Do you watch the show Caprica on SyFy?  If not, you really should.  It’s excellent, and, like Battlestar Galactica, far more than a sci fi show. 

Here’s part of the premise: In the colony of Caprica, there is a virtual world.  Anyone can link up their avatar and step into this realistic 3D universe.  There is a game in this virtual world called New Cap City.  In the first season of Caprica one of the main characters, Tamara Adama is trapped inside of the game.

It’s a hellhole.  You can’t step off a curb without getting shot, and there is no one to trust.  Tamara is forced to rely on Heracles, a gamer who uses her for her unique abilities (she, unlike others, can’t die in the game).  He uses her to steal the points of another player. 

No one knows what the real purpose of the game is, Heracles explains, but people suspect that since you can accumulate points, that must be the point.  He thinks that if he can accumulate all the points in the game then perhaps he will win. 

Remind you of anything?  We watch this show and maybe it makes us think for a few minutes.  Then we turn off the TV, go to work and do some shopping online.  Designer shoes *ding* level up.  New car *ding* level up.  We accumulate numbers in our bank accounts and things on our shelves and not one of us is taking any of it with us in the end.  No one ever wins.

Caprica exposes a pernicious trait of the human brain.  If something is quanifiable, we assume that more of it must be better.  Even with no one ever telling them that the points have anything to do with the goal of the game, people still assume that because they exist they must have a purpose. 

We do this in “real life” all the time.  Money is easily measured so we measure things by it.  In some circles a lack of money or things even becomes a measure – the fewer the better.  Few of us stop to think about what the point actually is, and how we should really be getting through this game.  No one knows for sure what is the purpose of life, but I am sure that it doesn’t have anything to do with winning.

If there is a purpose to the game that we’re all playing (and I believe that there is) we need to be seeking it out.  Tracking life by numbers in an account is just an easy way out of a life of true purpose – and you all know that I don’t like to do things the easy way.  If you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t either.  Don’t meander down a path (or run at breakneck speed in some cases) just because it has been set out before you, whether by larger society or minimalists.  Figure out your goal and then forge a path to it.  Definitely harder, but certainly worth it.

Adn remember, just because you can quantify something, doesn’t mean that it’s the goal.

Are you truthful?

You probably said, “well yes, of course I am!”  Are you really?  Most of us aren’t.  I’m not.  That’s because there is more to being truthful than just not telling lies.  Not telling an affirmative lie is the easiest kind of truth.  It’s like saying that you’re a kind person because you don’t kill people.  It’s a good first step, but it’s not the end of the road.

Real honesty, real truthfulness means living a life of honesty.  And it’s really really hard.  Think about your values.  What means something to you.  What’s important to you.  What do you complain about and rail against at cocktail parties?  Now compare those values to how you live your life.  Do they line up?  If you talk about the evils of oil, have you given up your car?  If you say that family is the most important thing in your life, have you cancelled a date or missed a school play for work?

I am working to live a really truthful life.  And it’s hard.  Honestly, I don’t feel like I do a very good job most of the time.  I know that family is important to me, and I know that living a simple life and doing the right thing is important to me.  But right now I work in a job that takes me away from my husband a lot.  My job doesn’t allow me to create value in the world or be impeccable with my word.  I have cut back on buying things I don’t need, but I haven’t gotten rid of very much.  And I watch entirely too much TV. 

Frankly, it’s frustrating.  Sometimes I feel like such a hypocrite.  It’s been really getting me down lately to think that I’m not living my life according to what I really believe.  I bet you feel like that sometimes too, even if you haven’t really realized why.

Here’s what I’m tell myself though: I’m on the journey, and that’s what’s important.  This is really hard stuff.  Living a completely honest life takes an incredible amount of bravery, strength, and constancy.  The only person I know of that lived a completely honest life was Jesus, so it’s really not that surprising that I am having a hard time with it.  I can’t be perfect, and I can’t live a completely and totally honest life.  But I can try.  And that’s what’s important. I’m still an okay person, and so are you.  Does telling myself that really work?  Honestly, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.  But I know that I can’t let it bring me down so much that I stop trying.  As a wise friend of mine says, “all I can do is my best and move forward.”  I’m doing my best, and that best may vary from day to day, but it’s all that I can do.

What in your life isn’t honest; what about your life isn’t living up to your values?  How do you deal with that (or did you just realize it today)?

If you could design a life from scratch, with a job, neighborhood, family and friends of your dreams, what would it look like?  So why are you living the life you do now?

I have been reading a lot lately about minimalism.  I have been reading blogs like Everett Bogue’s Far Beyond the Stars and Joshua Becker’s Becoming Minimalist.  These blogs, and others, have really spoken to me.  I don’t want to live with under 75 possessions like Everett, and I don’t want to travel constantly like Chris Guillebeau, but I do want to live a more deliberate life and a life with fewer things.  I want to live a life of quality.

This is a unique time in history.  For many years, the goal was to do better in life than your parents, to have a better career, more money and more things.  This was, largely, achievable.  Better educational opportunities and career paths made it possible to work hard and wind up with a more comfortable life, free of some of the daily drudgeries that your parents had to do.  But now that has changed.  For many people, myself included, a normal career trajectory would not make me any richer than my parents, and could very well make me poorer.  I am lucky to be in a position where I can, if I choose, make quite a bit of money.  But the sacrifice that comes with that decision is bigger than the gain.  The money that I would make in the next forty years would be at the expense of my family, my health, my passions, and my soul.  That’s not a good deal.  And this got me thinking, what is the benefit of wealth anyway?

I know, what a first-world question to ask.  But really, what is the benefit of wealth except security?  Do we really try to make more and more and more money just to buy new toys, or because we are so afraid of what will happen if we don’t?  And does wealth guarantee security?  No.  It certainly makes it more likely that you won’t go without a place to sleep, but this recession has taught us that wealth can evaporate overnight, and jobs can disappear in the blink of an eye.  The deal that we were sold on is rotten.

So I’m out.  Well, not out quite yet, but as of today (actually, technically, more like as of two weeks ago) I am actively working to create a freer life.  This isn’t an overnight change.  I have a lot of debt (from school and a business) and I want to do this in the most intelligent way possible.  So this is a 1.5 year plan.  In that time I will minimize my possessions, reduce my spending, save the money that I make at DJF (day job firm), and create a location-independent income stream.  I will update here as I move along with this plan, mentioning the highlights, pitfalls, and the things that I learn in this process.  It will be an adventure, and I hope that you will join me.

I have been thinking a lot lately about standard Western society and the emphasis that it places on certain things, goals and paths.  As I live what most people would consider “the good life” I find myself becoming less and less enchanted by the very things that society says I should value most.  I have a prestigious and high-paying job, I live in a nice apartment with a view of the New York skyline, I have new gadgets and technology,and can afford to eat out, buy wine, and hire someone to walk my dogs.  These are things that many people in America aspire towards, yet none of it makes me happy.  In fact, many of these things actively work against my happiness.  For instance, one of the things in life that gives me great joy is cooking dinners for myself and my husband.  But my job means that I am often too busy to make dinner.  We can afford to order food in, but to make that money I have had to give something up.  I have outsourced food preparation in order to earn more money.

Americans have outsourced a vast amount of their lives.  Things that people used to do in order to survive have now been outsourced at lesser or higher cost as individuals move into the current “traditional” American workforce.  We outsource cooking our food, cleaning our clothes, growing our food, cleaning our houses, walking our dogs, taking care of our kids, and even entertaining ourselves (to the television mostly).  In many ways outsourcing these tasks is wonderful.  But it also comes at a cost.

If you are an average “successful” American, you go every day to a job where you work (do labor) for someone else.  The labor that you perform does not benefit you in any way.  It doesn’t feed you, clothe you, keep you healthy, or give you a feeling of joy.  You are trading your labor solely for money.  Then, with that money, you pay for 1. things, 2. outsourced work to do the things in your personal life that you don’t have time to do, and 3. a very small amount of experiences (vacations, evenings at the movies/theater, etc.).  Somewhere along the way you got convinced that this is 1. normal and 2. the best way to go about living.  But why?

When every amount of labor that you do is just for someone else, it makes your life hollow.  There is a deep satisfaction in doing something for you or your family that cannot be replicated when you only labor for someone else in exchange for shiny coins.  What are the things that give you satisfaction?  Cooking?  Gardening?  Spending time with family and friends?  Building old cars?  Does trading your time for shiny coins enhance those things?  Does outsourcing your life make you happier or give your life meaning?

It doesn’t for me.  I want to live my life, not pay for someone else to live it for me.  I want time to do the things that ground my existence and make me feel connected to the planet and my community, not trade my time for a few weeks of vacation a year.  I’m obviously not there yet, but I have a vision of a life of meaning and quality, of connectedness.  It’s not a utopia, and it’s not perfect, but I think it’s what I need for my life to be.  I’m not there yet, but I’m building towards it.  What about you?  What would your life of meaning and quality look like?

Apple announced their new “this is what will revolutionize the world next” product this week – the iPad.  I personally think that it’s a great product and fills a void in the marketplace.  It’s the “I’m sitting on the sofa watching TV and want to read a blog but don’t feel like pulling out my laptop” market.  This product is designed for people who want to be online a lot, wherever they are, and it is even better if those people want to read some e-books as well.  It’s not a total Kindle-killer, but it’s the first real salvo against it, and eventually e-readers are going to look much more like the iPad than like the Kindle.

I’m excited about this future.  I love the idea of bringing the internet, essentially the whole world of information, with me wherever I go.  And I especially like the idea of bringing all the books that I could want with me wherever I go.  Here’s the problem with the e-book market though – it’s fundamentally flawed.

The problem is in the pricing.  Users have gotten used to digital media being inexpensive.  What used to cost $17 (a CD) is now broken down into $.99 pieces and, even if you buy the whole album, you’re probably not spending more than $12 on it, even $5 if you catch a deal on Amazon.  Because you’re not getting something physical, people don’t assign as much value to the product and will only pay so much for it.

E-book prices are hovering around $9 right now.  That’s significantly less than a new hardcover, but more than a paperback.  It feels overpriced, because it costs more than a physical version of the product – one that can’t be accidentally deleted unless you set it on fire.  $5 is a more psychologically-comfortable price for something that is going to be essentially disposable.  You won’t put this on your shelf, and chances are you will never read it again.  But $5 isn’t enough to sustain the industry.

The publishing industry is expensive.  Even once you take away the costs of printing, it is expensive to pay all of the people who work together to get a best-seller to the shelf.  As it stands now, most books don’t earn back their advances, so that problem will be exacerbated once digital becomes dominant.  And since books take so long to read, people probably won’t make up the price difference by buying extra books the way that they may with digital music.  The price of e-books needs to be higher than $5, but the industry has trained us to not accept that.

You’re thinking, “but we spend $25 for a hardcover right now.”  Yes, that’s true.  But if you decide you don’t want to spend $25 for a hardcover you just wait for it to come out in paperback.  The industry has trained us to think that the base price of the information in a book is $7, because that’s what paperbacks cost.  So the hardback is more expensive in our minds because 1) it is new, and 2) it is more durable and looks nicer.  With digital versions you can take advantage of 1, by raising prices for new books, but probably not to $25 because there is no shelf appeal.

So what can we do to fix this?  One thought is to encourage indie-authors and try to dismantle some of the publishing industry structure.  That is probably going to have to happen to some degree no matter what, because fat will need to be cut somewhere.  But editors are already overwhelmed and spend less time than they used to on books.  Books pretty much need to come already perfect from authors and agents.  So the real benefit right not of the publishing industry is 1) to weed out the bad books and 2) to market what they publish.  To keep costs low yet still make money, these two functions will need to be replicated without the high cost.

One way to do this is through a Netflix-type recommendation system for e-books combined with good reviewing.  This would filter the whole universe of indie books to ones that a person is likely to enjoy and that are of publishable quality.  Alternatively websites that sell e-books could market themselves based on their high standards for what they sell.  They could have their own reviewers who allow only 3-4% of books they get to go onto the site.  This would ensure quality, and websites could compete based on who does a better job of it.  A good recommendation and review system would do the work of marketing, and even allow better marketing for books that wouldn’t get much budget under the current system.

There is one other alternative, this one doesn’t cut costs by much, but gives more value for the money spent by customers.  Authors could work to form their own communities of fans who are their patrons.  By interacting with fans through blogs and community events, authors could nurture a group of people who will support them personally and ensure them a living.  This could be done simply through selling books, short stories, audio books, and other things, or even by charging a yearly fee to get access to creative product as it rolls out.  The benefit to fans isn’t just the product, but the relationship with the author and the feeling of supporting another person’s art.  Wil Wheaton is an excellent example of someone who is successfully doing this right now.  The personal-feeling relationship that he has with fans through his blog and podcast allows him to sell product that a publishing house wouldn’t take on, and probably for more money than he could without that relationship.

Digital media allows us to break down many traditional barriers.  It gives everyone a voice.  This can be a bad thing, as the most wonderful voices can get lost in the chorus, but that doesn’t mean that we should run from it, or try to hold on to the old ways of doing things.  By looking at how to get to the same result, good books for a reasonable price (for both consumers and authors), instead of trying to find a workaround to keep the old system in place, we can make sure that e-books provide a wonderful new home for authors and others in the industry.  But it will be different than it has been; it needs to be, and it can even be better than before.