Hope: The Status Quo Immunogen

I've decided. I'm voting for Sponge Bob for Governor. No seriously! Ok, I'm giving him some serious consideration. Krabby Patties for everyone! No what I've decided is that I'm prematurely turning into a grumpy old man. There's just too many important issues that need to be solved to let the status quo win. So I've decided that all I'm going to blog about from now on is flowers, hearts, and oh yeah, let's not forget kittens.

Oh sure I still reserve the right to hug my cynicism close to me like a child's favorite blanket, but I'm turning over the status quo leaf. And what do you think I found there when I flipped it over. That's right I found slugs, all slimy and ewwwww. No what I found is hope.

There is always hope, imagine the worst possible situations and settings you can imagine, and for you cynics out there, it is most definitely not Puerto Rico (although, it's tempting to think so sometimes). Even in those circumstances, hope lives, hope survives, hope endures. So my fellow Puerto Ricans, if hope can persevere in Auschwitz, Darfur, and Washington DC, then hope can save us from the Status Quo. As long as we continue to hope for change, hope for peace, hope for unity, hope for equality, hope for a strong self-identity, then there exists the possibility for improvement. Hope is the immunization against giving in to the status quo.

I know this because I see it, time and time again. When I think I've reached the end of caring I come into contact with people like Gil the Jenius (Although you wouldn't think that from reading his blog, he really is about the most optimistic person I know), or Alicia and Trish from A Couple of Chicks Marketing. Their hope and optimism is contagious and you should expose yourself to as much of it as you can. It's kind of like the parent who exposes their child to mumps at an early age to immunize them against that disease as an adult; except by exposing yourself to hopeful and optimistic people you immunize yourself against the dread, anger, and frustration that comes from being around people lost to the status quo.

No matter how bitter it might be to swallow this pill, I believe that it is our only hope to make our lives better. When we weren't looking the world changed, and our relation to it must therefore change. Have you ever thought of how easy it is to change? This morning I woke up and decided to change. Just like that, I'm now a different person. Sure I'm naive, most optimists are. Of course, now the hard work begins. Changing our minds is easy, living that change is the challenge. And that my friends is the importance of hope, it is the antigen that helps us fend of frustration, disappointment, and finally giving in to the status quo.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: Richard Franco

Jenius Jots - The future of ideas...

While you might think that I only obsess about things here in Dondequiera, rest assured, I torture all of my friends and family in the "real" world too. My latest demented device of torture is the future of journalism. Let's not mince words here, this is serious. Again from "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore:

"The replacement of an easily accessible, print-based marketplace of ideas with a restricted access, television-based realm has lead to a radical transformation of the nature and operation of the marketplace of ideas in the United States."

With the decline and questionable future of newspapers, we are creating the opposite of what we need, which is, according to Gore,

"When the operations of a government are open to full examination by its citizens and subjected to vigorous discussion and debate, then the corrupt misuse of public power for private gain becomes more difficult to conceal. If the rule of reason is the standard by which every use of official power is evaluated, then even the most complex schemes to violate the public's trust can be uncovered and policed by well informed citizenry."

Increasingly, the Internet is becoming the only way we'll be able to establish the marketplace of ideas so desperately needed. Gore adds,

Fortunately, the Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge. It's a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services. It's a platform, in other words, for reason.

Our good friend Gil The Jenius, has always tried to add his two cents into that marketplace, but he's started a new fountain of reason in Jenius Jots. Anyone who wants to take part in the market place of ideas that will shape our future, the future of our children, and grandchildren should add Jenius Jots to your daily reading list.

I believe this is exactly where the future of journalism and an informed citizenry is headed. For better or worse, we are reading less, and being entertained more. So to the extent we can crystallize into bite-sized morsels the ideas, news, and issues that should inspire people to pursue the truth, then I believe we should and I believe it will resemble Jenius Jots.