through all the way to implementation, in order also to test the prediction that simply even sustaining serious conversation and focus on topic, will already begin improving happiness.

It is sometimes supposed that leadership at the dawn of civilization was simply too busy with real challenges, for boredom and arrogance to set in and inspire the intrusiveness of unchecked authority. Competition within our species, had already driven the evolution of an ever larger and more sophisticated brain, vastly over qualified for the actual survival challenges that said brain had initially evolved to address. This created new stimulus needs of creativity, the capacities for rational investigation, the quest for meaning, innovation, even art for art's sake, all so unique to human consciousness.

Dum vivimus, vivamus, horace (Since we are living, let us live well) The best way to gain the yearned for recognition of one's unique individuality is opportunity to play to ones strengths in value maximization. But frequently, nowhere one turns is ones value truly recognized, in order thereby truly to enjoy fulfillment. Creativity is more than merely an individual capacity, but a need of expression and more: of social interaction flourishing only under freedom which is: autonomy and capability for the individual will to power that are desirable for all within society. Genuine symbiosis among equals empowers and liberates. In the famous words of Socrates: ""An unexamined life is not worth the living for a human being." Relationship arises only as a byproduct of purposeful interaction and substantive communication. For happiness, Epicurus espoused freedom, friendship and thought. Happy people talk more seriously together, freely, and with less small talk, deliberating Dialectically in controversy, with civility as autonomous equals. Happy people are more productive and likely to choose creative activities. Happiness comes in meeting ones needs for capable interaction with responsible others, making progress every day. But as we shall see, these very thoughts can be made taboo!

In times of stability, culture and entertainment arose to stave off boredom without violence. But social order even without external threat, remains subject to growing irrelevance, the progressive decay of complex systems turning inwards, ever refining the efficiency of internal processes and losing all sight of purposeful external objectives. Heteronomy is characterized an obsessive panic in the face of responsibility called: decidophobia, a compulsive need for others to make all of one's own major decisions. Only autonomy cultivates greater freedom and latitude in work and social interaction, falling back upon powers of authority only as the need may ever actually arise. And even then, autonomy is more amenable to Chivalrous values and democratic due process that moderate arbitrary power, minimizing intrusion. By contrast heteronomy concludes that if some hierarchical authority is ever sometimes a good thing, indeed indispensible, that therefore more all of the time, must be even better!

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” says Jim Rohn. But in his employ of the pronoun 'you', are we to understand the singular or the plural? That rather depends how alone one stands. Common wisdom, even so tending to heteronomy, assures us that creativity is indeed an attribute of the autonomous individual. True. However, common wisdom also fallaciously reserves autonomy as the sole province of the lone genius, man or woman of destiny. From these two propositions, the first indeed obvious, but the other barking mad, common wisdom then goes on to infer that creativity, likewise, is the exclusive province of the lone genius, never the property of social interaction in collaboration between equals.

This leaves creative collaboration at all, as either an oxymoron or the exclusive fruit of subordination, such as that of the novices to the master deemed the only one capable of being creative in the first place. After all, so we are assured by common wisdom, social interdependency and collaboration quite exclude autonomy, instead demanding heteronomy and hierarchy, securing the blithe un acceptance of authority and of approved ideas. And, finally, common wisdom urges and demands by whatever means necessary, that social interdependency and collaboration require submitting oneself to indoctrination often euphemistically referred to as: socialization. To wit: Behavioral conditioning to remain ever agreeable and compliant, keep it light, and reserve opinions to oneself. This comes at a price, of course. The price is that of mounting frustration, alienation, boredom and loneliness. However, common wisdom admonishes us that this is the only way for society to endure, and therefore well worth the small sacrifice. This is an ethos that leaves all too many of us either at the mercy of the rat race with the rest of the hoi polloi, or else left entirely to our own devices as befitting the lone genius or else the worthless failure; such impossible standards for the lone individual being the lamentable result from rendering respectful egalitarian cooperation in any serious undertaking, so inconceivable in common practice.

Under heteronomy, autonomy and collaboration are thus misanthropically portrayed in an inverse relationship locked in a desperate zero-sum game, such that with more of the one must come less of the other. But in truth, collaboration without autonomy creates cultures where nobody directs or assumes personal accountability. And autonomy without collaboration remains cut off from the connection of relationship and is thus starved of all connection to vital resources. But in the most functional cultures, everyone actually tends to collaborate all the more as they grow and increase individual autonomy. A collaborative outcome arises from the development of integrative win-win solutions that go beyond an individual vision to a productive resolution that could not be accomplished by any single participant, even the most brilliant leader. For, in the words of Steven Johnson: "Chance favors the connected mind."

Spaces facilitating the free exchange of ideas have always been engines of creativity, that no adherence to set curriculum can ever match. Before formal education and the career path as we know it, students, unmentored, simply gathered together on their own. pooling their resources for their needs. The scandalous and disreputable workshops of the Renaissance fostered Dialectics and experimentation, sowing the egalitarian democratic seeds of modern science and enterprise, were subsumed and suppressed by church, state and commercial authorities following Aristotle who well understood that compliance requires higher dystress tolerance, and therefore began the tradition of deliberately introducing competitive stress in an ongoing obstacle course, as a filter so that the independently minded would fall by the wayside, leaving only the most conservative as the leaders of tomorrow, absorbing, slowing and buffering progress in order to preserve status quo. This was exacerbated by the advent of state centralized technical schools on a mass scale, and public education modeled after mass production. In formal education and employment, individual attention and benefit is marginalized in favor of convenience to the objectives of whatever mass endeavor. And the result is ever increasing mass alienation. Customer service is lousy!

Thus does prevailing heteronomy starve and stave off creativity most particularly as an expressive need of social interaction.

But discontent continues nurturing the dream of Entrepreneurship and the innovative garage start up persisting in the modern day, as does yearning for artistic creativity and appreciation, the humanities. FoolQuest.com strives towards a Dialectical experimentally minded incubator of applied Entrepreneurial innovation. And a novel beginning can be taken from a new approach to creative writing. This is a proposal towards producing and sustaining optimal reciprocal engagement, gratification so key to fulfillment and to success, authentic well being hitherto marginalized and sacrificed to the Moloch of heteronomy.

In the words of John Cleese: “Creativity is not a talent: it's a way of operating.” Common wisdom, to reiterate, is absolutely correct in initial premise of creativity being an attribute of the autonomous individual. But it is mistaken on all other counts, that simply do not follow, being not only logically invalid to begin with, but Empirically untrue, as attested by the very fundamentals of Cultural Anthropology. Indeed, this is amply demonstrated on innumerable occasions whenever people collaboration, deliberating Dialectically in critical controversy, with civility as autonomous equals, with neither demand nor need for superiority or subjugation, and with no call for uncritical acceptance of authority, approved ideas, or anything else. Whenever this happens, common wisdom stands soundly refuted. And this happens in all manner of business meetings, for profit, government or charitable NGOs, in medical diagnostic discussions, in Jazz music jam sessions and in countless other social contexts. Genuine symbiosis among equals empowers and liberates. Happy people talk more seriously together, freely, and with less small talk, deliberating Dialectically in controversy, with civility as autonomous equals.

So why not in fiction writing? And why not in true innovation of entrepreneurship in the broadest sense? Indeed, why not in new venture creation, be it for profit, social entrepreneurship or political Activism? Why not on all levels of proficiency and experience, even that of the complete beginner from scratch, at the vastly underserved and most embryonic first concept or “kitchen table” stage or phase? -Thence all the way through feasibility study, business planning and management team recruitment, and if all goes well, through to capitalization and implementation... Why ever not? Answer: perhaps because successful writers and Entrepreneurs are so often experts and solitary workaholics, so fitting to the lone genius stereotype – indeed, even paranoid and misanthropic. Therefore the very notion of serious writing, never mind innovative new venture creation, as open, collaborative and social, may already be deemed laughable overreach; speak nothing of inclusion of participants on every level from the complete beginner to the consummate expert, and every degree of sagacity and ability in between. But this doesn’t have to be so. Creative, open-ended collaboration between equals is completely feasible in all fields and on all levels, from the most underserved embryonic "kitchen table" inception stage, through management team recruitment, feasibility study, business planning, prospecting for venture capital, and if all goes well, all the way through to implementation.

In the words of Winston Churchill: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Indeed, as Seth Godin amplifies: “If I fail more than you, I win.” Alas, however, to quote Count Galeazzo Ciano: “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” And so, once again, with more balous and grandiuos advice, forsakien to our own devices. This won't do. The trial and error of unflagging successive failure until success, need not be so solitary and self sufficient, but instead would do far better shared. In the words of Arthur Vandenberg: “It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity.” And nowhere is that more true, than in entrepreneurship, because of the relentless continual discovery and cultivation of real fresh opportunity required in order to feed unflagging trial and error: another effort likewise far better served in collaboration than by rugged isolation. After all, social support is well known and understood as among the chief predicators of success. It makes no sense to abandon our most ambitious to our their devices, unless and until they put aside autonomy and intrinsic motivation, give in, and enter the rat race of heteronomy. Neglect is the collaboration killer. It is up to the ever transformational innovative spirit to invent a better way.

Partnership is often no less crucial and creatively fertile in writing and in commerce, than in any other human enterprise. And for who more importantly so, than the complete beginner? Think of the hitherto wasted talent that could be brought to bear, by facilitating more ready entry and capability. Such would yet another benefit. Moreover, as we shall see, there is much in common between these two modes of narrative futuring: dramatic Science Fiction writing and strategic business planning. Indeed the most marvelous creative and interpersonal synergy, especially from the standpoint of true autonomous collaboration among equals, can be found exactly therein. For each exercises unfounded conjecture, speculation, then subject to appropriately different yet similar criteria of fiction, and feasibility to business planning. And both creative writing and business planning require for any hope of success, the thriving exchange of hardnosed criticism.

Many leading consultants, altruistically working for free in order to help change the world for the better, quickly discover that in order to continue being taken seriously, they must return to charging fees, the more exorbitant the more impressive. Alas, many people often tend only to value their own effort, trouble and resources that they themselves expend, callously squandering the trouble and good will of others freely given. This, of course, is the very attitude that must be reversed in engineering cultures of respect.

One of the most famous scenes in 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' is the whitewashing of the fence. After Tom gets into trouble, Aunt Polly punishes him by tasking him with the arduous chore of whitewashing the fence. Of course, rascally Tom, quickly becoming bored and tiring of the work, manipulates other boys into completing the job for him, in several beautiful coats yet, waiting in line for their turns and and even paying for the privilege! Tom pulls off the con, even to the initial skeptical credulity of his marks, by making the work seem like an art, and acting as though he's having such fun!

So, how does the beloved fable by Mark Twain relate to real life and human behavior under typical conditions of employment? In the immortal observation of George Carlin: "Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit." And yet, from their precious time and hard won salaries, the compassionate volunteer or donate for good causes. Many seek meaning in hobbies after hours. The boldest among us, bravely risk scarce capital for profit or commit to work on spec., risking everything in pursuit of start-up success. But all manner of people will cheerfully pay to to take vocation vacations, spending their own time off trying out more interesting jobs and exploring new careers! And this suggests development of a possibly viable business model for the present proposed new venture in quest of the most conceivably fulfilling experience of work activity, Creativity Should be Social, actually charging for the privilege of participation in the greatest long term ongoing vocation vacation ever! -all in pursuit of creativity for its own joy as well as big-time Entrepreneurial success.

And there are many possible variations upon just such a business model: The fee instead could be accepted as an investment. Or the fee can be waived and refunded to participants who really give it a sincere try, so that only those who waste our time are actually charged!

Or in the alternative entirely, the crucial question remains: To Hell with all marketing tricks and dodges, how, if at all, best to appeal to the intrinsic motivations of autonomy that Creativity Should be Social strives to address? After all, I'm not out to scam free labor from others, but just the opposite, to reach in order to meaningfully and productively volunteer and invest my own free labor to join in and help others in quest of success together. If I only knew of anyone else already attempting what I propose, I would simply ask to join them. That would save me the uncertain struggle to organize from scratch!

But since the ground work remains to be accomplished, we, my unmet friends, must unite and serve as the steering committee: In flagrant violation of taboo, how to publically engage in a discourse that is both strategic (of or relating to overall plans worked out to achieve whatever objectives) and axiological (pertaining to questions of personal value in definition and clarification of individual desires to inform and to decide said worthy objectives)? Together to form that dreamt of social environment of human thriving, an online workshop in Entrepreneurial and creative collaboration together from first concept to execution and implementation, to coherently seek and finally find our bliss just as we have all been motivated, coached or otherwise generally exhorted and yearn to do, inevitably only to find ourselves so frustratingly abandoned each to our own devices. But by organizing to find, create and share such vital resources as hitherto denied us, then if all goes well, we can share an ongoing peak experience that others merely dream of! And what we might together achieve thereby, while there can be no guarantees, is also without limit.

The outreach of FoolQuest.com is to foster deliberation towards
actually undertaking together exactly such collaboration.

power: freedom = autonomy + capability

“What is happiness? The feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity.” — Arthur H. Vandenberg

And as we shall see, there may be in the Entrepreneurial approach most broadly, untapped potential for fulfilling engagement in frustrated and underserved social needs, intrinsically motivated and characteristic of autonomy, including curiosity, exploration, spontaneity, and genuinely passionate interest. Because as we shall see, these are not merely solitary introspective subjective emotions or aspects of individual character, but initiative of social impulses and interaction reaching out and seeking productive outlet.

The all too crucial yet vastly neglected and underserved and even sometimes even denigrated embryonic inception or "kitchen table" stage or phase of Entrepreneurial innovation and new venture creation, is a time of discussion, research and planning. These modest insubstantial beginnings are more than mere Monday morning quarterbacking, lost in abstraction, but Hypothetic-Deductive Method of unfounded conjecture subject first to preference in the practice of controversy and then to Empirical refutation, the razor thin bleeding edge between innovation and pipedream! That is why the present proposal towards a pre-incubator is advanced, first of all, simply as an agenda for discussion, research and planning, along with an appeal and solicitation to participation therein as co-founders, ultimately towards management team formation, followed by further recruitment and formal business planning, towards capitalization and implementation. So let's get to work.

In the words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Any substantive and directly pertinent response, inquiry, comment or criticism, will all be truly and most sincerely appreciated. But in case of any communication failure, do pardon my shortcomings and please specify: Explain whatever might be unclear, how so any why. If I already knew, certainly I would already have revised and elucidated! Therefore, do kindly point out any ambiguity. Proffer any salient proof writing notes. Ask questions of anything not understood, for as the saying goes: No question is too stupid to ask, ore answer to wise to be given. But freely express and clearly explain any trepidation or disapproval, don't feign incomprehension simply in order to disengage and obstruct.

Taboo and preference for the simple and familiar notwithstanding, collaborative miscommunication detection and repair, Dialectically, remains ever crucial. Or else, in the alternative to all that trouble and bother of splitting hairs and mincing words, if there is an better and easier onramp to whatever path to success and fulfillment, then what are you waiting for? Because thinking is so slow and tedious! Only share the secret with the rest of us to internalize uncritically!

As misattributed to Thomas Alva Edison: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Gentle reader, unmet friend: do you crave fulfillment? Do you seek opportunity to do and to share what you love? And realistically, even merely in responsible preparation, what sort of nerdy brain work is therein entailed, to what end and why so? What are the real traps, obstacles and decoys to be anticipated?

Eventually, future interaction on the frontiers of automated Sociometry will facilitate a more flexible, effective and congenial social technology. Automated Sociometry serves handily as prime example of one among many worthy objectives, but in the longer range. In the meantime, alas, so called collaboration platforms online tend to be cumbersome and ineffective, all about literally fitting everything into boxes on webforms, in order to generate pages full of equally silly and perplexing boxes.

Yes, once again those damn Behaviorists have got the computers programming us! To be fair, the process is meant to help classify, structure and better organize resumes and proposals, but clearly its not working, it's not meeting the real needs for adaptive and salient human interactivity, with flexibility and support, not pointlessly rigid computer interactivity, forsaken to ones own devices. Perhaps even those silly dreary webforms might be more helpful and uplifting, if instead, when hitting a road block, they could be filled in with questions and problem statements, as an open request for comment.

The possibilities as to different models for whatever optimal social environment, are that they already exist and are readily accessible and available, or else they are not. Whatever has been at all tried, then there is existing experience as to the feasibility and viability whereof. The further possibilities as to different models for whatever optimal social environment, are such as are readily available and accessible for us each, or such as are not. Furthermore, whatever exists must be judged either as happy or unhappy conditions for the individuals involved. Those that exist and are accessible, seem redundant for duplication, and if already herein catalogued as unhappy, then actually pernicious for any further propagation.

These latter generally have to do with passive acceptance of the way things are and compliance with expectations, even enthusiastic participation in every evil. In a word: heteronomy. Because people taught that complacency, so hard won, is their greatest treasure, are ambivalent, yearning, but fearing, to be free. And real freedom, beyond merely rights in the abstract with no practical opportunity, consists in autonomy and will to power, together with actual capability to do anything about it. To quote Arthur H. Vandenber: “It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity.”

To that end, beyond the limits of available community, lonely or at any rate solitary endeavor that leaves only the pursuit any conceivable social interaction not so readily accessible to all, however new and original, precidented or unprecedented, and every question of feasibility. Moreover, let us remain wary of how collective striving for whatever ideal that never arrives, can often be so cult like, destructive and unhappy. Therefore, first, it is whatever striving first that must be fulfilling, intrinsically, in and of itself, prior to any hoped for results or rewards, and without propaganda manipulation.

Gaining market share is often thought to depend upon accurately targeting a market segment already actively seeking and already receptive. But does the requirement of a market segment already actively seeking and already receptive, thereby effectively rule out innovation of the hitherto unconsidered? -particularly as achieved by "assumption smashing," even deliberate abandon or violation of various assumptions, or via the creativity of making unusual associations and finding novel connections? Is there any circumvention of the requirement of a market segment already actively seeking and already receptive, to smash that very assumption specifically? Too many are already too committed to one path or another. Open mindedness, then, together with skeptical credulity, becomes a crucial market criteria. And what more diminishes the candidate pool then that? Who is there open to anything new? After all, another problem with the requirement of a market segment already actively seeking and already receptive, is that people don't always yet quite understand what they are missing so badly. Many are confused and many more have been calculatingly mislead. It may be that the market segment in question is that of those seeking, first of all, a better understanding, a fuller problem statement in applied or practical Philosophy.

passion + reason = fun constructive action
pleasure + engagement + meaning = gratification
where ongoing fulfillment of desire
and then renewal of appetite
is the measure of vitality and authentic happiness

The central problem statement of life

user hostile: the world that has failed us
Situation Analysis: The historical topology of the rat-race, and how the rules make no sense.

In the collective imagination, nostalgia readily paints a rosier picture of a time not so long ago when propinquitous chance conversation and continual reencounter on the street corners and in the parks, was overture in a natural process of veritable courtship, wooing and drawing neighbors closer into one another's lives and homes. No rocket surgery about it! Be that as that ever really may have been, now neighborhoods are less homogenous, folks are no longer so seriously and substantively involved therein, people are snobbier, strangers maintain distance interminably, and all therefore, one must either cultivate and rely upon whatever existing and embedded social networks and affinities, if any, or else endure social isolation.

In every walk of life, hypocritically self serving bullies so love to represent themselves as somehow or other vigilante pro-social. -Indeed, as the Reactionary guardians of the way things are done, the cops of social expectation, our jailors however self appointed, pushing us around or casting us aside. And barking mad as that seems, perhaps indeed they truly play just that rôle, and for the most part unchallenged! Thus bullying and even crime, and getting away with it, or else the meek submission to intolerance and domination so effusively praised as socially adaptive, may indeed even be regarded quite simply as operant behavior. For ultimately, bullies have only learned what they have been taught, dysfunctional norms to enforce, replete with blithe expectations of all such flagrant impunity.

No wonder people aren't just more sociable nowadays, but instead so cagy, unapproachable and antisocial. In social situations, people simply do not actually socialize, as in simply to interact · converse · be sociable · make one another welcome · mix or mingle, especially not with strangers. Thus we find ourselves abandoned to the mercies of what can only be described as: the cult of socialization, wherein all are so pathetically eager towards reciprocal indoctrination, conditioning, like paper training puppies, into entire cannons of however arbitrarily senseless expectations of accepted behavior, no matter how picayune and nuanced in mindless uniformity, no matter actually even how immoral and destructive. Social Intelligence is prized and afforded precedence over Emotional Intelligence. For we are always being monitored by our peers instead of being looked out for by our friends! But how has such desperately toadying heteronomy come to pass? Such is the irrelevance of the declining normative phase in the death throws of complex systems, unless instead an integrative phase endues, wherein pointless norms are no longer refined for pointless internal efficiency and stability, but abandoned in quest of external meaning and accomplishment of external purpose or actual use to anyone.

Because alienation accrues from haplessly finding oneself coerced and manipulated into situations wherein the pains we put ourselves to quite simply strain all credulity and trust. - a sore travail... But by contrast, occasionally even amid life's vicissitudes, sometimes others can really be on the level: For example by way of illustration, I heartily recommend care offered by dental schools, not only to save money though it takes more time, but for the superior quality of treatment and attention. Dental students are still interested in what they are doing, and supervised by their expert professors acting as consulting practitioners offering guidance. Being human and fallible, actually frees student dentists even to be creative and go the extra mile in solving particular and irritating dental problems arising for the individual patient. I have searched high and low for some equivalent situation for medical health care, alas to no avail. My point is that in my life, the only one I actually trust to inflict upon me suffering, all for my own good, is my student dentist. All others lie! They only struggle to keep their own world predictable.

Ironically, my student dentist never feels compelled to protest his noble and selfless intentions, knowing best for me and all, because it's so obvious, as are the desirable outcomes. Therefore, no condescension of blandishment or rationalization of purported tough love are ever necessary or forthcoming in any aspect of my dental care. My student dentist is on the level. I understand and fully consent. Indeed, though I am embarrassed at my own squeamishness, yet I struggle with no ambivalence. Indeed, my biggest personal conflict in the entire process is only because I'm not much of a morning person! What I resent is the unhealthy strain and the time consumed in public transportation. In Africa, they throw a party while they travel by bus!

Alas, as we shall see, by contrast the usual of life's travails are entirely different, especially formal education dispensed by those purporting to know best followed in life by the supposed upright dignity of wage slavery to our social betters! And there are other examples. But perhaps worst remains the social minefield most generally. And perhaps most patronizing of all, is social skills training or remediation. All in all, I'd rather go to the dentist!

"Birth, School, Work, Death"

All of these woes so calculatingly inflicted, masquerade as innocent circumstance so as to disarm natural resentment and resistance. Such is manipulation as the natural adjunct to coercion. This is because all such blisteringly toxic coercion, so ubiquitous in every walk of life, must always be thoroughly whitewashed, copiously trowelled over with endless propaganda. Whereas the natural response to manipulation and coercion is resentment, heteronomy cultivates dependency upon those who are purported to understand all what's best for us, undermining self confidence and trust in ones own inclinations, with indoctrination promoting shame and ambivalence: It's for your own good, dear, we are told! How ungrateful we have all been made to feel! Indeed, conventional success demands not only compliance, but approval seeking enthusiastic compliance. Either that, or a disciplined apathy from calculatingly cultivated dystress insensitivity. After all, from the very beginning, dystress in formal education is not merely some unfortunate byproduct. Indeed, Plato's Academy, the very prototype institution of formal education as we understand historically, after thousands of years still so influential, made the malignant innovation of deliberately introducing dystress into a curriculum of indoctrination, forever corrupting the Socratic love of learning for its own sake via discourse among equals (or as espoused by Epicurus, freedom, friendship and thought!). For Plato reasoned that conformity engenders ambivalence and is therefore dystressful. Thus the conformist must be dystress tolerant. Therefore Plato designed in constant and mounting dystress to weed out the dystress vulnerable nonconformist, the person of passionate interests and conscience to their own strong values and convictions, to the bottom rungs of society, thus assuring a compliant, conformist, toadying conservative leadership for tomorrow, in preservation of the status quo punishment and reward systems for the sheeple to live in harmony.

Intrinsic motivation characteristic of autonomy, includes curiosity, exploration, spontaneity, and interest, whereas extrinsic motivation is directed towards whatever end state separate from the actual desired behavior. Extrinsic motivation is provided in punishment and reward systems characteristic of heteronomy. Of course, extrinsic motivation is well known and understood to stunt intrinsic motivation.

But did Plato truly invent anything so new, or merely imitate what anyone can observe as so Empirically evident in human society most generally, and most particularly in Sparta, the consummately heteronymous warlike totalitarian regime Plato so admired (and notorious model for Plato's Republic)? For the same Absurd paradigm is ubiquitous not only in all such institutions as school and employment, not to mention religion, but in recreation and most broadly the social minefield, the entire rat race all wherein bullying with impunity remains pandemic unchecked.

Thus, no matter what one does in whatever walk of life, wherever one goes or reaches out, there remains much the same outcomes gap: Readily available social life options are not merely a challenge for the disadvantaged and under equipped, who are expected anyhow not only to settle for less, but actually not much to know the difference. In truth, we are all of us also so patronizingly expected to be too stupid to know the difference and to dullardly make do! Social life remains much the same uniformly unsatisfactory and unworkable affront to ingenious sociability as it has ever been. Social life that quite simply fails to fully or adequately meet individual social needs, remains after all, as it has always been, ubiquitous, even intentionally and by design: either for compliant satisfice with whatever Existential bait-and-switch on offer, patiently doing as expected, however lonely, bored and alienated, demeaning and futile, or else a brutalizing mediocrity filter into failure and rejection entirely for both the unfit and the overqualified alike. -All never openly reaching out in confident trust to one another for fulfillment and negotiating success on one's own terms. For bait-and-switch is when the chimerical allure of one good and howsoever advantageous terms, is dangled out to beguile and ensnare the mark into resignation, defeat, and Transaction for some other, lesser and more costly approximation entirely. Then desperate hopes may endure, of later someday somehow trading it all in for ones actual hearts desire and thus recovering ones own long lost and craven bartered soul. Whereas: If You Desire Anything You've Never Had, Try Something You've Never Done.

Ancillary Problem Statement: Absurd irrelevance of help readily available
why a step back and a fresh start is required for any better alternative

Success and popularity advice typically consist either in enthusiastic guidance toward social compliance, or else brazen exhortation to superficiality and exploitation, all really quite worthless and demeaning. All therefore, find here no more phony big shot latter-day gurus armed with glowing testimonials, selling whatever the next overpriced inane hokum and snake oil to cure all your woes, that will only make you feel inadequate when you don't throw yourself into it, or unworthy when it fails. Basically, the ugly truth about all social skills, popularity and social networking advice, is that it does not work because it cannot work. And again, this is by design. It’s all a scam, which means that motivational conditioning and false representations notwithstanding, the entire treacherously byzantine process actually only serves vested interests. For the rest of us, radical change is the only remedy.

I'm not looking for so much as one thin dime from you, gentle reader: All that I am promoting here is the following agenda for ongoing discussion, a vision of doing things a little differently, even at first within a small circle of participants. It would be simpler just to hire any sort of specialist coach. But even the best coaching remains only expensive poor substitute for the emergence of real partnership amongst co-founders and stake holders, sharing the reciprocal support that remains among the greatest predicators to success. For neglect at ulterior cross-purpose, is the collaboration killer.

Much at all purposeful interaction online tends to focus on swapping advice superficially, and no more. Even face to face, independent business owners in particular, if not simply doing business, often only seek to network for more of the same and little more. Whereas people within the system, tend to continue working within the system. Of all the things that we are all discouraged from doing, perhaps most important is in rising beyond constraints in the ways we cooperate. Everybody understands that a maverick must be solitary, even with legions of followers, all learning to become likewise solitary mavericks.

All because after all: There is simply no way to be together, much less work together, without firm guidance of leadership providing structure! Or so we are told. And when the authorities can thus set the terms, protocols, and rules of engagement for rebellion, then the rebellion is already lost! Such is the manipulative scam of alienation and irrelevance, foisted upon us under the learned helplessness and dependency of heteronomy, that cultivates the distance for exploitation and incompetence to masquerade as vital assistance. Anarchic sham alternatives such as of exploitative passive hostility of bogus spontaneous cooperation are no answer either. What is required is autonomy and responsible collaboration among equals, personally involved and vested in one another, ever cultivating reciprocal social and logistical support that is most important among predicators of success. Neglect under ulterior cross-purpose is the collaboration killer.

Interestingly, as it turns out, what the renowned Babson College Entrepreneurship Program emphasizes as the true essence of innovation, is skillfully knowing ones way around institutions, in other words: working within the system. At what point does this begin to treat entrepreneurship more like intrapreneurship? Formal education has always been expert at demanding the time to leisurely subsume, digest and defuse anything that even begins threatening to foster autonomy. Seymour Papert said of socialization: "I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching [students] to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.” Indeed, even the most impressive and progressive Entrepreneurship scholastic programs, where beyond lip service, any of the class assignments each semester, are actual entrepreneurial venture of one kind or another, still hypocritically simulate the travails of employment more than any freedom of Entrepreneurship, under the rationale of the vaunted Entrepreneur Boot Camp, modeling upon the military just as formal education always has, deliberately introducing stress just as in the Academy of Plato, piling on the course loads on tight schedules, because "pressure makes diamonds!" And to make matters worse still, whereas Entrepreneurship training materials that entrepreneurs market to one another, are engagingly Hypothetico-Deductive, in business school, even in Entrepreneurship courses and programs, instead the Inductivist Case Study Method is still inflicted upon students. Indeed, nothing can be more antithetical to Entrepreneurship than formal education, perhaps even the more so than Corporate employment. What is needed is some kind of wholesale unschooling of Entrepreneurial learning, particularly for aspiring Entrepreneurs from scratch.

Coaches and teachers of whatever stripe, are telling us, in essence: No, I don't actually trust or respect you, I don't really want to help or to work with you, and all that I've gone through to get where I am now, I certainly do not want to cast my lot with you in any common endeavor: I am the expert, I am your better, and I expect to be paid up front! After that, best of luck to you! Submitting to or modeling upon that sort of obnoxious Existential position, is what undermines effective and responsible collaboration among equals in every walk of life. However, in actuality, such has never really been the only way of learning: Students used to converge on their own to pool their resources to study and research together. Such was the beginning of modern science during the Renaissance, quickly co-opted and behaviorally structured by the authorities, into the forbears of tame and rigid Academia we all know so well, indeed named for that oppressive indoctrinary regimen, the Academy of Plato.

And in innovative new venture creation, Entrepreneurs, following suit after those brave pioneers of the Renaissance, must take initiative to converge, throughout the entire start up process of recruitment, management team formation, business planning and feasibility study. And such responsible interdisciplinary collaboration beyond the authority of any boss or school teacher, is a challenge to maturity, civility and autonomy, continual error detection and ongoing course correction, that has to be what all participants deeply care about and dearly want, enough for unrelenting trial and error, learning from mistakes, to fail repeatedly, regroup and begin again anew, progressing unto success. And it all begins from agenda setting in the Dialectic. Are you up to it?

Alienation skews priorities: Heteronymous and superficial bland agreeability is so prized as key to hierarchical social acceptance crucial for competent integration into society in turn deemed requisite to access for forging quality personal relationships along with secure embedment in functional immediate social circles. But just the opposite, we all know full well how deeper and more substantive relationships among autonomous equals in immediate social circles, in a word: friendship, remains ever crucial as leverage to capable and beneficial integration into society predicative for success.

Alas, too many people, much in accord with the totalitarianism of Plato, find agreement agreeable and disagreement disagreeable, feeling that criticism and controversy only "rock the boat" making it impossible for individuals to function as a society in which approved answers are systematically rewarded and mistakes punished. But Socrates was right: The truth is just the opposite, that there is very little very interesting that can really be seriously and responsibly undertaken and accomplished except by the practice of controversy which is the free exchange of criticism among equals.

We are all taught to be agreeable and keep conversation light and bland, in order never to stand out and thus to become accepted and popular. And yet the bleeding edge of science, in rediscovery of the wisdom of the sages of old, finds salient reason to flout taboo by recommending the exact opposite: Happy people talk more seriously together, freely, and with less small talk, deliberating Dialectically in controversy, with civility as autonomous equals.

And that is the imperative behind the Unreasonable Demand Manifesto for implementation in the master plan: Creativity Should be Social.


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