Stop stealing dreams.

Seth Godin issued a new powerful manifesto about education. It is his best so far.

Actually, it is a well-thought and well-documented rant.

The question is simple: what is school for?

I thought you would find it interesting:

www.stopstealingdreams.com is ready to read and share –

Find it also here:

http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams

I really hope you’ll read it and think deeply. I also hope you’ll share it.

What’s the use of a manifesto if not spread and shared?

I’m fuming.

We (yes, we) are still churning out 1925-like compliant factory workers.

We are in 2012. Time to adapt to the tools we have today (internet, yeah)?

Replaceable cogs are definitively NOT what we need now in a post-industrial era.

Long due update!

Well, here I am again.

Eventually, I managed to gain traction and some powerful momentum in arenas I thought beyond dead and deeply buried.

I can’t tell you more about my endeavours, my soul searching and psyche wrecking. Sorry.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I agree. Now can you tell me how much pictures is a song worth?

How much pictures is a symphony worth?

We’re all so similar in our differences. No matter what you think about music and pictures, I know we’re thinking the same. We’re asking ourselves.

I really wish I can share my newly acquired knowledge, understanding and above everything, “self-acceptance”. Not now.

I admit that I’m a bit reluctant to give for free what I hardly earned.

Usually, I’m more than happy to share, but now is too early. Things are just getting started again, and I know that the more I’ll talk about it all, the more I’ll keep telling and give up on doing.

Time to do what matters.

I have found a way to make use of Seth Godin’s sound advice. That’s a huge step forward.

I’ll do my best to update this blog with digestible and compelling content, useful food for thought and other usual musings.

However, don’t expect any 2011-like blogging with pledges and topics borrowed from WP’s Daily Post.

Right now, I’m going to sleep. A simple thing, a necessary thing.

I’m just happy to still be there. Grateful, too.

4:49am. Already Awake Or Still Not Sleeping?

Before going to bed yesterday, I had the pleasure of getting a mail from my buddy Derek Sivers.

We haven’t shared anything for months (I was entangled in some win/lose project with Wizdom Music LLC, Jordan Rudess’ company, and other programmers…There will be a post about that someday, when I’ll be able to write about this useless turmoil) so I was thrilled.

It was about procrastination (my favorite topic of discussion, ex æquo with schooling and music), sand shells and co-op.

I thought, “well, tomorrow. I’m shit-tired now. I mark it as unread and we’ll see later.” (I eventually grumbled about being born ten or twenty years too late to produce anything worth today.Keep reading…)

That must be a side-effect of reading Steve Jobs’ bio (I’m still not done with it, as I don’t rush through books. Is the goal to end up being the fastest sprinter? No, of course! A thousand times NO).

“An artist is not likely to produce anything great after he turns thirty” is a killer sentence. I’m not sure if it’s how Steve put it, but it’s close.

I’m 30. Holy cow.

Do I hang myself or do I go grunt-busyworking in a cubicle (if I can find it in a crumbling Europe), killing my art (not writing, crafting music -still hadn’t figured out how to make something great/meeting my standard of quality out of GarageBand for iDevices. I am really old-school. I need a rehearsal space and real instruments. I need sweat and tears. I need partners. You got the picture- and drawing dark art drawings) as I’m doomed anyways?

I digress and concatenate sentences. Whoops.

Derek’s point was to make people realize how much difference it makes in a sentence when writing/saying OR instead of AND.

It doesn’t work with all sentences. Try with some which have alternatives, or a list of conditions.

Oh well: figure it out yourself. It’s puzzling.

Once again he is right. Right now, I feel like the dumbest man on earth. This is so obvious!

My sentence “what is common for me might be awesome for somebody else” is a slight modification of his own words. Of course with his blessing to use it.

Derek and I believe in (the power of) sharing. It’s impossible for me to tell you how good I feel when I share something I know. I don’t trade knowledge for money.

Derek Sivers and Seth Godin… The most awe-inspiring people I met in my life… So far.

I doubt anyone will ever come close. I mean, I hold Derek and Seth close to my heart, and I don’t believe any other emotional bond as strong as those can be made with anyone. It doesn’t even needs to be made. It doesn’t make sense, frankly.

I don’t need more.

Happy 1st Birthday, Blog!

I just realized that I really started blogging exactly a year ago.

I didn’t change a thing since I began, so you can see how it began.

I was inspired by Angela Lussier and her mind-crunching book The Anti-resumé Revolution.

I eventually had a talk with her and became the european head honcho of The Anti-résumé revolution — just a résumé which is anything but a dull white page of paper— and started this blog to keep my audience updated on the boiling ideas coming their way.

I never changed my blog’s subtitle, but re-named it Commonplace as I thought the blog was delving into many more topics than just staffing/job hunting/hiring.

It is also a reference made to Michel de Montaigne who was always keeping with him a book of daily thoughts, questions, learning, etc for further reading and thinking. Something that would be commonplace for him.

This morning, I read Seth Godin’s blog and mulled upon it for a while.

Why did I started blogging in the first place? Simply put: I love writing, especially on my iPhone or iPad. Just writing and redefining writing with each post.

There is no competition with other bloggers. There is cooperation instead, and I really wish to see “self-centurd” blog owners begin to understand what a tribe, no matter how small it is, can do.

What’s on your agenda?

Today, as everyday, I’ve read Seth Godin’s blog.

His ability of making us aware of the opportunities, which are more than often what we overlook or take for granted, is mind-bending.

Here’s one thing I know, but having been freshly reminded about it, I think it’s the right time to share it.

How much personal is your agenda?

Chances are that it is not about you, but about doing things for others.

Being helpful is alright, but being a slave is not.

Read Seth’s take on agendas.

What’s your opinion of the occupy movement & 99%?

Protests are not productive, or are they?

If they don’t lead to the end of the bankster’s mob… Then it’s just noise.

We don’t need noise.

The situation we’re living now is entirely due to the absolute reluctancy of the moneyholders to give up on the industrial-era model, where cogs (read: employees) are easily replaceable and everything can be done for cheaper and cheaper with high profit margins.

They just don’t get that the World is no more abiding those rules. The mob rules.

The future will be made of gigs, by weird people called by a quirky name: entrepreneurs.

(I was obviously laughing at those who stick to a sinking ship…)

My mentor Seth Godin wrote numerous bestsellers, including Tribes, Linchpin, Poke the Box and We’re all Weird.

The all explain in great detail why and how.

This Wall(et) Street bullshit already started in schools, when kids could still be easily brainwashed.

We’re protesting against brainwashed people who believe in their omnipotence.

How saddening is that?

Topic #280: Across the U.S., and now elsewhere in the world, a protest movement is rising called Occupy Together. You can read live updates of the original Occupy Wall St. event, that’s still going. Also take a look at we are the 99%, a related website where people interested in the Occupy movement are telling their stories. Write a post where you give your point of view. Do you think these protests are a good thing? Do you agree with their bel … Read More

via The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Make a list of 5 things you’re afraid to write about

If I am ever afraid, it is to write about what I talk about on a daily basis.

I can name 5 topics, as requested:

• Music

• Entrepreneurship / marketing

• Sex

• Neurology

And last but not least, IT and programming/developing

Why am I not at ease?

Lizard brain.

The Resistance, as
Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield name it.

Fear is, after death, the 2nd best invention of life. It pushes us to do our best work, everyday… only if we embrace our fear.

Topic #274: Make a list of 5 things you’re afraid to write about. … Read More

via The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Write as you talk.

You’ll certainly agree that as we talk (and we talk a lot), we get better over time.

Seth Godin wrote about this in his blog. I shamelessly borrow the idea that there is no talker’s block.

Why is it then, that we face the writer’s block?

My take is that we don’t write enough.

It’s not about writing a best death-seller here (best-seller means as much to me as original recipe on a tomato sauce jar). No: it’s about doing with writing what we do with talking.

We do it a lot, and every word we say is not worth a Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer one. That’s fine.

Since I started this blog, I wrote like I talk. Not as much, but the same way.
I don’t care about quality and relevance for each word. I don’t care about quantity either.
Those are short-term concepts, and I’m all about long-term, even if you can’t see or feel it.

If I was that much anal about what I do, I’ll be into math and do Fourier transform the whole day, and perhaps the whole night, just for the sake of being right everytime when I’ll be an incredibly well trained monkey.

What I do care about (I know it’s selfish to you, but that is the truth you’ll have to face here, not your wishes) is writing enough to someday achieve a higher level of writing.

It is possible by putting enough time and effort into something that may be really meaningful, really strong. Something that matters.

It will take time and a shitload of other posts to perhaps write a brilliant trait. I’m ready for it.

You’ll certainly skip many posts because they don’t resonate. I won’t get all pissy pants if my reader stats are poor.

I know what I want, I know the outcome, and I know you’ll like it.

(Edit: if you’re part of the 90% who read Seth’s blog but don’t buy his books, you’ve totally missed the point and you should be ashamed. Yes, the blog is free. Tons of things are for free and the mass loves free stuff… but books are meant to be more than a commodity. They’re a legacy, not just a way to rake in some bucks.)