Journey vs. Destination

A few weeks ago, Chris Gammell tweeted a link about Buckminster Fuller’s ego-cide. The short version (and bent to reflect my point here): Bucky determined his ego got in the way, that pride and fear were holding him back. He decided to do as he thought was good and let the universe take care of money.

I enjoyed the article. I thought about it for awhile. I started to wonder if I spent so much time pondering it because it is a neat idea from a guy I respect for his varied contributions to many fields. Fuller has such wonderful breadth, our society values depth when synthesis across fields can be just as interesting. In the end, worrying at it like a splinter, the idea of skirting the edge of bankruptcy to follow his wont, I realized that it reminded me of the movie Field of Dreams.

I’ve always thought Field of Dreams was kind of a dumb movie. I have seen it more than a few times as it was the favorite of my best friend in high school (a person who hasn’t spoken to me since the day we graduated).

In particular, the “if you build it, they will come” part annoys me. I’m a planner. Figure out what you want, figure out how to get from here to there, start plodding, ticking off boxes as you go. Monetization is not critical unless you are planning to feed yourself (and family) from this venture.

So ripping out crops to build a baseball diamond because the ghosts tell you to? Kerrrrazy. Absolutely bonkers. Point for style in execution but negative a billion for not having a plan.

That said, my life is in a strange spot. I’ve got some paying work from past clients but it is not a full plate (and always almost finished except they keep adding things). I did all that work for my IoT talk for EELive. I’ve been putting it in blog format, and perhaps managed to sell that as a blog series. It would be neat. And I’m working on the ayok widget which I want to give to a big site (though that one isn’t for sale, it is for personal reasons). But once I do that one, someone might pay me to do more. Building neat things then writing explanations is fun. It is not lucrative, but fun.

Other than my normal “OMG, what if I can never get a job again?” fear that always grates, I’m not overly worried about income. A lot of that is because Christopher makes enough to keep us in kibble. I am looking for a neat opportunity, taking my time about it. Taking a small sabbatical is ok, especially as I’m learning a lot and trying new things.

But if I do stuff because I want to, then someone comes along to say, “hey, that’s neat, let me pay you”,  I’m doing what the movie told me to. And I think that is wrong. Because it always has been.