Podcast re Atlas Shrugged

It was interesting to listen to the podcast..I haven't yet read the book and am not sure if I will or not. However..better late than never..? CONGRATULATIONS on your award  those few years back Paul!

It is almost a commonplace that people who DO, get attacked by people who want only to get credit for talking about doing but not really put out any effort  to actually follow up on the talking with action. It is sad that often that includes families.  I think that was one of the reasons I always yearned toward  some sort of intentional community as I thought that there  everyone would be supportive towards  common goals. Or even uncommon ones as long as they fit into the spirit of the group..you support my efforts to supplement income with paper mache creatures  and I will support your efforts to write a book sort of thing.  Utopian perhaps but emotional support  is a rare beast these days.

In a TED talk I watched yesterday,  they said that actually talking about doing something ..even if it was  "call me every day and ask me what I have done about this" made it LESS likely to happen.

I told my sister and brother that I had got a twitter account and was going to talk a bit about my efforts to do something with my land, and both of them immediately got onto the site and posted that I was too old and should forget it. I bet most people have had an experience similar to that.  It's sorta hard to keep up your enthusiasm when stuff like that happens..

I think this may be one reason for the  huge numbers of people you have flocking to this site..it's somewhere that people can share ideas and thoughts without having to be concerned about getting cut off at the knees.   You do a good job. .

Mmmm I like Ayn Rand right up until she says that furthering your own happiness is your primary moral duty. I have to take issue with that statement.

Maybe it's in the definitions.... what is 'happiness'?  Ayn's was certainly different from mine.  Science has been telling us that our neurological pleasure centers are triggered by cooperation and generosity (along with sex and chocolate).  Even toddlers are spontaneously and reliably empathetic and altruistic.

Our 'vulture'-worshiping culture preaches (quite deliberately, I think) competition, scarcity and approval/attention-getting at all cost.  So maybe it's understandable that 'users' abound, but self-defense is usually the ability to detect them. There are certainly a percentage of sociopaths.  Considering Rand's admiration for the vicious killer Hickam, she may have been afflicted with that clinical empathy deficit. 

Twice a day, you may get life-saving time-telling from a broken clock.... but in reality, it's not accurate or reliable.

Pam wrote:I told my sister and brother that I had got a twitter account and was going to talk a bit about my efforts to do something with my land, and both of them immediately got onto the site and posted that I was too old and should forget it. I bet most people have had an experience similar to that. 

Hahaha. I know the feeling all too well.

It seems that those who nobly stray from the beaten path are endlessly ridiculed, yet those who go to college and get a mundane desk job are praised. 

The secret is to never let the criticism deter you from your goals.

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."  Frank Zappa, quoted by Paul W.

Maybe this applies... the norm is for older folks to avoid starting (big) projects... and progress is for them to figure out how to accomplish projects, probably using inventive solutions.  Us deviants are the future

Nancy Sutton wrote:
Maybe this applies... the norm is for older folks to avoid starting (big) projects... and progress is for them to figure out how to accomplish projects, probably using inventive solutions.   Us deviants are the future

So is there some sort of formula to know just how big a project an older person should take on? Let's see,  the average age for a woman these days is  x and I am y so.. yes I could get chickens but no I shouldn't bother with planting a food forest  because it likely won't come into much production before statistics say I'm gonna die and it might just all get chopped down anyway?

Or..well you always wanted a farm and now you have the land but you shouldn't actually DO anything  because you left it too late? At what point should people  decide just to "wrap things up" and not start any new projects?

My granddaughter has much the same attitude, she told me that older people shouldn't have land, they should let younger people have it who "could look after it". (pretty blatant for a relative  might you say?) Anyway I told her that the land looked after itself just fine before people came along and dumped tons of poisonous chemicals on it, diverted rivers and so forth. If she showed any interest in helping with it I might be more sympathetic to such a comment but since she has never offered to help with anything at all it just sound like avarice.

Nobody told my other half about older people not taking up big projects. 

He has modified his projects somewhat though.  Building work is only carried out in small bursts, and with the assistance of either my teenage son or myself, especially if he has to use heavy building blocks.  And he's banned from doing the roofing as he gets dizzy on ladders.  Anyway, he's now older that his cousin was when he fell off the roof and broke three ribs at age 72.  He tends to prefer short-term projects, like the veggie bit of the garden, and I do the longer term ones like the forest garden.  But he still wants to build stuff and dig lakes and help me plant trees, and breed snails and pigeons and rabbits and stick insects and tropical fish and fish for the table and buy a little scooter/moped and set up a bee-breeding thing to supply locals and buy some more land to plant trees for firewood and build a rocket stove and get some pigs and some goats - you get the picture... 

Why on earth should he stop? 

There's plenty of land for the 'younger generation', but most of his children and grandchildren have never even bothered to come and visit the place.  And most of the local villages don't even *have* a younger generation as they have all left and gone to the cities. 

When should he give up?  Well I can tell you now that I'd rather have him out on the farm bumbling around doing whatever he wants than lying on his bed doing nothing nothing but watching the telly all day until that's all he's capable of doing. 

Pam wrote:
In a TED talk I watched yesterday,  they said that actually talking about doing something ..even if it was  "call me every day and ask me what I have done about this" made it LESS likely to happen.

Pam, do you have a link to that TED talk? I'd love to see it.

It reminds me a bit of the thread I started a while back in MD: announcing your plans makes you less likely to accomplish them.

Sometimes we're our own worst detractors / obstacles - not just the naysayers.

I think when folks follow their bliss, ala Joseph Campbell, or start living true to their nature, ala The Artist's Way, it is a benefit to everyone around them.

People who are healthy, thriving, and doing what they love provide a ton of good in business, personal relationships and more.

This talk is one of the very short ones, so a lot of the followup comments are a little antagonistic However. he does present some studies to support his thesis and a technique to follow if, as he says, you just HAVE to talk about it ...
http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html

One thing that makes it a bit complicated is that sometimes  goals require more than one person (such as Paul's ambition for world domination ) and that would be pretty tricky to accomplish without talking to a few people at the very least.

Ha! That's the same guy, Derek Sivers, that I quoted in the MD thread! Just watched the TED video - thanks for the link. I love his narration of the dancing/how to start a movement, too.