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The Knowledge of the World at Your Fingertips

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A Modern Quandary of Accessibility and Complexity

The knowledge of the world is extraordinarily accessible to anyone with a computer or smartphone. We can all infinitely proliferate our digital creations, often in seconds.

No more hours in a darkroom developing film. No more runs to the corner drug store to drop off a roll of film to then wait for a week or two for the packet of developed photos to arrive before we can see them. From photos to digitized art and prints, to the words we type, and the platforms we share on, the opportunities and possibilities are endless.

However, with the great privilege of infinite access, comes great responsibility to discern and delineate from that which serves our highest and best goals and that which derails us.

We must remember that the knowledge of the world is not the same as the wisdom of the world.

“With the world clamoring into our living room and setting up office in our psyche, it’s easy to trip over the clutter and into overwhelm.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay

Freedom of Accessibility Vs. Overwhelm

10 Benefits of Accessibility

  1. Unlimited Information at your fingertips
  2. Wisdom of the world in your pocket
  3. Unlimited Education on virtually any subject in the world – much of it for free
  4. Access to high level thinkers and conversations
  5. Global connections / friends around the world
  6. Cross cultural influences and discoveries
  7. Armchair travel
  8. World class entertainment
  9. Easier to buy and sell creations
  10. Easier to find kindred spirits

10 The Problems of Accessibility

  1. Temptations
  2. Excess
  3. Overwhelm
  4. Chaos
  5. Confusion
  6. Illusion
  7. Disconnected from nature’s nurture
  8. More connected to their devices than the people nearby
  9. Proliferation of misinformation
  10. Promulgation of bad news / fear-mongering

Rome on Steroids

To tune into the news is to drink from the firehose of information, mostly bad, that’s happening all over the world. It’s more than enough to lead anyone into depression that the world is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket (or smartphone).

This is the new bread and circuses… smoke and mirrors of illusion. To spend time in nature is to experience a sense of what is real versus the fog generating machine of the media.

Many people want more and pray to God for answers to prayers of need. Yet few amongst us are already making good use of all that we already have and what we already know. Perhaps a global crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic has created for some, a cause to pause.

We love Luke Nelson’s take on it all: Turn off the news and build a garden. We were already, so this resonates all the more.

Access to Everything Can Lead to Pandemonium

The biggest problem with easy access to basically everything is the unending possibilities in both creation and consumption. Unlimited ideas, mediums, materials, recipes, and tutorials is wonderful. We all have the library and classroom of the world at our fingertips.

The challenge is in trying to do too much. We creators tend to vacillate between the ecstasy of options and opportunities and the anguish of choosing and deciding which to do when we really want to do it all.

It is the rare creator who doesn’t have a dozen of more projects unfinished, a couple dozen goals, and several current projects underway at the same time. But it’s also the rare creator whose work “makes it” on the world stage in terms considered successful.

Wanting to do it all leads to tension and stress.

Stress and Overwhelm

Trying to do too much leads to exhaustion, overwhelm and a sense of hopeless defeat as we end up doing less and less with more and more.

Speaking from a seasoned voice in this regard, it’s vastly more freeing and peaceful to decide one key area to focus on. Once decided, you are then free to proceed in that direction with intensity and the renewed vigor you’ll have by clearing your palette of all but your current focus to every extent possible.

The discipline of constraint and focus actually leads to a much greater freedom and creative capacity. There’s even a book about creativity titled:
A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

“If we try to juggle it all, it’s inevitable we will drop the ball.
Focus is our locus of control, power and progress.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com®

Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay

Unprecedented Extremes

As we’ve all noted, we’re living in unprecedented times of extreme everything. These extremes of light and dark, love and hate, opportunity and deprivation, wealth and poverty, fear and possibility, good and bad, unity and divisiveness and so much more, are all colliding on the teetering world stage of uncertainty and change.

Info Overload To Info Wise

There is more good information, but also confusion and misinformation circulating at the speed of light today than ever before.

That which brings great privilege and access also requires the development of the discernment muscle.

It’s a good thing that this amazing global access to the wisdom of the world is revealing the good, the bad, the glorious and the gory, the gifted and the gaudy.

We are learning how to separate the wheat from the chaff… the truth from the spin, and the substance from the fluff… in our food, in our relationships and in ourselves.

And that’s a good thing.

Discernment

In such turbulently tempting times, what are we to do? How do we navigate these trouble waters of humanity’s emotional storms without getting swept away? This is where we must develop our capacity for discernment through decision and commitment to discipline. In order to see anything to fruition, we must focus on it and see it through. We cannot do it all, at least not all at once.

And it take disciplined discernment to focus on that which will best serve our goals. There’s an entire industry lurking and plotting to sidetrack our attention. It’s the survival of the platforms that we use for free to be lured down the rabbit hole of ‘who divorced who’ and which ‘former celebrity looks like you-won’t-believe-what’ now.

“The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that, ‘The truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.’”
~Steven Pressfield, fiction & non-fiction author, b.9/1943

SOURCE: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

How to Decide What to Focus On?

In the Passion Test certification training I took, they teach how to decide which passion to focus on. I’ve abbreviated that into our own 7 Steps to Decide process. This helps us to make a decision and focus on that one thing. It doesn’t mean we can’t do the other things, but it does mean that we can’t do them all at once.

To get to where we want to go, we have to identify one destination first and head in that direction daily. We won’t arrive by pursuing multiple avenues of pursuit.

Of course there are always exceptions, and we can pursue other endeavors recreationally. But to treat our avocation professionally by showing up daily, will make a difference in the quality and quantity of our output, and how long it will take to reach our goals. If we can’t do it full time, then we can aim for part time or moonlighting.

Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It’s a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.
~Steven Pressfield, author, Turning Pro, b.9/1943

Better to Choose Than to Lose

In the meantime, we have to parent ourselves and regulate our kid-in-the-candy-store mentality. If we neglect our health and weight in favor of indulgences, our body will break down and nature will force a change through illness. 

If we overload our emotional mental self with the chaos of excess and too much to do, we can spin around in overwhelm which can lead to getting stuck with too much to do. Overwhelm and feeling stuck can lead to depression.

Most of this can be prevented through simply setting a plan and working daily goals.

Accessible Complexity Paradox

ALL systems today are becoming increasingly complex, where to do well requires ongoing learning, practice and development. While it’s easy to access so many tools to aid and support our work, most aren’t a quick scan to proficiency.

While we all have the world at our fingertips, and a vast array of opportunities, just that privilege of technological development and availability naturally takes an investment in time and — sometimes — money to learn and do well.

Easier To Make – Harder To Sell

New authors, artists, and crafters quickly discover that writing your book or creating your art doesn’t get it sold. Putting it on a marketplace doesn’t yield sales worth mentioning without a tremendous drive of time and energy to launch, promote and advertise it.

#facts

So IF that’s your aspiration to “turn pro” but also earning good money from your creations, know that creating is just the half of it.

But Don’t Give Up

This isn’t to dissuade you, but to inform you. We’re here to encourage creators of all levels as well as those just beginning to explore their creative side again before life got in the way.

Better to feel a little overwhelmed at all there is to do and learn well before you start than to get into the thick of it with tons of time and effort invested feeling overwhelmed and defeated.

Being the ready-fire-aim sort, I’ve been there too many times. There’s a lot to be said for learning through doing and not over planning before starting. However, you don’t want to fail because of being uninformed or unaware of the next mountain to climb on the way to your destination.

Ideas without action aren’t ideas. They’re regrets.
~Jeff Haden, speaker, editor, ghost writer, author

SOURCE: Excerpt, Transformation, by Jeff Haden

The Pioneer Spirit

Imagine our pioneer ancestors. They didn’t know what lay beyond the mountain, or if it would be another one. They often did not know what lay ahead or the perils they may encounter. But we can look ahead more easily now, and learn from those who are of ahead of us in the journey we’re undertaking.

Perhaps if they had known the distance and challenge of their journey, some would never have started. For certainly that distant horizon can seem unattainable. But that’s why we set goals along the way, beginning with the day, and proceed and celebrate AND FOCUS ON THE GAINS…even the small gains and not the gaps.

“Focus on how far you’ve come and the joy of the journey, not on how far you’ve left to go.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com®

Required To Succeed

One way to succeed in sales is through intelligent utilization of Facebook ads. To create and manage successful Facebook ads requires a course or tutorial training. It’s the same to excel with Pinterest. To excel at Pinterest requires a course and time to learn and practice. Same thing to be a successful YouTuber. All of these wonderful — and free platforms — require learning, experimentation and consistently prolific content creation.

No matter the area of endeavor it isn’t easy, but it’s accessible and possible for those willing to focus, learn and grow through consistent persistence.

“Facing failure rewires your brain to recognize the feeling of failure as a time to grow.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Education Required, College Optional

We don’t have to go for a college degree to publish a book and become an author.

RELATED: Reasons not to go to college.

However, to be a monetarily successful author does require learning the trade, growing an audience and learning how to launch, market and sell the book. Alternately, we can outsource it to the expertise of others. However…

All experts marketers will tell you the same thing: to succeed in selling your book or art, requires building a following first.

This is understandably where many creators falter, for sales and marketing is not a common strength amongst artists. Those who can afford it outsource that part, like pharmacist author, David Perry. The familiar lesson in that for creators is don’t quit your day job.

Not yet.

Use your day job gratefully, to fund your dreams.

Let’s Not Be Rome

Recently, I read someone’s remark about something good to watch on one of the “TV” platforms for movies and series. She was responding to someone else’s post about a good series they were hooked on. She said, “I’l have to add that to my long list… there are so many things to see now.”

During the decline of Roman Empire, the masses were lulled into complacency with free bread and circuses. As their attention was occupied with desire fulfillment in food and entertainment, Rome was burning and disentegrating. The masses were distracted while Rome burned.

Today’s coliseums are fueled by the media and political movements. That’s the more than drives them. The masses are fueled by the next recreation or desire through food and entertainment.

Creators are fueled through creation. Create more than you consume… elevate more than you recreate, and your life will continue ascend into a better place and space.

We are in a new Renaissance, and creators are needed now more than ever to bring creativity, beauty and consciousness to life through creation, empathy and compassionate understanding.

Manifestation through conscious creation will elevate your life and that of those around you.

Keep on creating for that is who you are… a creator.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

When It’s Never Enough

In the phenomenal movie, The Greatest Showman, one of the incredible songs and performance was to the song, “Never Enough.” This incredible song beautifully enacted is chill-inducing powerful. And yet the message is a truism worth heeding and remembering when it comes to the temptations of the world, and the next “shiny object”:

The things of our desires and the knowledge of the world are never enough. There’s always something new to desire and something old that we’re addicted to.

All life and forms are designed to ever seek more. Our nature is to always seek more. The way out of this trap is to elevate by levitating our desires to the next level of growth.

Perpetually seeking more is how life on earth evolves. But we must continually elevate our desires to aspiration… the next higher level of growth for us. We’re in a spiral galaxy not a circular one.

Slow and Steady Wins

The message of our spiral world is steadfast and consistent ascension. At each segment of the journey, we build nautilus stability by making connections from where we are to what we’re learning to apply to where we want to go.

We must elevate daily to grow and if we don’t, therein lies discontent and depression. If we try to ascend too rapidly, (consuming and doing too much), we can feel like life is spinning out of control. From there it’s easy to get into overwhelm and to descend into depression and feeling stuck.

You Already Own the Wisdom of the World

Consider this: if we each diligently applied a fraction of the wisdom we already know, we would be vastly further along. If we each applied the lessons of the spiritual and wisdom texts of the world on how to be good and do good — no matter what others are or are not doing — the majority of our troubles, angst and stress would cease.

What most of us forget most of the time is that the time we most need to put the wisdom tools to use is when we’re less in our cognitive brains and hearts. That when we default to reaction over reflection and anger over understanding. The more we react the more we are feeding our inner animal. The more we reflect and empathize and forgive, the more we are elevating into the angel of our nature

We’ve had ready access to the wisdom of the world, all of our lives, and now, it’s exponentially available to us. But accruing more without doing more with what we already have, leads to distress.

Instead, diss the stress by doing the next thing you know you should do to rise more into YOU, and watch your days improve.

“Accruing more without doing more with what we already have, leads to distress. Diss the stress by doing the next thing you know you should do to rise more into YOU, and watch your days improve.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

“If we try to juggle it all, it’s inevitable we will drop the ball.
Focus is our locus of control, power and progress.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com®

Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay

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