Mine has been good, hope yours was too..

and why?

cos I’ve been playing spellforce all my spare time. Had to book some time off and well, spent most of my time playing games. managed to complete homeworld 2 a week or two ago – darn fine game that by the way. The I made my way on to spell force.

I guess if warcraft 3 is mostly real time strategy with a spot of role playing game then spell force is mostly role playing game with a spot of real time strategy. So you’re there with your principle character walking up to farmers/merchants/etc. and get little quests to run off and do. I must admit doing all these silly things in this game is oddly rewarding.

I guess thats what games are about, being given, facing and overcoming a challenge or two.

Sadly this doesn’t take me nearer my goal, but its christmas and i have some time off so for now it will do.

certainly satisfying my inner kid.

“What we leave behind is not as important as how we live” – Jean Luc Picard, Star Trek Generations.

Easy, give a homeless person a tenner! At least that kind of makes sense. Makes one persons life a bit better for an evening. Doesn’t feel like it qualifies for having a positive impact on the world though. Not really a big deal or a great impact.

There are loads of charities doing just this though. Trying to have a positive impact on the world, making life better for many people. There are many that do good work on an ongoing basis. Supporting these financially on an ongoing basis would be far more effective. Facilitating a small part of a big impact. Every drop raises the ocean as they said in dinotopia ( – classic philosophical source that).

In the new testament Jesus is quoted as saying, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”. The same topic is covered in the tao te ching, as it talks of how acquisitiveness is generally not a good thing and makes it harder to do the right thing. This is me sat in my house with so many hundred dvds among other things.

Still, small things. I shall look into the whole (tax-free) charitable donating thing in the new year.

got 3 new mini fish. dinkys well, as is misty, tweety and quizzy. Further muffin has now moved. Not sure if she likes it yet but she’s now in the living room. We’ll see how she gets on.

Mistys due to be cleaned out tonight bless her.

and by crikey there should have been.

In truth I haven’t wanted to. A friend of mine posted this in response to my last blog and cleared up his previous question by asking a new one: “what positive impact are you having on the world?”

Indeed this is the crux of what I was getting at in my last post. I finished that with kind of saying, well, if you you are good at heart, do good stuff, then the effect can only be positive. I implied that that was sufficient and walked away happy that I was doing enough. I read this question above and felt that I had lied to myself, a small comfortable lie but the truth is I was not doing enough and this is still the case. Indeed, it seems I do not want to do more. The excuses are plenty – no time, no money, other obligations… In my heart I know that I am not doing enough. This has stopped me sitting here and writing. I knew if I did, then I would have to face this truth.

I am now thinking something that will placate this feeling, but will be another comfortable lie if I do not act on it. My new years resolution this year will be to do something about it. Now being trained as I am in project management, requirements analysis and problem solving I will be able to get around such a wishy washy definition. Perhaps over the next few weeks I’ll put some ground rules around that.

Its odd, such a quest requires the definition of doing something that has a positive impact on the world. Theres a question of scale – both in terms of how much of the world and how much of an impact. How does one measure the impact? The other question of course is can any good come of an action I am undertaking because I feel I should do it, rather than a great desire to do it.

Given my previous writings and what I have read desire is most certainly the wrong word. Perhaps a sense of duty is the only place this can come from. Writing about it, as I have pointed out before, is risky though. It means I may be no longer doing it for myself but for my audience – as small as it is. If that becomes the case that would taint my actions – as I have already said in this blog, I must be on guard for that. If anyone does read this and in future months feels I am playing to the audience rather than doing what should be done – shout at me! (an email will be fine though)

right, now I’m back in the blogging thing I can write up the class and stuff.

they are so cool, most excellent. I feel I am learning a great deal from attending them and I am being exposed to a much broader cross section of the art than I have before. Last week we did some sabre drills which was fun and the only thing stopping me going out and buying a t’ai chi sabre is the whole christmas/money thing. Great fun.

Also on thursday – 11th. We practiced the first part of the five element arm drill. Essentially this is a series of defends and counters done with one arm. The sequence is with the right arm, right, left, high, low left, low right. Mirrored for the left arm. Theres some foot work too and suspect a lot more subtlety to the arm work. It was most interesting.

Also practiced the nine palace stepping exercise. all good fun.

I’m going to pre-date this to friday which is when I should have posted it – I actually posted it midday sunday.

So little time.

and now, time but nothing to say. I’ve been thinking a lot about things micro and macro lately. What would a healthy society look like? What is a good company? What role does a good person play in this society? The early taoists, the philosophers were often wise men of state who advised in political and military matters and perhaps it is this path I am stumbling into with my monkey mind…

I live in a capitalist society, ultimately a company is deemed good if it performs well on the stock market – which in turn is determined by its share value, dividends and overall profit. So for a company to perform well, for it to be deemed good in our society it must be both popular and function for a profit, which is then returned to the shareholders.

Is this good for society? A good person is therefore someone who contributes to the shareholder value of a company. This could be achieved by cutting 500 jobs to cut costs – meaning 500 fewer people are contributing to the economy, not getting paid and not spending so much… Its good for the company, but for the economy? For society?

What is good for society? Is it what’s good for the individual? Good for most of them?

A friend once asked me, “what will I be remembered for?” An interesting measure of a good person. I like the story of the emperors doctor – a man famous throughout his country, and one day someone asks if he is the best doctor, as he is so famous. He replies that he has two brothers and they are both doctors. He cures people once they are very ill and does this quite effectively. His brother however prevents most of his patients from getting ill and cures most of the rest – he is the better doctor but only known in his principality. His third brother has many patients but none of these get ill. This brother is the best of all, but only known in his town.

Here is a flaw in the “I want to be remembered” approach. Those who are remembered do great things, bring about great change, do something drastic. These are important, but those who do the greatest work, improve the world most, are not seen. Those who ensure things don’t get ill aren’t remembered, only those that clean up after an problem has already grown too great…

What does all this mean to my earlier question? Truth is I don’t know. Where am I going?

Perhaps good can be done to the country, to the company, to ones local community by simply endeavoring to ensure that things go smoothly. This is what Taoism is then. The belief that the future is always moving, but that one can discern change, see what is changing and how – once one understands change, then one can act with it and allow things to progress as they should.

Study how things change – great and small.

she’s been back a couple of nights now. all seems well, although the fishy’s water needs cleaning so we’ll do that tomorrow.

dinky and muffin are fine.