: on alignment : seeing the forest AND the trees :

... I came across this great quote ( context would be too long a story ) this morning over at Gaping Void, so ... I guess you could take the time to get the context yourself?

"I was at an open mic in one of hippest downtown coffee shops last week. [ There was ] a guy, angry as hell about the war, capitalism, all the while reading his piece from his new 3g iPhone. It doesn't add up to me."

I've been thinking about alignment, and 'models' and lots of stuff recently, wondering if we've lost the ability to discern means from ends, values from pragmatism, etc. This quote, if you can picture it ... some guy ranting away at an open mic reading the rant from his brand new iPhone ... making no connections at all between his assumed right to have and use technology and the global economic system that created and perpetuates it.

But are most of us any different? for example ... am I using energy ANY differently in my house and lifestyle than I was 2-3 years ago? or will I now that 2 of 3 kids will be away at school in 2 weeks? how comfortably ( numb ) have I gotten to the fact that I can easily make 3-4-5 "quick trips" a day ... just doing some errands you know, when a little forethought could reduce that to 1-2? I don't want some huge, lumbering SUV but I still mock the Smart car as ridiculous looking and probably unsafe. Why?

Anyhow, this is just an off-the-top-of-my-head post having read the above quote. A lot of things just don't add up to me either. I'd bet I could come up with 100 ... easily. Why is alignment so difficult? Specifically values alignment .. I mean, I want to be one of those people who say what they mean and mean what they say ...

Later,

dlc