The Next Big Thing: Part Two

Here I sit, content that by clicking on my facebook, stumbleupon, digg and twitter buttons and launching my thoughts into the ether of the web that I'm doing it right; that I'm current; using the latest... Oh, but no, wait!  Suddenly, or so it seems to me, there are new apps and sites that I should be pushing off into.

But, what about the ones I already use?  I've gotten good results, thus far anyhow, by using them and my God, just how much time do these folks think I have to click this button, then that one... I mean, hell, I just want to write and hopefully have a few people read and understand...you know: Get it.

My scenario-forming brain goes into auto-overdrive in moments like these; I start forming Orwellian tales out of mass, social idiocy, which we are just prone as hell to do, as a national species, so-to-speak.

Imagine your great grandfather, for instance.  Suppose he had to get up every morning and chop wood.  Talk about a thankless job; but imagine, if you will, that one morning your Granddaddy got up and heard the sound of a chain-saw going off in the distance, and then saw trees and limbs being chewed off at an alarming rate.  How quickly would he decide that he just had to have that chain saw?

Of course, that's the reason any of it works.  We're so damn easy, it's silly, really.  Our species can come up with some really incredible shit.  A lot of it works, and we, as a whole, have little or no resistance to the impulse of "Making life more comfortable."  Hell, we refined the ART of convenience.  


I was reminded this week, as my Houston Texans went down the tubes--thanks guys--of a sad fact about human nature... One that I've gotten all too familiar with: We will go after what we want, even if we have to ignore what we need.


Back in my sales days, I once made a call to a household, a young couple just in their second year of marriage.  I presented a product to them that would have taken money they were spending, and put it back in their pockets.  They nodded, agreed, and went as far as to say: "Man, we really need us one of those..."

In the end, they declined, stating that they could not afford it at the time--and get this: "We can't even afford a new crib for the baby yet, she's sleeping in the box that the new TV came in..."  Quietly, I nodded and said little else but my goodbyes.  There is no reasoning with such thought.


This blog may be nothing more than my own lashing out at the instability of an up-side-down world that puts an application in front of me, encourages me to learn and use it, then makes it obsolete just as I get comfortable with it.  However, all lashing and thrashing aside, I still have a point to make: Who's running this show anyhow?


More coming in Part Three!

Read more »

The Next BIG thing...

It has nothing to do with what day it may be, you can not go through a day now without seeing, or being exposed to, what is being claimed as: The Next Big Thing.

This morning, The Fabulous Feathermaye and I sat down here at our desk as we usually do, getting our various settle-in chores done, fetching the water from the well, and all that...


Once ZEAL was downed and coffee was in hand, I looked over and saw feathermaye dabbling around on a new site.  Every three or four minutes she would get excited, say: "Look at this!" and turn her netbook my way to show me an image.


"What is that site, Baby?"


"It's call Pinterest," she said. "It's the next BIG thing."


You should understand that for years feathermaye and Your's Truly have spent our days sitting beside each other, a computer screen, and whatever the "Next big thing" was at any given moment, there in front of us, usually with my sweet wife showing me what's what about one site or another.
  


Generally, I give these things only slight awareness, enough to allow me to come back to it later, when my brain is ready to get around another, Next Big Thing. 



Personally, I find it hard to get all worked-in and comfortable on one site or another(like say: Diggit, or Stumbleupon, or even Twitter), at least effectively--as it ties in with this Blog and my other life interests.  

The constant changes, however, also direct my mind to another issue that seems suddenly obvious when I look askance at our NEXT BIG THING culture: No wonder A.D.D. is spreading--seemingly--like some sort of strange STD that has just popped up on the social horizon.  




How do you find the time to come to terms with all this new...stuff?




More to come in the next issue of "The Next Big Thing"

Read more »