Ladies and gentleman the Unobjective Intelligence Podcast is back and better than ever! (**NOTE** Because I’m hosting the podcast myself now, I have to go through the iTunes store submittal process all over again. Once the podcast has been approved there will be a button on the right for you to subscribe via itunes, and have the podcast downloaded to your iPod. Also, I’m not sure why, but this episode seems bassy to me, that’s not on purpose, just so you know.)

In this episode:

• Where I’ve been.
• A campaign 2008 (or Obama) update.
• Do you watch a lot of television, or spend a lot of time with the internet? Well you may be emotionally and relationally stunted. I’ll tell you why.

 

 The Unobjective Intelligence Podcast June 22, 2008 [32:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Links I promised in the podcast:

Evidence that lack of social contact stunts you relationally and emotionally.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21210531-2703,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_torture
http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/008389.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/putnam1/putnam.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
http://www.bowlingalone.com/

Have something you want addressed in next weeks podcast? Shoot me a line.

Anyone who has been reading this blog in recent weeks knows that I am in the founding stages of starting a non-profit organization committed to changing the world and affecting as many people as possible in the process.

When you think about it that’s a pretty vague description of what No Motives is looking to accomplish. Actually, the mission statement will probably be tweaked as this process goes on, but the focus of the organization will remain to change the world and affect as many people as possible in the process. Doing it all the while without any sort of selfish ambition, any desire to do it for a certain religious sect, or do it for any other reason then just because.

You see I believe whole-heartedly that as human-beings we rely heavily on each other, I won’t deny that. That’s not to say that we have to constantly be surrounding each other with our presence, but think about it for a second. Say one night you realize you need fish food. You walk out of your house, close your door, which while mostly mechanically assembled, was loaded by a human being on to a truck that was driven by a human being. You lock your door, with a copy of your house key that was cut by an associate (coincidentally a human being) at the local hardware store. You get into your car, which was mostly manufactured by machines, but was at some point driven onto a ship, or rail car by a human being, and then driven off and loaded on some sort of vehicle that will be directed by a human being to a car lot, where a human being sold it to you. You drive to the store, stopping to fill up your vehicle with fuel that was refined by a human being, at a gas station that has a human being attending to it. You then continue on your journey to the store for fish food, you get to the store, have to ask for help to find the fish food, a human being who works at the store helps you, you grab the food you want, check-out using the automated cash registers, which need a human being to attend to them, and then go back home.

Do you get my point?

While we are largely becoming a mechanically dependent society, we still need each other for survival. I feel that it will ALWAYS be this way, even if it the needs change. That’s why changing the world we live in and affecting our fellow man is so important to me. Not because I’m a Christ-follower, activist, politician, author, musician, or anything else, but simply because.
Because it’s the way it’s suppose to be, and you shouldn’t need an agenda or any sort of motivation to change the world and make a difference in peoples lives.

I have in the last month became a huge fan of the band Flobots. If you are not familiar with their music I encourage you to check out their website where you can listen to some of it. Their music is empowering and is going to change this world. They have a clear mission and according to their website their music “is a fire-breathing rallying cry for all free-thinking individuals fed-up with the violence and apathy that have thus far defined the new millennium.” I’d love for No Motives to partner with them and any other band, or organization that wants to make a difference in this world in whatever way they see fit. I feel this is the direction that No Motives is headed in, that is to be a support organization that helps advance folks like the Flobots missions.

Freethought is the idea that you should neither accept nor reject ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. It is striving to build your beliefs on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of any factual/logical fallacies or intellectually-limiting effects of authority, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism, tradition, urban legend, and all other dogmatic or otherwise fallacious principles.(1) I’m finding that I am becoming more of a free-thinker on a daily basis. I’m also finding that interaction with other free-thinkers is hard to come by. But that’s another entry for another day.

I’m excited to continue the birth of No Motives and I’m excited to see the things that the organization is going to accomplish. If you haven’t please check out the Flobots, go purchase their cd if you like them, and get involved in their street team. We need more musicians out there who are making an impact changing the world.

We are building up a new world
Do not sit idly by
Do not remain neutral
Do not rely on this broadcast alone
We are only as strong as our signal
There is a war going on for your mind
If you are thinking you are winning
Resistance is victory
Defeat is impossible
Your weapons are already in hand
Reach within you and find the means by which to gain your freedom
Fight with tools
Your fate and that of everyone you know depends on it
– from We are Winning by Flobots

The lady that owns the company I work for is what I call a “Forward Queen,” you know the type: the ones that forward every e-mail they get because it tells them to or else something terrible will happen. Or forward this so it’ll “change someones life.” Well, I have to give her a little credit as she forwarded me a message the other day, that while not changing my life per say, did leave a lasting impression.

Lately I’ve struggled with the idea that our (myself included) lack of humanity has made me and many others into fairly jaded individuals. That’s part of the reason why this vision of No Motives is so important to me. We’ve forgot that there are others out there and whether they’re just like us, nothing like us, or somewhat like us they still deserve to be treated just like we want to be treated. I think somewhere between the 6 o’clock news, the “war” in Iraq and the latest diet trend we’ve forgot about the golden rule of treating others exactly like we want to be treated. But I digress, partly because I talk about it too much on here, and partly because that’s not what this post is really about.

Any how, my companies owner sent me a message titled “5 Lessons of How We Treat People.” I almost deleted it, because I thought for sure it was just another “stupid forward,” I didn’t though and I’m glad.

Here are just two of the 5 lessons that were shared in that email:

1 - First Important Lesson - Cleaning Lady.
During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50 ‘ s, but how would I know her name?
I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely, ” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say “hello.” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

This lesson got me thinking. What if, even outside of our careers, outside of our churches, outside of anything really, what if we take the time to listen and talk to people? I’ve started riding the bus a few days a week. I started doing it mainly to conserve fuel, however now I realize that the opportunities to meet people are far greater for me on the bus than they are in my car. So much so that now I want to ride the bus as much as I can. Being an ambitious, future politician, this idea of meeting people was striking to me because all good politicians should know the community they’re advocating for. I realized though, outside of my political ambitions, how lucky am I to get to know these people for no other reason than just getting to know them? The answer is: I’m one of the luckiest men on the face of the planet.

4 - Fourth Important Lesson. - The obstacle in Our Path.
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand!
Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

I find myself telling people on a regular basis now that if they’re fed up with something then they should change it. I even became the receiver of my own advice when I realized that I was sick of complaining about gas prices and did something about it by beginning to take the bus. I’ve heard people say in one form or another that every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition, but never paid it much mind until lately.
We can’t just keep crying about the way things are then move on. If you don’t like the way something works change it! Many objects have been invented because someone didn’t like the way the object before it worked, so they did something about it. We’ve got to start doing something about life. If we’re tired, jaded, irritated, frustrated about our condition, or the conditions of those around us, we need to start acting. It’s easier than we might think.

I figured I’d share those lessons with you, there are 3 others too that are very inspiring, I actually sort of teared up at the end of the e-mail. If you’d like me to pass the message along to you please feel free to leave your e-mail in a comment and I’ll get it to you.

Ex animo,
Will

So for the last month or so I have been doing an extensive amount of thinking.
It started when I attended one of my roommates graduation. He graduated from the school I was to have graduated from, and his graduation was the graduation that I was to have walked in, however life, God, who/whatever has decided that finishing that education, at least right now is not in my future. That idea sort of led me to question what the hell I was doing in life.

Am I to be a peddler of cotton candy and popcorn machines forever? Am I suppose to be stuck in this dead-end, go nowhere sort of circle of careers?

What about my personal mission statement, have I allowed it to just go by the wayside in an effort to “just get by?”

Where am I headed and what will I do when I get there?

Those are just some of many questions I’ve been asking myself, and God for the last several weeks.

You see my personal mission statement is to infect a change in this world that will affect many people. Yes, I’m sure that’s the same personal mission of many folks which is why I’ve been pleading with God to reveal to me what exactly that means. I’m been asking for more of a definitive route to take to fulfill that mission. For a long time I thought that mission would be fulfilled, somehow through the Church. That I would be involved in some sort of ministry position that would allow me to fulfill that mission. For an even longer time I thought that mission would be fulfilled through my being a celebrity, be it on the local or national level. That somehow being a radio DJ would allow me to fulfill that mission. I’ve even thought at one point that mission would be fulfilled through my political ventures. That I would run for small local office and one day work my way up to Washington D.C. and fulfill that mission there. Most recently I’ve felt like being a teacher or working in the public school system was the best way for me to fulfill my mission. All of these paths will eventually lead to some sort of change but is it truly the change I’ve been called to infect? The answer I’ve come up with is no.

I’ve been called to something bigger.

Recently I came to the realization that I was spending a lot of my time being someone I wasn’t. I was pretending to like people that I really didn’t like. I was saying that things were God sent when indeed I hadn’t even consulted God, simply because they were good and seemed right, therefore they must have been God sent. I’ve been spending the last several years of my adult life wondering around, in my own pathetic pity party in an attempt to make myself feel bad enough that I would finally motivate myself to do something big, or maybe even motivate myself to live out my mission.

This week I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with someone who, without knowing makes a significant impact on my life in many ways. This particular evening she helped me realize that I lack balls. (Then again, given her intelligence, she probably does realize these things.) Our conversation had no basis more than just catching up on life, however she helped me to realize that I give in too much, that I’m a bit of a push over, and despite my very best effort I let far too many people influence who I am, and the things I do in life. (Yeah, it was tough telling myself that just because I say I don’t care what someone says/thinks, doesn’t mean I really DO NOT care :-/) This particular individual is without a doubt, a Godsend. And while I have no idea where our relationship is headed, or how much longer she’ll be around, I plan to fully embrace her friendship, and absorb her unknowing wisdom. Anyway, when I got home that evening from meeting up with my friend I decided that I needed to spend the week in deeper than usual prayer, reflection, meditation and thought. So I decided to not log on to my myspace, facebook, twitter, blog, or any other things that does nothing more than distract me from seeking out what it is I need to seek out. I was quite surprised at just how much I was able to get accomplished at work, home and in life by forgoing these “pleasures” for a few days.

Long story short, I had been feeling like I was being told something, but was telling myself that I needed a confirmation of some sort before I believed it. I felt like I was suppose to somehow start an organization or grass-roots movement of folks who did nothing more than live out the mantra that is the golden rule, or the ethic of reciprocity. That is to simply have an organization of folks, committed to bettering the world and treating people like they want to be treated. I got my confirmation on Thursday night, during a completely unrelated conversation with Kenny.

As a result, No Motives has been birthed. No Motives is the name that I have chosen for the non-profit organization that I am founding in an effort to infect a change in this world that will affect many people. Obviously this is all in the very beginning stages of formation. There are tons of things that have to be written out, mission statements, board members, budgets, business plans and much, much more. But the gist of it is simple: No Motives exists for nothing more than to live out the golden rule in every part of our lives. We will be an organization that relies on one of the most annoying sayings known to man…“JUST BECAUSE”. No Motives is feeding the homeless without shoving some sort of religious preference down their throat. No Motives is sending kids to college not so that they can better the world, but because they really want to go and have no way of doing so. No Motives is helping people not because it’s a mandate from God, or Muhammad, or Buddha, or whatever higher being you serve, but…just because. Because we’re human beings and no matter what our religious belief may be our first call in life should be to treat others like we want to be treated, or to not do to others what we wouldn’t want done to us. The world has turned into a bit of an ugly place, and it’s because we’ve forgot the golden rule. We’re so caught up in pushing our beliefs on those around us, that our ambitions are no longer to make the world a better place by treating each other better, but to make it a better place by making everyone believe what we believe.

Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe this thing will turn out to be nothing, and life will go on and I’ll be like the guy on the sitcom who had a dream and worked hard to make it come to fruition but it never did and so now I own the neighborhood dry cleaners and life just goes on. If that’s the case then fine.
The reason being because for the first time…EVER…I now know clearly what it is I’m suppose to be doing in life. I’ve heard the voice of God, I’ve received the confirmation I asked for in exactly the manner I asked to receive it and everything is falling into place. I mean, just the simple fact that nomotives.com, .net, and .org were all available is even more of a confirmation of this dream, this vision coming to life.
For the first time ever, I am 100% o.k. with being the guy who drives the 200,000 mile Saturn, living in a modest home, making a modest income who may never marry or have a family because, I am fulfilling my mission. I am doing what I was put on earth to do, and being the man that God made me to be.

I don’t know where this thing is headed, how we’re going to get there, or even what it’s going to look like. Please pray or do whatever it is you do for guidance for me in the coming months as I continue to see this thing shaped and brought together. If you’re interested in being a part please let me know by e-mail me at will |at| nomotives |dot| org.

In the coming days I will also share some other things that I experienced/heard during this time of intense reflection, please check back often.

Also, as a completely unrelated side note if you access this blog directly using the url www.willyoungband.com I am in the process of transferring that domain from it’s current host to a new server, along with transferring this blog from Blogger to a wordpress blog hosted on the new server space that I purchased this week. There may be periods of downtime during this transfer, but I’ve been assured that it will be relatively smooth. If you must have your fix of Will Young during any down time you can access this blog directly by typing http://wfyoung3.blogspot.com. I will also be migrating the Will Young Show podcast to the new server too.

Thank you for journeying with me.