Choices for Life, Choices for Business ... Choices for Life's Business

When I feel like I have a choice, I feel more alive.

a) when I can engage in musical or dance improvisation, I feel more alive
b) when I can choose the types of people I associate with and the products I buy, I feel more alive
c) when I can choose between different products to purchase, I feel more alive
d) when I can choose between the different types of work that I do, I feel more alive
e) when I can reason amongst different ideas, and select those most true, I feel more alive

The ideas I choose influence my music, dance, friendships, purchases, life work, and ideals -- and I feel more alive when the choice of ideas is more true, more reasoned.

There are so many BLOGs -- with posts on every topic imaginable. My choice for this BLOG is to focus on a vision of deepening the investigation, dialogue, action ... and vision relating to ... reasoned life choices for the business of living.

The challenge for any life vision (ontology, or study of being/existence/living) is the scope of its validity. The opportunity for any life vision is to be deepened, heightened and lengthened which requires action ... by people.

My life vision orients around choice as life, and the diffusion of opportunities for inspired choosing as the most efficacious, salutary and viable (i.e., empowered) of life choices.

So now that I've shared the essence of current personal ontological views, let me proceed again to advance action-enabling-aiming consideration of contemporary ideas, events and people -- with the aim to resonate (aiming for resonance in both reception and transmission).

Do you feel me?

Am I feeling you?

I feel Eleanor Roosevelt, when she says, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people," because I see events and people following ideas and ideals. So if -- in BLOG format -- I would inspire choice (diffuse opportunities for inspired choosing), I would aim to offer insights on ideas, events and people that have felt inspiring to me.

I am inspired by the vision that philosophy is shared through life choices, "One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." (once again E. Roosevelt) The idea of sharing what's inside by what we do on the outside is found everywhere, including in the ideas and actions of George Soros on "reflexivity" -- where views on markets establish the nature of markets, through action based on those views.

If an individual's philosophy is expressed in market choices in a market economy, how can those choices be inspired unless choices at each and every stage -- education, employment, entrepreneurship, purchases, transportation, citizenship, etc. -- can be made with meaning?

Two current alternet articles provide good example of some current ideas, events and people involved in key choices related to life's business:

Who's Funding Global Warming discusses the choices of major banks and investment banks that are either electing or not electing to fund coal power plants in Texas.

Note to Progressives: Challenge Market Fundamentalism discusses the choice to anchor public policy on free-market fundamentalism.

In the vision of competitive transcension (or Aikido entrepreneurship/Aikido good business), the competitive forces at work in capitalism are not opposed but instead are redirected to success tied to evolving the field of play to greater conservation, trusteeship, fairness ...

Who's Funding Global Warming shows the tenacity of the momentum in U.S. bank investment policy (aiming for geometric growth) -- and how that translates so straightforwardly to geometric growth in consumption. While there is increasing noise to oppose short-sighted investing here in the states, what about China? While I don't outright oppose tightening regulations for cleaner energy, I believe efforts lacking global scale lack validity -- the problem is a global one, and it seems like the greatest empowerment of conservation can come through evolutionary market forces that cleverly align profit with conservation, rather than the reverse.

Note to Progressives: Challenge Market Fundamentalism discusses one of the key issues raised in my essay Aikido Activism. The comments include many of the challenges of either completely denigrating markets or completely trusting them; but it is rare yet to find the solution of true market leadership espoused in those pages -- although it is mentioned briefly in one of the comments ("co-opting it [the 800 pound gorilla of capitalism]"). I encourage folks to explore this in more detail, as a few are finally beginning to do!