Faith + Reason = Truth

Please visit Edge.org when you can, if you don't already.  It may be weeks or even months between visits there for me, but every encounter brings something eye-opening and important.  Last week was no different.
In an article dated Jan. 27, 2009, Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges reported on the results of their research conducted from 2004-2008 with over 4000 Israelis and Palestinians.  Here are a few bullets detailing their findings:

• across the political spectrum, almost everyone we surveyed rejected the initial solutions we offered—ideas that are accepted as common sense among most Westerners, like simply trading land for peace or accepting shared sovereignty over Jerusalem
• in general the greater the monetary incentive involved in the deal, the greater the disgust from respondents
• Palestinian hard-liners were more willing to consider recognizing the right of Israel to exist if the Israelis simply offered an official apology for Palestinian suffering in the 1948 war
• Israeli respondents said they could live with a partition of Jerusalem and borders very close to those that existed before the 1967 war if Hamas and the other major Palestinian groups explicitly recognized Israel’s right to exist

What good is land or money when you know your neighbor wants you dead?  And how hard is it for one side to say "we're sorry, we shouldn't have done that 40 years ago," while the other simply needs to "explicitly recognize" the right to exist of the other people?  Harder than it sounds, apparently, as current events in the Gaza Strip and West Bank testify to on a daily basis.

Did you see Amazon's product announcement today?  They finally unveiled the Kindle 2, although the details and photos had already been leaked.  Amazon has always had a tendency to sell these things on backlog, so I didn't take any chances and placed my $359 order this morning.  Gadget conundrum solved.
For $359, the unlimited wherever, whenever wireless access to Wikipedia alone would be worth it, but the kicker for me was the solving of my eternal dilemma:  written word, or spoken?  How about both, thank you very much.  I've been an avid Audible.com customer for a few years now and LOVE my daily commutes because of the miracle of the mp3 book, but the pull of the written word is also a strong one.  Now, with Kindle 2, you can read your book as well as have it read to you.  No doubt, the quality won't be that of a professional book reader, but if you've listened to as many audio productions as I have, you understand some of those "professionals" tend to leave a little to be desired with respect to their craft.
Exciting times are coming, and I'll report back when it arrives - the release date is Feb. 24 (two weeks from tomorrow), but I'd be truly astonished if it actually ships out on that first available date.

Think of yourself as a producer of a good or a service.
You are one, after all.
Now, consider supply and demand.  Do you hold the view that supply drives demand, or that demand drives supply?  "Demand drives supply" is the correct answer here, for simplicity's sake.
Your skills are the supply, while demand is the universe of what people want or need.  Are you able to produce a service or product that is being demanded?  If so, congratulations.  If not, you have two options:

1. put on your Marketing hat and engage in demand-inducing activities for whatever you supply
2. determine, out of the universe of various demand, what you would like to learn how to supply - and get going on training yourself to be able to produce that product or service

These are obvious points, but I make them because many people don't get the basic supply and demand concept.  They are under the (false) impression that, because they possess a supply of something, an ability to produce a product or service, all they have to do is find the demand for whatever it is they supply.  Because there MUST be a demand, mustn't there?  No.  All too often, people pursue what they enjoy or what they are good at, without first stopping to consider whether or not the world wants or needs that skill.
The one who is skilled at Marketing can overcome the demand problem by cleverly figuring out schemes to artificially create demand that does not exist naturally, but it is a rare person indeed who excels at both Marketing and Supplying; usually only one or the other role can be filled very effectively by an individual, and the person who tries to do both can hope to find only moderate success at either.
For the majority of us, those of us without the gift of demand stimulation, the wisest course is to ask (and answer) these three questions:

1. what does the world obviously need or want more of?  iPhone App programmers, or Snuggy Blankets, or Bank CEOs, or Ziploc baggies/containers for all those leftovers we have since we're not eating out as much, or cheap entertainment/diversion/escape activities that compete with going to movies?
2. how are those products or services currently supplied, or do they exist yet?
3. can I come up with a method to be able to supply one of those products or services in a competitive way?

Whatever they are, you are entitled to your beliefs.  You may not get that feeling from me if you read everything I write.  For putting off that vibe to anyone wandering into these pages, please forgive me!  Those of you who have been here since the beginning know that differing perspectives and beliefs are cherished by me, but after going back and reading some of my own stuff over the past year, it doesn't really come across that way in many posts.
Why did I stumble into the abyss of "preaching" and "moral high ground" tones?  It started innocently enough, with a conscious decision to open up even more than I had in the beginning, actively seeking to not worry about "controversial" or "opinionated" stances that I felt like taking.  But in doing so, I quickly got away from the original intent of the blog, which was to get to know myself better and to hopefully be of assistance to someone who was also seeking to know himself or herself better.  My intent has always been to let you know how I'm getting to know myself in case you wanted to explore similar pathways, but NOT to get you to think what I think or believe what I believe.
The writing has been lacking for the past month or two, but the exploration hasn't!  Latest audiobook in progress is Empires of Trust: How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World by Thomas F. Madden.  Madden has written lots and lots about old Europe, Church history, Rome, the Crusades, and has a spectacular gift for applying the lessons of antiquity to the situations faced by all of us today.  I've listened to several of his books, but this is the first one that would be considered for a "general" audience.  4 hours into the 12 hour recording, I can only pronounce it to be magnificent.

To recap:
- I've been writing like a preachy schmuck for a while now, and I'm sorry
- still trying to discover myself
- still encouraging all of you to do so - there's just nothing more worthwhile
- still finding the most helpful tools in that endeavor to have been developed in all the wisdom of the ancients throughout the ages, be they in Greece, Rome, India, or China!