Thursday, October 9, 2008

Wandering Minds Wonder ...

A lot of my activity directly related to my business is both creative and repetitious. And even though the brain is involved, quite a bit involved, in the creative process, for a designer of handcrafted jewelry it's the repetitious that dominates. Yet, creative brains are active brains, so while performing the repetitions, our brains keep churning and whirling and grinding.

Personally, when my brain is churning and whirling and grinding I try NOT to think about the design of the next piece. Otherwise, I would stop what I was working on and perhaps never complete it. For hobbyists and crafters, having a whole bunch of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) lying around may not present much of a problem, other than storage, but for some one trying to pay some bills with her craft, UFO's are waste of precious things like time and materials.

So while performing my repetitious tasks, like the actual making of a piece of handcrafted jewelry, I block the creative thoughts and let my mind wander. I have a very well-traveled mind!

Today my mind was fixated on the economic mess, as it's becoming a huge, HUGE, global problem. I heard on NPR this morning Britain is considering a lawsuit against Iceland? I didn't get a chance to hear and comprehend exactly why, but I found that rather odd, and perhaps a bit scary. Since I don't have any details, I won't express an opinion other than I find it odd. Perhaps my wandering mind will stumble across the details.

So now my wandering mind is wondering, did the American mortgage crises cause all this mess that's going on all over the world? No, can't be ... the rest of the world has its issues that it gets to own and accept responsibility. But it got me thinking that there was an earlier problem, a HUGE problem, that led to sub-prime credit and the whole mess that Americans, at least, are facing.

Outsourcing.

Perhaps if American employers kept the jobs here in the states, the whole need for sub-prime credit wouldn't have come about. Outsourcing started a long time ago, back in the early 80's if not before. Before my adult children were born. I'm beginning to feel really sorry for my adult children. I'm even more sorry for what my teen-aged daughter may be facing.

Can it all be so simple? That greed for huge bonuses on behalf of the privileged few at the top, and huge dividends and return on investments for the few who had more than ten nickels to rub together to invest was more important than our collective offspring's future quality of life? Well, thank you very much all you greedy people. But I realize you don't care one hair of your chinny-chin-chin about my childrens' future.

I'd tell y'all to bite me, but you already have.

My wandering mind is also wondering why and when the production that drives economy got away from actual things ... things you can eat, wear, hold in your hand and enjoy ... and became ethereal and pixelated. But I haven't got a firm grasp on those thoughts, so I'm off to my work bench.

Before I go, update on the Open House ... I got a free trial subscription to iContact to send out e-mail invitations to a bunch of people I've met networking over the last 5 months. iContact is a nice, easy-to-use program and very reasonably priced. I'll be converting my free trial as it's only $9.95 a month and I plan to use it monthly. But when stopping to think, isn't that ethereal and pixelated? I guess I have my own part in the larger problems facing our world.

Bless our collective hearts ...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really enjoy reading your posts. I can totally relate to the wandering mind while doing the repetitious work. Sometimes I'll spend an hour making headpins or wrapping dangles, and I get lots of thinking done during those times.

Michele Reed said...

interesting post.....my mind almost always wanders onto the next project when i am working on something...it's when all the ideas come to me. :)

Archiver said...

My mind has also wandered, wondering, to a term he called 'reality cracking' by which he tried to find the true meaning of the words used. Then I thought about what sub-prime meant. Since it is a term actually coined by marketing people, I checked what prime meant. It means (in economics) certificates like bonds, stocks, etc, that follow the established standards. Failing to follow them means that certificate can not be traded publicly. Well, they needed money, so they had to trade them but if they had called those worthless junk, nobody would have bought them. Hence, they called them sub-prime. Do you know what they call for the most risky and volatile currencies in the world: exotic. Apparently, terms like dangerous or risky do not sell.

Anonymous said...

My mind wanders to... well, anywhere but where I should be at the moment sometimes.

{{{{{{{ hugs }}}}}}}}

I liked the iContact idea (I think I typed that correctly!)

High Desert Diva said...

Love the UFO definition.


Very concerned for Iceland, too. What a huge, awful mess this has turned into...

Anonymous said...

Writing what I think, putting my thought into words. Relating to our government and what they and their oversight (good term for it) committee's have done to us fellow American's, I get 8 finger block!