Variety People

Don’t be a Machine

davlo — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:55:12 +0000

Just because machines are specialized, don’t think you should be.

You’re not a machine. You are a complex human being, that thrives on many different things.

The world is chock full of stories of people who specialize, become successful, and then become victims of their own specialization.

Someone once said that poison is often a matter of how large the dose is. With many things, a little bit can be wonderful. But a large amount, or too much, can kill you, either slowly, or quickly.

Embrace variety. Or not.

davlo — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:31:39 +0000

To be interesting, and engaging, and to feel alive, and to engage with the world, and to connect with people, you’ve got to be both different as well as accessible. You’ve got to be complex enough people can’t quite figure you out, yet they feel comfortable with you as well. How can you do all that? Embrace variety.

Winning at Life

davlo — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:55:09 +0000

A life made full with variety is the best way I know of to really win at life. Partly because it becomes not about winning.

“Casablanca” great partly due to the great diversity of talent behind it.

davlo — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 08:07:11 +0000

If you watch the “making of” documentary on the Casablanca DVD, you’ll see how many different sorts of people contributed to it, especially to the writing of it. I think it’s quite possible this wide variety of talent played a huge role in making Casablanca one of the great movies.

Another ProxPattern that played a role is allowing some uncertainty. They talk about not knowing how the film would end, up until very near the end of the shooting. This allowing of tension throughout the making of it I think also contributed to the special quality of the film.

Doing a bunch of different things you don’t like is not variety

davlo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 02:27:17 +0000

Doing a bunch of different things you don’t like is not variety.

Why? Because those different things share one common feature, which is that you don’t like them.

In a sense, they weren’t even a bunch of different things, since you felt the same way the whole time.

If you had felt a variety of different ways when doing those variety of different things, then you’d be getting somewhere!

Using Pleasure to Get to Sustainability

davlo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 02:18:23 +0000

If you want to get to sustainability, you’ve got to make it pleasurable for people.

A sufficient amount of variety in life is pleasurable, even highly pleasurable. Luckily, variety and sustainability go hand-in-hand, in part because they share one important thing in common, and that thing is diversity.

So if we encourage variety, reward ourselves with and for variety, and build systems which support and enhance variety, then we get to sustainability. And how did we get there? By making it pleasurable.

Our Daily Variety – July 1, 2011

davlo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:43:35 +0000

3 – On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = poor variety, 5 = awesome variety), today feels like a 3 for me. Leave YOUR daily variety in the comments!

On the negative side, problems with work, and technical challenges, messed up about three hours for me today that could have been better used or more fun.

On the plus side, I’ve had time to spend on my ProxThink site, and this Variety People site, which has been fun. It stimulated different parts of my brain and provided new challenges. I also got Dropbox set up on my Mac and iPhone, which was cool.

How was YOUR daily variety?

Switching Gears

davlo — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:51:52 +0000

I’ve been working on my Artdown project a lot recently. I getting a bit tired of thinking about it, and working on it. I’m going to work on some other things for a while. It’s nice to have some variety. I try to set my life up so I have those kinds of options. I can’t always, but sometimes I can, and it makes a big difference.

What role does variety play in your life?

davlo — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:37:42 +0000

Certainly variety plays a role in most people’s lives. Are you aware of it? Do you encourage or allow it? What role does variety play in your life?

Variety Can be Increased with a Different Approach

davlo — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:02:13 +0000

Of course jobs, work and markets often demand that we do the same thing over and over. And of course, some people are perhaps born specialists — they just love a prolonged focus in an area or subject of expertise.

But I have a feeling that many people would like more variety than they get. Actually, it’s more than just a feeling. I’ve worked in many different industries and markets, and met many different kinds of people. It’s my impression that many of them specialized because they had to, rather than they wanted to.

Personally, I like doing several different things. I like thinking, painting, and writing, but also building, creating new projects, and working with people. I also like variety in areas like recreation, socializing, and daily activities.

I think part of the problem is the way our society is organized, so it’s the fault of no one person or group. Rather, it’s the system. And systems are things we can change. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I believe the changes needed involve more proximity thinking. But understanding proximity thinking involves taking some time to learn about the ProxThink framework I developed. Part of the framework is a sustainable proximities approach, which involves relating not only to people and group efforts (like businesses, organizations, clubs, governments, etc.), but also to proximities.

Briefly, a proximity consists of elements related or potentially related to a situation, in physical, mental and other ways. But instead of going into all that here, I’ll point you to two links, at the end of this post.

However, keep the following basic idea in mind: a greater focus on creating and maintaining viable proximities allows more variety within those proximities. This contrasts with how markets focus more effort and attention on individual elements like people and businesses. And given current systems, this makes some sense. In the absence of ways to relate to proximities, it’s not surprising people focus on themselves and their own business. However, with networks, we have the ability to monitor and relate more directly to proximities, and the sustainable proximities approach provides ways to do that. So together, networks and the sustainable proximities approach provide ways to relate to proximities. Don’t worry if this kind of thinking doesn’t come naturally at first. It can take a little getting used to. My hope is that by building some working examples of this approach, it will become more natural and obvious.

For a general introduction to ProxThink, see the main site:
http://proxthink.com

For the sustainable proximities approach, this blog post provides both an example and a brief introduction:
http://proxthink.com/blog/2009/12/24/how-to-create-a-sustainable-proximity/