$ocial Appreciation, Inspiring the DO!

I’ve been delving into the ideas of creating a forum for DOING. There is so much online that is all about inspiring thought and ideas but for me, the next step is in the doing. And it’s so easy in the culture of the meta to just sit back and absorb. I’ve been doing it for years and years.

As a meta society, in order to stay user driven and be able to continually form and shape our own world as we like it, we’re going to have to really start the DOING now.

One of the things I always say to people is JUST DO IT! I know it’s Nike’s logo but you don’t need fancy footwear to create anything. All of us are self conscious and unsure of the format for which we should produce anything. I see us all looking at each other for inspiration or guidance. That’s a totally valid way of kicking down the door to creating.

CREATE content, CREATE events, CREATE flow. Flow is huge for me as a concept in the meta culture. The problem with the RL is that there is little organic flow of how we communicate, exchange, or distribute. Everything has been so top down and motivated and manipulated by power. Most of the transactions of production and economy are all designed by the power of marketing and NOT inspiration and true value.

For example, I have this Rem Koolhaus book on my shelf that I bought in college called Mutations. At the time I bought it, it was hella expensive.. like close to eighty dollars. It was a trend going around in the studios so I felt like I needed to pick it up too. All the cool kids were reading it etc. It turns out the book, while has some interesting points about architecture in developing cities, was totally over-rated.

A few years later, I came across a web article that pretty much summarized the book but with more valid inspirations as to how to think about the future of how we build cities. I would rather have contributed to that online article than the over-hyped/well packaged Koolhaas book.

And that’s how I feel about a lot of the individual user-generated content online. That Flattr concept is really about distributing the flow of economy in truly organic way based on interest and use and not on brilliant marketing ploys. What I like about it is that you can see it as a true system of free flow meta economy.

For example, I can see myself giving a cake slice to someone who wrote a blog post on geocaching and sparked my interest in creating my own geocache user account to start my own adventures in the RL sharing/exploring game. I see myself wanting to give a bunch of cake slices to davek4981 on youtube because his cover of Iambic 9 Poetry on the Eigenharp brought me immense pleasure in my life.

I’m not a fan of monetization for profit sake for online content. I think there is a huge danger in doing something for only money. It ruins, in my opinion, the authenticity of love for creating. But that has always been the limitation of meta distribution right? I’m intrigued by this idea of a continual and renewing flow of creating value to intellectual, artistic, and plain life sharing data.

It’s a way of showing value to something which has been hard to quantify until now. I know it’s a small start to the DOING movement but for me, it’s a good start. I hope it doesn’t get abused or manipulated by marketing or meme trends. I just think it’s an amazing way for us to start generating a culture of user-rich content.

I can even see it as being something small like wanting to give a cake slice to someone for showing me their grocery haul or sharing their newest haircut from the salon or teaching me about HDR photography :D With a flow of giving/sharing, learning/inspiring, doing/thinking we continue to grow on each other. I don’t see the monetary trend of a true system like this being mono-directional but flowing crazy like a the veins in our body…constantly renewing and refreshing.

I’m immensely thankful people are starting to evolve towards the meta. These are exciting times.

Time to start doing. GO!