You Have A Secret

There are those who track information for information's sake.  There are those who hack networks for the thrill of bragging.

In every walk of life, people push the limits of acceptability because they want something more than what they and the people around them had before.

Better-tasting vegetables.

Better-fitting clothes.

Most energy-efficient home.

Faster work process.

Easiest way to relax.

Although I am happy to be alive in this moment, expecting nothing more from the past, the future or other people's lives in this moment, I am alive and thus still curious, looking for new ways to adapt to this moment, which inevitably changes to another moment.

You have discovered something I haven't.  I call your discovery [unknown to me in this moment] a secret.

What is your secret?  Is it hidden in books?  Movies?  Music?  Where you work/live?

Do you see why you are the most important person in the world?  Your discovery means the world to me.

Your secret may be actively working in your garden at the age of 90, demonstrating to me your ability to pace yourself and provide food on the table at your age.

Your secret may be staying inside during the heat of the day and playing a little table tennis in the den.

Your secret may be having a house full of children that delight you with their own new discoveries, sharing their toys in creative ways.

I am looking for some of your secrets that I want to share with the world without overtly wrapping your secrets in commercial interests.

How can we do that?  How do we empower you and power the world without using a lot of profitmaking businesses?

How do we hack the planet, bypassing the old ways to get to more interesting ways of living that don't use up a lot of resources?

There is a high cost of being here that I'm not sure I'm comfortable perpetuating - the same-old backbone of high-speed Internet access (via telephone wire, television cable, or satellite), data centers, power substations, oil refineries, coal / nuclear / hydroelectric / solar plants - all of which provide us employment, but blindly saying that we need jobs to live is ignoring the big picture.

That's the secret of yours I'm looking for right now.  It's not magic.  It's common sense.  It's science.  It's innovation and reapplication.

Share your secret with the world.  Nothing is free but there are low-cost solutions out there that you've practiced, living happy, successful lives because of them.

Newspapers and magazines used to serve as this kind of word-of-mouth network.  Now, we use social networking websites, blogs, and e-zines to spread the word.

Before we figure out we've used up all the exotic rare earth metals, let's rediscover how we get back to a low-cost word-of-mouth network again.

I'm taking a few days off from using the Internet to put my feet on the ground and walk around, observing our parts of the world where we're not using batteries or power lines to communicate effectively.  Sometimes secrets are right there out in the open for us to see, when we open our eyes and look up without the assumptions of the past weighing down our eyelids.