What is Freedom?

We all want freedom. We all want to be free. We all want to be free to make choices, to fulfill our desires.

What is freedom? Is it just the ability to make choices, to decide, to follow one path over another?

I think freedom is the ability to make informed choices, AND the courage to live with the consequences of a choice, however painful and unpleasant.

I think it was Covey in his book, Seven Habits of Effective People, who said that, to be mature is to be able to make delayed responses to stimuli. To make an informed choice is to delay gratification, at least long enough to evaluate the relevant information and options. It doesn't mean paralysis by analysis, with such detailed collection of all possible options and information; it means relevant information. As Colin Powell wrote in his books, an intelligent person is one who has the kind of judgment to decide what is right. And to act on a decision when 100% of the facts and analysis are available is to be too late. He recommends acting on gut feeling after 40% to 70%.

After making the decision, the other side of freedom is the courage to live with the consequences of a decision. Sometimes the hard decisions are the ones that lead to unpleasant and frightening consequences. Courage is not having no fear; it is the ability to go on in spite of fear.

A balanced approach to freedom is the making of responsible choices, after collecting sufficient information to make an informed choice, walking with eyes wide open into the consequences of the choice to be made, the option set apart from all the rest, the act of deciding.

To indulge in all the myriad of material luxury in our society, the nomadic devices that are double-edged swords, is not to be free, but to fall into the trap of feeling free while being enslaved.

Nomadic Devices are for nomads

In Jacques Attali's Millennium, people are freed from the wires that bound them to industrial society, tied to a desk by telephone wires, electrical cords, fax lines, modems, cable and DSL. In this millennium, among the advanced developed information societies at least, people will become nomads again, grazing on the free flow of information, following the pasture of richest sources of information like the shepherds of old.

The hottest selling items on the market are not the kings of twentieth-century, like cars, or television, or even the recent (1982) Times Machine of the Year, the personal computer. Today, the items that everyone want are the nomadic devices like Apple's iPod and Sony's PSP. These devices focus the mind away from its surrounding environment, away from the other people in society, and isolate the nomad in a cocoon of familiarity, of songs, of games, of childhood dreams. Instead of playing with neighbourhood children, today's nomadic children play in multi-player online environments. Instead of playing hockey or soccer or football in a friendly spirit of skillful competition, today's nomadic children play in darkened mazes of alien environments shooting up enemies and steeling each other's assets. Is it any wonder that the new crimes of the millennium were unheard of a decade ago? A man was shot in a cybercafe because he stole someone's online game asset, and the victim was angry enough, and smart enough, to track down this man, to shoot him dead. Instead of playground scruffles, it was criminal.

Instead of forming treasured childhood memories, our nomadic children are not freed by nomadic devices in their developmental years, like adults are freed by their PDAs (even that freedom comes at a price, but that's another story...mmm blog). Too much of a good thing is not always better. Children, and metaphorical children of nomadic devices in the new Millennium, need to return to nature, both literally and metaphorically to find their roots and to bond with the rest of humanity. Adults and children alike, need to learn that freedom without boundaries, is just another form of slavery. Instead of being bound with wires, too much dependence on nomadic devices would enslave our minds instead of our bodies.

What is Reality?

Is "Reality Show" one of those catch phrases they use in marketing, the media, and in Hollywood? Like the one that was so popular back in the Happy Days, "recorded in front of a live audience!"

What exactly makes a show reality, as suppose to fantasy? How about game shows and talk shows? Are they reality shows? If not, why not?

I suppose an easy definition of a reality show is the lack of a script, as oppose to soap opera or other episodic series. But you may ask, what about games shows and talk shows? They don't have scripts, either! However, these shows are tightly controlled and structured so that each minute and each second is counted with fairly clear, if not definite outcome. The new reality shows are suppose to be wild and adventurous so that anything may happen. You may object to that and point to the many rules and ruse used by the producers to steer the show to maximize entertainment value, sometimes even choreographing the participants, not unlike professional wrestling matches. Also, reality shows are heavily edited, which means they can hardly be "recorded live" with the exception of the Survivor's final episode, when the outcome becomes clear. What about those Idols? Are they reality shows?

I think a fuzzy definition of reality show is typical of the English language, or for that matter, any human language. By the strictest of definition, we can only call very few shows truely reality television. For example, Big Brother, if it isn't so heavily edited, would be considered a reality show by almost any definition. As the show becomes more structured behind the scene, either pre- or post-production, the show is less reality, and more a reflection of what the producers want us to think is reality. True reality shows are online: the web cams, the blogs, the chat rooms, the instant messages. They are also the paragon of what Alvin Toffler called the prosumption produced by consumers, for consumers - a true democracy of consumption. Anything else, the Amazing Race, Survivor, Apprentice, etc. are mere reflections controlled by the media giants.

Don't get me wrong. I don't object to these shows. They have their place in our society - as social commentary of our societal values, of our collective cultural heritage. Millenniums from now, future generations will find our magazines and CDs, and wonder what was the religious significance of staring into a rectangular screen five to six hours a day, five or six days a week. Instead of statues and architecture, we leave behind mountains of consumer electronics - the nomadic devices that Jacques Attali pointed out in his book Millennium. These nomadic devices free us to roam while connected to our collective cultural past, the music, the books, even the Internet; yet, at the same time, these devices also isolate us from our fellow human beings, from connecting to one another on a personal and emotionally meaningful level.

What are the societal consequences of a generation raised on nomadic devices? Has anyone ever wondered what reality will be like in twenty years?

Speaking of Reality Shows

Reality shows are evolving just like society and entertainment evolve. One particularly interesting reality show is called "Wife Swap" on ABC.

It was not particularly interesting at first, when the families involved were basically different only in minor variations, i.e. from different economic strata, or different geographic locations, or with different family arrangements, e.g. single parent or extended familiy etc.

Then it got interesting when stark contrast between very different families were involved: different races, different faith, different lifestyles. Instead of simply providing entertainment, the show takes on a whole new dimension, of providing social commentary to the audience, and soul-searching for the participants.

What makes the show successful, in my opinion, is the unique structure of the families forced to follow the rules of the wives, so that they are forced to live in the others' shoes. The rules are prepared according to a "Household Manual" which each wife prepared before the swap. The show revolves around their attempt to follow the rules. At the end of the first week, each wife is allowed one week to change the rules for the new household. And the final wrap-up session between the couples facing each other to discuss what they learned from the experience is often very revealing.

So, what constitutes a reality show, and how is it part of Alvin Toffler's prediction of a "Prosumer" society? What does blogging have in common with reality shows? ...to be continued.

Speaking of the Future

It feels like only yesterday that everyone was on the bandwagon rolling towards Y2K and the millennium. Of all the doomsday books and prophetic essays on the shape of our future, I find, in addition to Alvin Toffler, Jacques Attali to be one of the most engaging and insightful writers on the topic. His book, "Millennium - Winners and Losers in the Coming Order" published back in 1991, was right on the money in many ways.

The one prediction that jumped out at me when I was reading the book, and later when I was watching all these reality shows, is the concept of people who rushed to conform to some standard of beauty, or normality. With the global domination of American entertainment, the standard of beauty, indeed, normalcy, becomes the twisted anorexic superficial fake facade of Hollywood and magazine models. The seeming popularity of make-overs, not for the purpose of improving one's life, but only for the purpose of improving one's appearance, speaks directly to this symptom of our millennium. Instead of the "Live and Let Live" motto of the age of Aquarius that was supposedly ushered in by the flower children of the sixties, we are not confronted by the bullies of veneers and diet fads. Who would have guessed?

The Future is Here

What do Alvin Toffler and Michel de Montaigne have in common?

Alvin Toffler speculated a few decades ago that consumers in the post-industrial information society will produce their own products for consumption. Moving beyond customization, consumers of today participate in the production process. Blogs are a clear example of this. Information technology companies provide the infrastructure that coordinate and support consumers who produce their own products for others, and themselves.

Michel de Montaigne wrote essays on diverse topics and mailed them to his fellow aristocratic, intellectual friends. His thoughts and musing influenced his society and his world. He is the foreshadow of today's bloggers, who write tidbits of informal essays on a variety of topics, and communicate to others around the world.

We have come full circle. Let us hope that we don't have an end to this age of enlightenment like it did back then, with revolutions and wars. I think we will be okay as long as we don't have our own Marie Antoinette who tells the poor to eat cake when they don't have bread.

Getting Wet Slowly

It's been almost two months since I first created this blog. Well, like the title says, I am getting into this slowly.

Unlike a lot of other people who blog, I am not usually talkative in person. However, I find myself enjoying the process of writing my thoughts, or my streams of consciousness, as my Creative Writing instructor used to say, and let my trains of thought take me where ever the journey will go. You can't do that in person, in a conversation, or people will think you are crazy, or rude, or lack social graces, or all of the above. In a blog, you can ramble on, and people will just click on. It's nothing personal.

So why do people blog? Is it a sense of self-importance? Is it a need for self-expression, for self actualization, a need to be heard, to say, "I am here!"

More than likely, I think it is the sign of the times, the "prosumer" that Alvin Toffler mentioned in the Third Wave. It is the same with podcasting. Althougth I haven't tried it yet, I suspect podcasting is remarkably similar to karaoke, except it is blogging in stereo.

What would Mr. Montaigne say?