Everything is Connected.

Yin and Yang…

Whilst walking around Yorkshire Sculpture Park I came across a new piece of art in the grounds. I stood, stared, and a dozen or so different thoughts went through my mind, all catalysed from this one very simple and totally incongruous confluence of steel and Hollywood-style light bulbs. For a moment it felt like I was on a somewhat theatrical film-set.

Of course, one of the immediate thoughts in my mind was our always-on society via the ubiquity of WiFi and data-networks. I then spun-off to recalling a lecture I was at in Tel Aviv some 15 years ago where the speaker (sadly, I cannot recall his name) somewhat presciently explained to us that within a decade or so all our gadgets (and gadgets we hadn’t yet imagined) would be connected to the internet, and have their own IP address. Then, because of the bucolic nature of the YSP setting, I turned my thoughts to the quantum mechanics of the universe, the metaphysical poets … ‘a butterfly flaps its wings’, and all that kind of deep stuff…

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” ~ John Donne.

All this rattled around in my weary little brain across the space of some 2 minutes. I walked on, grateful for the unexpected bit of mental stimulus/exercise prompted by the encounter with an unexpected new piece of art; I’d primarily come simply for some walking/exercise (being just 5 minutes from where we live, YSP is almost our second-home).

Then today, via (inevitably) Twitter, I read a piece by the anthropologist, David Graeber. Bullshit Jobs is not a critique of the new film about Steve Jobs but a reflection on how we have reached the state where so many of the jobs in our ‘developed’ society are, in fact, little more than bullshit.

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.” ~ John Maynard Keynes.

When I look at my Twitter timeline and the jobs people do (if lucky enough to actually have a paying job/career) I often ponder how on earth is this all sustainable? So few people actually seem to do anything of direct value to anyone else. It’s a painful thing to rationalise, but it’s true: unless we calmly assess the implications of this and the fact that this is not sustainable, how will we progress? Have you never looked at all those huge skyscrapers in cities and wondered just what the hell is everyone doing in them? How many pens need pushing? How many desks need a jockey? We build these vast offices so we must fill them with bodies: regardless of whether the people therein actually have jobs that are of any relevance. You do not need to be profitable/adding-value as long as the entity itself is making lots of money (a pretty easy conundrum in the heady days of banking, for example).

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Call it cause and effect or yin and yang. Regardless, when one element becomes excessively out of balance with another then trouble invariably beckons.

“Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” ~ Albert Camus.

From painful personal experience I see the danger of being disconnected: I have been searching for new business opportunities/work for a long time now. Never before in my life have I felt so disconnected. In their own way my participating in communities such as A VC, Twitter and Instagram help me feel connected to the world I now feel excluded from. I know I do a damn good job, I know I can create outcomes that benefit those I work with/for. However, that’s clearly not enough for me to be connected at this time. So, I am left wondering how best to re-connect. Or, maybe I shouldn’t at all? It’s quite possible I am being nudged by forces beyond my control towards the realisation I am no longer relevant in the way I once thought I was. I need to re-think myself. This is not a slight undertaking.

“I don’t have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.” ~ William Gibson.

After so many months of frustration — and, at times, utter desperation — I have reached the point where I have decided I’d be happy to leave business/IT as long as it meant I was doing something tangible — connected, to something that mattered. I’d prefer to be planting/harvesting crops rather than stacking shelves for a supermarket (although, at times of desperation, I’ve applied for the latter, to no avail; opportunities in farming seem few and far between). It reaches the stage when one considers absolutely anything…

“These days young kids don’t have any place to form an epic adventure. It’s more often in front of the TV screen or a laptop. That’s very hard on them. They’re being taught daily unsocial skills. Facebook is an unsocial skill. It’s so sad.” ~ John Lydon.

Everything is connected: CAT has posted some dreadful figures lately and this of course directly correlates to the fact that the world economy is suffering greatly so construction projects inevitably decline (apart from the desire for skyscrapers, it seems; the irony). Thus, the demand for the construction equipment required declines. However, the stock-markets (especially in the USA and UK) continue to be remarkably buoyant (although some tremors are becoming apparent) precisely because they are not connected to anything (other than QE and greed).

The mobile/apps market is awash with new apps every day, and there is a whole sub-industry surrounding it. Just how many mobile apps do we need? It’s a pseudo-industry not really connected to anything of any substance but because of the relative ease/low-cost to develop and release yet another app, with a potentially huge upside (potentially — hardly any break-even, in fact) it persists as the-next-big-thing, for now. Alarm bells should be ringing.

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” ~ Ray Bradbury.

If what you are involved in has no direct connection to anything, it’s probably time to re-think…