Spread the Word

 

I'm going to start this with two quotes from Seth Godin's book Tribes.

First Quote

If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
Did you say, "A low-level bureaucrat working in the Social Security office in Yonkers, New York"?
Did you say, "A mid-level supervisor at a struggling GM plant in Ohio"?
Did you say, "Fry cook at McDonald's"?
Somehow, I doubt it.

Godin has got our number here. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden claimed that once we realized we weren't going to become rock gods and movie stars, we would get very pissed off. I might be right, but pissed off or not, most of us don't do anything about the situation.

We watch our dreams leave us, slowly pay cheque by pay cheque, compromise by comprise; a little surrender here, a small retreat here- until we think it's too late.

We don't want to be fry cooks, and mid level supervisors and bureaucrats. These are not our life's ambitions. But we're scared. We're scared we aren't good enough. That our ideas aren't ready and polished and perfect. That what we have to offer won't measure up. That our dream isn't up to facing the competition.

Well, this brings me to the second quote from Tribes-

“In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn't necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.”

I might add to this by saying, that the idea that wins is also the idea with the most fearless heretics behind it.

it's become a cliche to attack consumer culture, even consumer culture does it. why not, it sells, and that's all consumer culture is after in the end. And there's the problem. Consumer culture absorbs our attacks and sells them back to us. Consumer Culture runs on us. If we don't like the world being created we have to stop working on it, and start working on something different.

Imagine learning skills that will make you able to stand alone, not merely more employable. Imagine learning how to care for yourself and your family, not how to pay others to do this. Imagine learning how to think for yourself and analyze what the experts tell you, instead of being forced to react to them on gut instinct. Imagine being in charge of your own life, instead of feeling as though it is crawling along on automatic along a route you never chose.

That is crazy goal of the Red Cedar Project. Make self-reliance skills wide spread, enable the current generation through enhancing what they are able to do. There is profound hope in this enabling.

The slogan "Yes We Can" helped put Obama in the White House. Enabling and engaging people is the only way to create real change, because positive change starts at with the individual.

But for individuals to change, they need new tools, better tools. And that's where we come in.

We need committed volunteers. People willing to donate time and energy on a crazy project. A online network of people devoted to self-reliance as a method of social change, with a physical camp people can go to (and maybe more in the future). We need members who want to talk about self-reliance and how it can rebuild citizenship and revitalize community.

This is something worth fighting for. This is something people can be proud to be involved in.

But we don't need followers, we need a whole lot of leaders.

That said, I don't want people to give 100%. I don't think its a good idea. I didn't give 100% in school- I gave between 75% and 82% in school, but I did it by doing 20% of the work that the people who gave 95% did.

Not all effort is equal.

Certain actions yield bigger results than others. If they give you three days to do something, it is often best to spend the first two days finding the key issues to address.

This is called the 80/20 rule. I most aspects of life 80% (or more) of the results come for 20% of the work. To be more successful, we need not do more, but do the things that will produce more. We need to be intelligently lazy. We also need to be bravely lazy, because this most important 20% often involves the most intimidating work. Talking to people, asking for sales, stepping up and putting yourself on the line instead of preparing for another month.

So let's be lazy, let's do what we must and no more, but let's do it now- no matter how scared we are, because the rewards for this are the life we want to live and the cost of not doing this is the drudgery of the crowd. Let's be brave rather than becoming sheeple.

Instead of trying to change the world, try to find three people you can help and inspire. Assist three people in transforming themselves into warriors and you will be well on the way to making this a phenomenon.

One you have caught the attention of three people use the following, very simple, method to help them learn what you have learned.

Watch Do Teach

Watch one
Do one
Teach one

And then it’s their turn to teach three people.

If one person teaches three, and they teach three each,

it only takes 25 repetitions to reach the whole population of the earth.

"Where's your warrior spirit?"

In order to find three people willing to work with you, it will be necessary to talk to many more than three people. Many will be opposed, many will be ambivalent, many will be interested but do nothing. Only a few will work with you and fight beside you.

To find those few, speak to many.

We need to offend people. If everything we are saying is safe and inoffensive then it probably has no value and no strength. We cannot please everybody and should not try. We should strive to make our message strong enough that we offend a lot of people (we can get publicity that way), and interest the few people for whom we are a good fit.

There are two ways of coding a computer program: top down programming, and bottom up programming. Top down programming is how most people are taught to program. They lay out an outline of the program. Telling it to run each section of the program and thus refering the program to that section of the code to follow whatever information is there to find. Top down coding is efficient for its creator, it is predictable and it is deliberately hierarchical. Bottom Up programming sets the rules and then observes the results of the rules. This form of programming is best epitomised by John Hortn Conway's 'Game of Life'. It is also a decent metaphor for the system of life on this planet.

The corporations and governments of the world are trying to run the people of earth as though we were the sprites in their top down programmed video game, changing the rules and de-buggin the lines of code when we don't act in a way that they like. And we are analogous to those bits of code- those digital slaves. We are within their power, so long as we play their game. Trying to affect corporations and governments through the top down structure that the corporations and governments create is foolish. The power of bottom up programming is that it needs no programmer beyond whoever sets up the basic rules of play. The agents design the program through their actions. In order to begin designing our own lives again, we need to free ourselves from the confinement we find ourselves in today. 

"You must have a revolution if you're going to survive... ...If you go on the way you're

presently going, it's hard to imagine your living through another century. But you can't have a negative revolution... ...You must have a positive revolution, a revolution that brings people more of what they really want, not less of what they don't really want. They don't really want sixteen-bit electronic games, but if that's the best they can get, they'll take it. You won't get far in your revolution by asking them to give up their sixteen-bit electronic games. If you want them to

lose interest in toys, then you must give them something even better than toys.”

Daniel Quin, “My Ishmael”

I have been thinking about speed. I have plans for my life, and people constantly tell me how unrealistic my time frame is for success. I have noticed however, that it never takes me very long to do something once I simply set my mind and start doing it.

I think not doing it, is the primary cause of how long big goals take to accomplish. Things are scary, although not necessarily difficult. We have been told that they are difficult, and taught to fear these things that might actually help us.

We can't ask for a raise, what if the boss says no? Well, if the boss says no then you'll keep your old wage, the same way you will if you don't ask.

What if I make the presentation and they don't buy the product? Well you won't have sold anything, the same way as if you hadn't made the presentation.

The price of failing at an attempted big step is the same as not trying, and the possible reward is too great to ignore.

The fastest way to get on the fast track is just to do the things that scare us.

If the Born Kings idea and Genus Rex itself is going to grow, people need to hear about about. People need to read about it and see it and get curious and ask their friends about it. How is this going to happen? By people who are already on board with the Born Kings idea putting cool information out there that leads back to us.

The Laws of the New Tribal Revolution

1. The revolution won't take place all at once.

It's not going to be any sort of coup d'etat like the

French or Russian revolutions.

2. It will be achieved incrementally, by people working off each other's ideas.

This is the great driving innovation of the Industrial Revolution.

3. It will be led by no one.

Like the Industrial Revolution, it will need no shepherd, no organizer, no spearhead, no pacesetter, no mastermind at the top; it will be too much for anyone to lead.

4. It will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body

— again, like the Industrial Revolution.

Some will doubtless want to claim to be its supporters and protectors; there are always leaders ready to step forward once others have shown the way.

5. It has no targeted end point.

Why should it have an end point?

6. It will proceed according to no plan.

How on earth could there be a plan?

7. It will reward those who further the revolution with the coin of the revolution.

In the Industrial Revolution, those who contributed much in the way of product wealth received much in the way of product wealth; in the New Tribal Revolution, those who contribute much in the way of support will receive much in the way of support.

Daniel Quinn's “My Ishmael”

Included here is promotional material that anyone can use talk up the Born Kings idea, Genus Rex, or any other part of the movement. Also included here are directions on how to make certain cool things you do with regards to Genus Rex leads people back to Genus Rex.


So Let’s get started!

One final thought though... Respect

The Problem with young people today is respect.

The first problem is that they do not respect themselves.

How can they become good people if they do not respect themselves? We need to help them discover self-respect by letting them achieve challenges and build their confidence.

The second problem is lack of respect for each other. They need to be able to earn the respect of their peers, but they don’t know how to.

They think that respect comes from having what they have: new clothes and things like that. Respect does not come from what you have: it comes from what you do. And if they cannot respect each other, they cannot respect themselves.

Of course, if they respect themselves. And respect each other, they will find it very easy to respect their elders.

If we deserve any respect of course!

--Dogon Elder of Western Africa

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves

- in finding themselves.

--Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

We judge groups based on the people who are a part of them. There is no way around it. So how you act and how you look and how you behave will influence how people about us. So with respect to that, we humbly ask that you be awesome. Be impressive.