after cranking the video and moonwalking around the living room exclaiming into the void “they’re talking about me! they’re talking about me!”
I came back here in a more settled state the next day and was surprised there was such a discussion going on..
l personally didn’t go to the website after watching, as I knew what prob. lay behind it, however, you make good points with your deconstruction, and it pointed out to me how easy it is for Everyone, not just Those People…to get sucked up into the machine. or a machine of some sort. some of your comments made me laugh at myself…..oh Pollyanna!
it’s true those of us who feel underrepresented can be just as vulnerable as those who “don’t have their thinking caps on”
in the end, I think ya gotta go with your feelings, if the vid pumped you up, booyah! if it didn’t, don’t waste your ten minutes.
if the marketing/sales aspect is distasteful, don’t go there, but if you were called to delve further, go for it.
theme here: choices!! how do you want to spend your precious resources of time, energy, money ????
Patti, I hope you will comment on anything you feel you want to in the future, I do.
I’m pretty sure PW is aiming to be a well-rounded entity, every piece of the pie has something to contribute. homogeneity isn’t creative or doesn’t challenge me to learn or grow…
take care & be well
in peace.
And before anyone jumps on the detial and misses the bigger point I of course meant Wayseers not Waysayers – though as Fruediuan slips go it’s not bad… possibly worth pondering the difference between ‘seeing’ or ‘saying’?
Actually Seanh I think you’ve hit on something that does needs opening up (and probably shouldn’t feel obliged to apologise for it). And that is the ‘vigorous’ way the regulars in these comments close ranks and jump on anyone who disagrees with anything Eric says or does or tries to offer a different point of view. This is why I don’t wade in very often, even though I find the discussions occasionally stimulating – it’s just too exhausting and frustrating.
In my mind, as a long term subscriber and enthusiastic supporter of Eric’s work, I separate the good that I get from the website as a whole from this nonsense, but just to put the cat amongst the pigeons isn’t this exactly the kind of exclusion behaviour that Waysayers is talking about? Is this the new tribe? Freaks rule, straights drool? We’re all in this together means we’re all in this together. It’s not the straights over here and the freaks over there or the gays over here and the heteros over there, Tea Partiers over here, sensible folk over there. To my mind it is worth questioning anything that promotes a great big ‘fuck you’ to a great big section of society.
As for the ADHD issue, I suppose I could just go burn my diploma in psychotherapy, and forget my experience of family members’ mental illness, but then again maybe not. I think there may be a difference between a desire/high tolerance for (mental) stimulation and a vulnerability to emotional/spiritual overwhelmment from pursuing that end, which is a common feature of disorders like ADHD/ADD. It’s a cycle. It’s good that LoPorto advocates dealing with mental illness through something other than drugs, but at the same time I’m not sure high-octane fast-cut videos are benign (and if he was selling anything other than salvation would we let him get away with it?). This, however, is a more serious point than I was actually making… I was simply saying this ironic aspect of the video made me laugh.
I’m not balking at spending the money – only at the uncritical assumption that if someone says something loud enough and long enough and makes a video where his own face is intercut with iconic footage of John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Mohammed Ali et al, he must be saying something profound.
There have been lots of analyses of ‘outsiders’ that have presented a more thoughtful and thorough and original look at those of us (and I include myself in this) that don’t fit in. I think I’ll stick with those.
@Rob44.
I agree. The reason I come here often is to listen and learn from incredibly intelligent and discerning people. I think a “defense mechanism” kicked in when I viewed the vid.
I’ve worked as an advertising art director for nearly thirty years and can smell marketing 25 frames into a film. Wayseer has marketing written all over it in bright shiny neon lights.
I come to this community to get away from empty marketing platitudes. Eric, Len, Fe, Amanda and the blogging community here get it. They think about, examine and eloquently communicate what it is to be human in the early 21st century. I am ever vigilante of the propensity of marketing people to jump on bandwagons. Marketing people will ask to borrow your watch, charge you to tell you the time and sell the watch back to you. Planetwaves informs people that you have everything you need in yourself and they guide you with this truth in mind. That is unique. Something worth “defending” if a little too vigorously. Apologies.
p.s I read Eric’s Huffington post link. Loporto comes across as lucid and makes some very salient points. The education system, as it stands , is designed to turn us into obedient consumers – not creative thinkers. I agree with his goals if a little dubious of his methods.
(WARNING – rambling.)
There may be genetics involved in — what are we calling this? creativity? — but where I come from we also used the long cold months to explain the surges. So what are you going to do in the cold and dark besides create shit and fuck?) I’ve also believed that an absence of material poverty and/or a different standard re: riches went a long way to explaining freedom of expression or freedom to express eccentricities.
As for education, my formative years were spent with hellfire-spewing nuns and jesuit educated male teachers… and this often saw me with rapped knuckles or lingering in hallways, banished from the group. Still got those grades though. (And I’m sure there’s astrology in that.) There is also likely a lingering though lessening need for approval from very intelligent men alongside a need to have less disdain for women (the nuns really did me in, as did junior high and high school girl’s bathrooms). Tying in to Len’s piece of today, the feminine certainly could do with a lot of healing. As could the masculine. Both the walking wounded, no, yes?
Back to the video and education: When my son was a wee seven, a fervent ADHD promoter/diagnoser tried to get him on Ritalin. That was a fight from hell. I won. Today, he is headed for a career in healing and he’s a dj. (Oh, and he was an avid video game-player.)
I suppose my point is: you take the good and you leave the rest. I loved this video. I opted out on the book-buying. (I probably have a few similar books on my bookshelf – only with different titles — most of which cite the same innovators.) What is most disturbing is that so many people don’t trust themselves to make those choices that are right for themselves (and to share with other) to live well and happily and contributing and fulfilled etc etc. What that video reminded me of is that I need to trust myself. A pretty cool injection of energy these days.
Also, when I went to the wayseer website, I thought of this website when I got to the part about “why charge for membership or the book.” I pay to subscribe here for much the same reasons given at that website. The information is valuable to me. I am not bombarded by ads. Everyone’s got to make a living and the infrastructure has a bottom line. (Though I opted out of membership there for the same reason I opted out of buying the book. I think I am currently surrounded by all the resources I need to be me.)
Now I need to pack. I am freaked out. I was readyreadyready for more -30 and it’s only -3. WTF? -3 in Kugluktuk in March???? (And that’s a whole other can of worms.)
Amanda, good insights and research, thank you! Regarding the public schools in the US I believe it is true that originally the idea of public education for all was a fine and wonderful one which became subverted. How that subversion occurred is probably a many layered tale of numerous agendas woven together, but I can attest that the methods even when I was in school positively reeked of mind control and “training” rather than “e ducere” — leading forth from within that which the individual has to develop.
Also appreciate your comment about the ADD thing, yeah I think the punchiness of the video mitigates against the issues of length. And I don’t mind at all exchanging money for good stuff, like subscribing here for instance. I object to a certain tone that some marketing has that I have learned to mistrust completely over the years. I have overridden that instinctual objection, by telling myself, oh, come on, you are just being (fill in the blank) some type of irrational — just check this out it is a good thing! (to the rational mind) Only to find out I was right in my resistance all along.
also:
while i also balk at the “buy the book/t-shirt, join the movement” commercialism, loporto does make one good point on the wayseers site:
to paraphrase, we (in general) spend tons of money on things that harm us without a second thought all the time. why do we balk when someone asks us to exchange money for something that may actually help us?
and patti.t16 — i have a feeling that although the video is a bit long, the quickly-changing graphics help with the attention issues. 🙂
ok, the video — standing on its own — i still love.
i read the Huff Po article eric posted. and, well… he makes some good points. But reading what loporto says about the “inventiveness/explorer” gene — a dopamine D4 receptor gene — which supposedly shows up in americans more than in people in other countries made me think of a point “stellium in sag” keeps bringing up:
data and studies can be used for almost any agenda; there’s a lot of selection and interpretation that goes on. so maybe lots of americans *have* inherited this gene. but i also think, despite the constraints american society has, there is still a lot more room for creative movement and expression than in many cultures. and that continually brings people from other cultures looking for that room.
here’s a segment from the PubMed page he links to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8682515?dopt=Abstract
(An allele is an alternative form of a gene (one member of a pair) that is located at a specific position on a specific chromosome)
“The 4-repeat allele was the most prevalent (global mean allele frequency = 64.3%) and appeared in every population with a frequency ranging from 0.16 to 0.96. The 7-repeat allele was the second most common (global mean = 20.6%), appearing quite frequently in the Americas (mean frequency = 48.3%) but only occasionally in East and South Asia (mean frequency = 1.9%). The 2-repeat allele was the third most common (global mean frequency = 8.2%) and was quite frequent in East and South Asia (mean frequency = 18.1%) while uncommon in the Americas (mean frequency = 2.9%) and Africa (mean frequency = 1.7%). The universality of the polymorphism with only three common repeat-number alleles (4, 7, and 2) indicates that the polymorphism is ancient and arose before the global dispersion of modern humans. The diversity of actual allele frequencies for this expressed polymorphism among different populations emphasizes the importance of population considerations in the design and interpretation of any association studies carried out with this polymorphism.”
ok, i don’t quite get all of that, but from what i can gather, this study is citing “the americas” not specifically “the usa,” and while the USA is certainly part of “the americas,” i think it’s worthwhile noting there seem to be plenty of “special” people north & south of our borders, too.
it also sounds, if i understand the abstract correctly (and i may not), that there are variations on this gene, one of which is common in asia and uncommon in the americas.
***
i was also thinking about loporto’s discussion of the origins of the american educational system. he cites origins in germany over a century ago as being designed to feed factory workforces, which makes sense.
but my understanding of higher education (Barbara Sher makes this point) is that until 50 – 60 years ago or so, it was designed for students to get “well-rounded” liberal arts educations (like the fabled “renaissance men”) — which was more suited to allowing students to cross-reference and let various disciplines feed their interests. and then somewhere around “cold war” time, there was this shift to make students pick a “specialty” — leaving those with many varied interests feeling like failures because they couldn’t just pick one thing and stick with it.
Am I the only one who cackled at the idea that a manifesto celebrating ADHD (which the tiny amount of publicly available info about him suggests LoPorto has), bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, dyslexia, narcissism, Asperger’s, anxiety, depression, risk-taking, sensation seeking, “addictive personality” – and yes I know these are all ‘just labels’ – should come in the form of a video so staggeringly long that a lot of the ‘tribe’ he’s aiming for might have lost interest or felt overwhelmed or decided to go off and make their own video after the first couple of minutes? I’m in two minds – guess that makes me part of his target audience…. see also http://www.davincimethod.com/
ps… Does anyone think it’s possible to love the world, and accept that the personal is political and vice versa without wanting to buy the t-shirt, join the conga line or sign up to the e-news? Sort of along the lines of the Paul Hawken/Cultural Creatives?
haha, shot and short eh? i did wonder why you weren’t on there, and charlie sheen was. 😉
Well Storm that is a very shot list.
And most of the people are dead. And multibillionaires don’t count in my opinion. But at least it is a start. Technically I am “notable” because I qualify to not have my Wikipedia page deleted for lack of notability.
Kyla, I share your sentiments. Did troll a little into his earlier life and discovered he was the founder of ‘savebenandjerry.com back in 2000, amongst other ventures. Well, good for him!
I agree about the ‘energy’, that burst of holy s#&t….sometimes we just need to accept a thing for what it is before getting out the magnifying glass. Have to say tho’, after watching for the first time this morning, my cream of wheat breakfast will never be the same!
hmmm as I viewed the manifesto video I got pretty excited! – started feeling encouraged by the validating pep talk/lyrics.
I became even more excited when I noticed the web site ad at the end of the video, thinking “great there is more where that came from”. I went to the site and all the build up and anticipation bubbling up within me came to a stop as I took a look at the web site. Now I ask “where did that come from EXACTLY?” and is it really a message of support? Sad that I should question what appears to be a message of encouragement and validation but I’m not 100% on this one. Thank you for sharing it because it caused me to question with discernment rather than judgement – and I leave it at that.
Oh good. I also had a little turn when I went further into this Wayseer set of links….. I love the video and believe it on its own is a highly valuable seed. I’m not at ease with the marketing stuff on the next pages in, though, and that actually stopped me from pursuing it further.
but the energy of the juice in the video makes it worthwhile to share, in my opinion, regardless of other factors. Stuff that lifts people from the slump of “the world too much” is good to have around.
PS – I’m still wondering if anyone can name a famous polyamorous person.
the clip i posted was an Apple commercial at one time (their logo nicely edited out of the end of this utoob) – and clearly sampled in the “manifesto” – so, template already taken.
Tried to read the lyrics on LoPorto’s site, but could not scroll down. But did find them, here:
seanh — i’m with you to some degree (i’m not into the whole “join the movement — buy the book!” aspect… yes, i did check out the rest of the website). but overall i agree with rob44. everything we encounter requires discernment, but i’m not going to throw out the good-message baby with the bathwater.
the message takes many forms in the world; some forms will resonate with some people more than others. hell, even the most famous nike ad of all time has actually inspired people to make courageous, positive changes in their lives.
but *thank you* — honestly, fully, truly — for posting the reminder to watch for people/organizations trying to sell you something you already have. it’s an important reminder.
I think we here are all capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, Seanh, thank you. (And as far as I can tell, this video wasn’t produced for the Irish only.) The message expressed strikes a chord, and is relevant beyond any advertising angle. Thanks for posting Eric; and for trusting your readers to be discerning and intelligent enough to take the best and leave the rest. You do post great stuff, and this is one of them. Keep ’em coming.
Errr…..quiet. This is the sort of prophetilizing sloganeering that Bono is famous for and receives cackles of derision especially in his home town of Dublin. The Irish don’t do “collective positivism” except in sport. It will probably end up being a template for the next Apple or Nike TV commercial. And yes, there is a book to sell at the end of it all. As with most advertising, it’s trying to sell you something you already have – you and your innate creativity. Sorry Eric – you usually post great stuff. This isn’t one of them.
yep.
“The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9GTUMh490
LOL! You were the first person I sent it to, after seeing it posted in another forum, and then three people sent it to me after that.
He hits just the right spot. It’s challenging and inspiring without playing any of the depressing guilt notes (like the “you haven’t done enough to change the world yet” kind of notes….) God I wish this had been around when I was in high school. Might have helped.
A nice boost at the end of the day, thanks everyone!
kyla you sent it to me
!
thanks for that.
When do we get to say something is “going viral”? I have had three people (from totally different parts of my life) email this to me in the last 36 hours.
heh.
Man, this message is such a dose of good juju, we need it! Thanks for posting it.
..I couldn’t stop the pressure of the tears..
Thanks,
Jere
YES. Whee-hoo. Just what I needed too!
fuck. brilliant! just what i needed.
Thanks for this — it reminds me of listening to Rollins, just less depressing.
Hey Patti,
rock solid.
I like your stealthy eye.
after cranking the video and moonwalking around the living room exclaiming into the void “they’re talking about me! they’re talking about me!”
I came back here in a more settled state the next day and was surprised there was such a discussion going on..
l personally didn’t go to the website after watching, as I knew what prob. lay behind it, however, you make good points with your deconstruction, and it pointed out to me how easy it is for Everyone, not just Those People…to get sucked up into the machine. or a machine of some sort. some of your comments made me laugh at myself…..oh Pollyanna!
it’s true those of us who feel underrepresented can be just as vulnerable as those who “don’t have their thinking caps on”
in the end, I think ya gotta go with your feelings, if the vid pumped you up, booyah! if it didn’t, don’t waste your ten minutes.
if the marketing/sales aspect is distasteful, don’t go there, but if you were called to delve further, go for it.
theme here: choices!! how do you want to spend your precious resources of time, energy, money ????
Patti, I hope you will comment on anything you feel you want to in the future, I do.
I’m pretty sure PW is aiming to be a well-rounded entity, every piece of the pie has something to contribute. homogeneity isn’t creative or doesn’t challenge me to learn or grow…
take care & be well
in peace.
And before anyone jumps on the detial and misses the bigger point I of course meant Wayseers not Waysayers – though as Fruediuan slips go it’s not bad… possibly worth pondering the difference between ‘seeing’ or ‘saying’?
Actually Seanh I think you’ve hit on something that does needs opening up (and probably shouldn’t feel obliged to apologise for it). And that is the ‘vigorous’ way the regulars in these comments close ranks and jump on anyone who disagrees with anything Eric says or does or tries to offer a different point of view. This is why I don’t wade in very often, even though I find the discussions occasionally stimulating – it’s just too exhausting and frustrating.
In my mind, as a long term subscriber and enthusiastic supporter of Eric’s work, I separate the good that I get from the website as a whole from this nonsense, but just to put the cat amongst the pigeons isn’t this exactly the kind of exclusion behaviour that Waysayers is talking about? Is this the new tribe? Freaks rule, straights drool? We’re all in this together means we’re all in this together. It’s not the straights over here and the freaks over there or the gays over here and the heteros over there, Tea Partiers over here, sensible folk over there. To my mind it is worth questioning anything that promotes a great big ‘fuck you’ to a great big section of society.
As for the ADHD issue, I suppose I could just go burn my diploma in psychotherapy, and forget my experience of family members’ mental illness, but then again maybe not. I think there may be a difference between a desire/high tolerance for (mental) stimulation and a vulnerability to emotional/spiritual overwhelmment from pursuing that end, which is a common feature of disorders like ADHD/ADD. It’s a cycle. It’s good that LoPorto advocates dealing with mental illness through something other than drugs, but at the same time I’m not sure high-octane fast-cut videos are benign (and if he was selling anything other than salvation would we let him get away with it?). This, however, is a more serious point than I was actually making… I was simply saying this ironic aspect of the video made me laugh.
I’m not balking at spending the money – only at the uncritical assumption that if someone says something loud enough and long enough and makes a video where his own face is intercut with iconic footage of John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Mohammed Ali et al, he must be saying something profound.
There have been lots of analyses of ‘outsiders’ that have presented a more thoughtful and thorough and original look at those of us (and I include myself in this) that don’t fit in. I think I’ll stick with those.
@Rob44.
I agree. The reason I come here often is to listen and learn from incredibly intelligent and discerning people. I think a “defense mechanism” kicked in when I viewed the vid.
I’ve worked as an advertising art director for nearly thirty years and can smell marketing 25 frames into a film. Wayseer has marketing written all over it in bright shiny neon lights.
I come to this community to get away from empty marketing platitudes. Eric, Len, Fe, Amanda and the blogging community here get it. They think about, examine and eloquently communicate what it is to be human in the early 21st century. I am ever vigilante of the propensity of marketing people to jump on bandwagons. Marketing people will ask to borrow your watch, charge you to tell you the time and sell the watch back to you. Planetwaves informs people that you have everything you need in yourself and they guide you with this truth in mind. That is unique. Something worth “defending” if a little too vigorously. Apologies.
p.s I read Eric’s Huffington post link. Loporto comes across as lucid and makes some very salient points. The education system, as it stands , is designed to turn us into obedient consumers – not creative thinkers. I agree with his goals if a little dubious of his methods.
(WARNING – rambling.)
There may be genetics involved in — what are we calling this? creativity? — but where I come from we also used the long cold months to explain the surges. So what are you going to do in the cold and dark besides create shit and fuck?) I’ve also believed that an absence of material poverty and/or a different standard re: riches went a long way to explaining freedom of expression or freedom to express eccentricities.
As for education, my formative years were spent with hellfire-spewing nuns and jesuit educated male teachers… and this often saw me with rapped knuckles or lingering in hallways, banished from the group. Still got those grades though. (And I’m sure there’s astrology in that.) There is also likely a lingering though lessening need for approval from very intelligent men alongside a need to have less disdain for women (the nuns really did me in, as did junior high and high school girl’s bathrooms). Tying in to Len’s piece of today, the feminine certainly could do with a lot of healing. As could the masculine. Both the walking wounded, no, yes?
Back to the video and education: When my son was a wee seven, a fervent ADHD promoter/diagnoser tried to get him on Ritalin. That was a fight from hell. I won. Today, he is headed for a career in healing and he’s a dj. (Oh, and he was an avid video game-player.)
I suppose my point is: you take the good and you leave the rest. I loved this video. I opted out on the book-buying. (I probably have a few similar books on my bookshelf – only with different titles — most of which cite the same innovators.) What is most disturbing is that so many people don’t trust themselves to make those choices that are right for themselves (and to share with other) to live well and happily and contributing and fulfilled etc etc. What that video reminded me of is that I need to trust myself. A pretty cool injection of energy these days.
Also, when I went to the wayseer website, I thought of this website when I got to the part about “why charge for membership or the book.” I pay to subscribe here for much the same reasons given at that website. The information is valuable to me. I am not bombarded by ads. Everyone’s got to make a living and the infrastructure has a bottom line. (Though I opted out of membership there for the same reason I opted out of buying the book. I think I am currently surrounded by all the resources I need to be me.)
Now I need to pack. I am freaked out. I was readyreadyready for more -30 and it’s only -3. WTF? -3 in Kugluktuk in March???? (And that’s a whole other can of worms.)
Amanda, good insights and research, thank you! Regarding the public schools in the US I believe it is true that originally the idea of public education for all was a fine and wonderful one which became subverted. How that subversion occurred is probably a many layered tale of numerous agendas woven together, but I can attest that the methods even when I was in school positively reeked of mind control and “training” rather than “e ducere” — leading forth from within that which the individual has to develop.
Also appreciate your comment about the ADD thing, yeah I think the punchiness of the video mitigates against the issues of length. And I don’t mind at all exchanging money for good stuff, like subscribing here for instance. I object to a certain tone that some marketing has that I have learned to mistrust completely over the years. I have overridden that instinctual objection, by telling myself, oh, come on, you are just being (fill in the blank) some type of irrational — just check this out it is a good thing! (to the rational mind) Only to find out I was right in my resistance all along.
also:
while i also balk at the “buy the book/t-shirt, join the movement” commercialism, loporto does make one good point on the wayseers site:
to paraphrase, we (in general) spend tons of money on things that harm us without a second thought all the time. why do we balk when someone asks us to exchange money for something that may actually help us?
and patti.t16 — i have a feeling that although the video is a bit long, the quickly-changing graphics help with the attention issues. 🙂
ok, the video — standing on its own — i still love.
i read the Huff Po article eric posted. and, well… he makes some good points. But reading what loporto says about the “inventiveness/explorer” gene — a dopamine D4 receptor gene — which supposedly shows up in americans more than in people in other countries made me think of a point “stellium in sag” keeps bringing up:
data and studies can be used for almost any agenda; there’s a lot of selection and interpretation that goes on. so maybe lots of americans *have* inherited this gene. but i also think, despite the constraints american society has, there is still a lot more room for creative movement and expression than in many cultures. and that continually brings people from other cultures looking for that room.
here’s a segment from the PubMed page he links to:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8682515?dopt=Abstract
(An allele is an alternative form of a gene (one member of a pair) that is located at a specific position on a specific chromosome)
“The 4-repeat allele was the most prevalent (global mean allele frequency = 64.3%) and appeared in every population with a frequency ranging from 0.16 to 0.96. The 7-repeat allele was the second most common (global mean = 20.6%), appearing quite frequently in the Americas (mean frequency = 48.3%) but only occasionally in East and South Asia (mean frequency = 1.9%). The 2-repeat allele was the third most common (global mean frequency = 8.2%) and was quite frequent in East and South Asia (mean frequency = 18.1%) while uncommon in the Americas (mean frequency = 2.9%) and Africa (mean frequency = 1.7%). The universality of the polymorphism with only three common repeat-number alleles (4, 7, and 2) indicates that the polymorphism is ancient and arose before the global dispersion of modern humans. The diversity of actual allele frequencies for this expressed polymorphism among different populations emphasizes the importance of population considerations in the design and interpretation of any association studies carried out with this polymorphism.”
ok, i don’t quite get all of that, but from what i can gather, this study is citing “the americas” not specifically “the usa,” and while the USA is certainly part of “the americas,” i think it’s worthwhile noting there seem to be plenty of “special” people north & south of our borders, too.
it also sounds, if i understand the abstract correctly (and i may not), that there are variations on this gene, one of which is common in asia and uncommon in the americas.
***
i was also thinking about loporto’s discussion of the origins of the american educational system. he cites origins in germany over a century ago as being designed to feed factory workforces, which makes sense.
but my understanding of higher education (Barbara Sher makes this point) is that until 50 – 60 years ago or so, it was designed for students to get “well-rounded” liberal arts educations (like the fabled “renaissance men”) — which was more suited to allowing students to cross-reference and let various disciplines feed their interests. and then somewhere around “cold war” time, there was this shift to make students pick a “specialty” — leaving those with many varied interests feeling like failures because they couldn’t just pick one thing and stick with it.
Am I the only one who cackled at the idea that a manifesto celebrating ADHD (which the tiny amount of publicly available info about him suggests LoPorto has), bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, dyslexia, narcissism, Asperger’s, anxiety, depression, risk-taking, sensation seeking, “addictive personality” – and yes I know these are all ‘just labels’ – should come in the form of a video so staggeringly long that a lot of the ‘tribe’ he’s aiming for might have lost interest or felt overwhelmed or decided to go off and make their own video after the first couple of minutes? I’m in two minds – guess that makes me part of his target audience…. see also http://www.davincimethod.com/
ps… Does anyone think it’s possible to love the world, and accept that the personal is political and vice versa without wanting to buy the t-shirt, join the conga line or sign up to the e-news? Sort of along the lines of the Paul Hawken/Cultural Creatives?
haha, shot and short eh? i did wonder why you weren’t on there, and charlie sheen was. 😉
Well Storm that is a very shot list.
And most of the people are dead. And multibillionaires don’t count in my opinion. But at least it is a start. Technically I am “notable” because I qualify to not have my Wikipedia page deleted for lack of notability.
Kyla, I share your sentiments. Did troll a little into his earlier life and discovered he was the founder of ‘savebenandjerry.com back in 2000, amongst other ventures. Well, good for him!
I agree about the ‘energy’, that burst of holy s#&t….sometimes we just need to accept a thing for what it is before getting out the magnifying glass. Have to say tho’, after watching for the first time this morning, my cream of wheat breakfast will never be the same!
hmmm as I viewed the manifesto video I got pretty excited! – started feeling encouraged by the validating pep talk/lyrics.
I became even more excited when I noticed the web site ad at the end of the video, thinking “great there is more where that came from”. I went to the site and all the build up and anticipation bubbling up within me came to a stop as I took a look at the web site. Now I ask “where did that come from EXACTLY?” and is it really a message of support? Sad that I should question what appears to be a message of encouragement and validation but I’m not 100% on this one. Thank you for sharing it because it caused me to question with discernment rather than judgement – and I leave it at that.
Oh good. I also had a little turn when I went further into this Wayseer set of links….. I love the video and believe it on its own is a highly valuable seed. I’m not at ease with the marketing stuff on the next pages in, though, and that actually stopped me from pursuing it further.
but the energy of the juice in the video makes it worthwhile to share, in my opinion, regardless of other factors. Stuff that lifts people from the slump of “the world too much” is good to have around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_polyamorous_people ?
I found this on Huff Po. Decide for yourself if you think he’s an original thinker.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/garret-loporto/class-of-2010-epic-fail-w_b_607560.html
PS – I’m still wondering if anyone can name a famous polyamorous person.
the clip i posted was an Apple commercial at one time (their logo nicely edited out of the end of this utoob) – and clearly sampled in the “manifesto” – so, template already taken.
Tried to read the lyrics on LoPorto’s site, but could not scroll down. But did find them, here:
http://thisblogbusiness.blogspot.com/2011/03/wayseer-manifesto-lyrics.html
seanh — i’m with you to some degree (i’m not into the whole “join the movement — buy the book!” aspect… yes, i did check out the rest of the website). but overall i agree with rob44. everything we encounter requires discernment, but i’m not going to throw out the good-message baby with the bathwater.
the message takes many forms in the world; some forms will resonate with some people more than others. hell, even the most famous nike ad of all time has actually inspired people to make courageous, positive changes in their lives.
but *thank you* — honestly, fully, truly — for posting the reminder to watch for people/organizations trying to sell you something you already have. it’s an important reminder.
I think we here are all capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, Seanh, thank you. (And as far as I can tell, this video wasn’t produced for the Irish only.) The message expressed strikes a chord, and is relevant beyond any advertising angle. Thanks for posting Eric; and for trusting your readers to be discerning and intelligent enough to take the best and leave the rest. You do post great stuff, and this is one of them. Keep ’em coming.
Errr…..quiet. This is the sort of prophetilizing sloganeering that Bono is famous for and receives cackles of derision especially in his home town of Dublin. The Irish don’t do “collective positivism” except in sport. It will probably end up being a template for the next Apple or Nike TV commercial. And yes, there is a book to sell at the end of it all. As with most advertising, it’s trying to sell you something you already have – you and your innate creativity. Sorry Eric – you usually post great stuff. This isn’t one of them.
yep.
“The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9GTUMh490
LOL! You were the first person I sent it to, after seeing it posted in another forum, and then three people sent it to me after that.
He hits just the right spot. It’s challenging and inspiring without playing any of the depressing guilt notes (like the “you haven’t done enough to change the world yet” kind of notes….) God I wish this had been around when I was in high school. Might have helped.
A nice boost at the end of the day, thanks everyone!
kyla you sent it to me
!
thanks for that.
When do we get to say something is “going viral”? I have had three people (from totally different parts of my life) email this to me in the last 36 hours.
heh.
Man, this message is such a dose of good juju, we need it! Thanks for posting it.
..I couldn’t stop the pressure of the tears..
Thanks,
Jere
YES. Whee-hoo. Just what I needed too!
fuck. brilliant! just what i needed.
Thanks for this — it reminds me of listening to Rollins, just less depressing.