Nothing really new here, but all I can say is that we've entered a new stage in life, and there's a lot more responsibilites. More to keep on top of, and with less immediate personal opportunities. That's really tough. ...with greater levels of professionalism, the human contingency factor really goes down the tubes. Interaction and expression really gets streamlined, and efficiency really dictates. In that sense, I've always been minnimalist, so it's not an issue at all, but as this "professionalism" increases, there's definitely a heartless aspect that one can no longer ignore.

I guess this is what you call business... and as an individual who took the unviable option of pursuing business, I've always considered it a cop-out to capitalism. I've never taken up Marxism, or any socialist ideology of sorts... but I do find an elevated form fundamentals that would most defintiely be ideal. The reality is that the "others" who surround you are often below par in climbing the learning curve to actually fathom the value of for per se, multiculturalism over nationalism. The freemarket economy over a regulated governmental system, and most importantly... an intellectual state over the dire physical state.

These examples are clearly at the polar extreme of things, but nonetheless, I feel the Japanese/American/British service-driven post-whatever economy (or system to be very broad) very fascinating. I go to work everyday... and do my work all FROM my head. I just play with the computer to implement everything into a complete virtual state. I'm selling my brains to my company, and the company sells my brain power. It's absoultely WILD!!! But when I go out to Lawson's, I see these teenagers sweltering away (and recycling the phrases), "Irra-tai-mase" in their cutsie but manufactured voices.

My criticism here is that these kids (or ojisans) who have never gone over and beyond their physical, tangible, or sensual state of reality... they will never gain the jolly joy of finding out that the Japanese big bang is a major financial breakthrough. (well, something like that)

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that for individuals who are bound to their upbringings, their moral and religious values, and given ideologies... they've more or less resigned or succumbed to accept their own definition as such.

I am clearly negative in my portral, as I would like to believe that my boundaries are more fluid in definition. We risk the danger of having no definition at all --for that matter-- and from outside perspectives, those views can illustrate us as adolescent, explorartive, or just plain un-commited.

I feel that we've only begun. My reality is constantly changing... and I'm gaining greater certainty that my completely uncertain state IS the one and only certainty that I am going to live with for the next 5-10 years. Isn't that wild?

I sense that the issues that we are facing is that this "next stage" in life that we are now embarking... is demanding us to shed our more physical/tangible realities, in exchange for more "creative" business endeavors.

Euge