Monthly Archives: September 2007

I have written before about selfish philanthropy and the fact that all philanthropy and altruism are selfish… and that is ok. To do something that provides no benefit to you is not rational.

Fast Company had an article today decrying American selfishness and criticizing One Laptop Per Child for giving too large an incentive for donations.

But this is really not as big a bonus as it first appears. These are normally $200 so if you donate one and get one for yourself for $399 you are basically buying one for yourself. But you can only buy if you donate.

It is a great way to get these into the hands of developers who can write new software, and is also a great way to help out local kids who cannot afford a computer. Sure America is rich but it seems like the higher percentage of kids end up in the less affluent households. And I would like to get some of these into local “children’s homes” or orphanages.

OLPC could have just sold these out-right in America. There are plenty of people who would have bought them, but this way they get a few extra donations. Also, selling them this cheep would have probably caused problems with tech companies that they are dependent on. Hmmm… that might have been a more interesting story.

The author of the Fast Company article says it is sad Americans are so greedy as to inspire such a selfish method of giving. While I agree that words like selfish and lazy aptly describe many Americans these days, I think this is a creative alternative to just selling them in the US. And that is exactly what a lot of people were asking them to do.

I just had an opportunity come along that got me talking about Southeast Asia again. Several people have asked, “Why Southeast Asia?” My answer, “Why not? It is the top of the world! You have heard of Sagarmatha, right?” But, there is so much more, so I decided to take a few minutes to explain.

I have had a strong interest in Southeast Asia for many years. I am firmly convinced that these nations have more growth potential than any other region in the world. The situation there is in some ways similar to America in the mid-1800, but the pace of change is steadily increasing. So it is very possible that they will catch-up with and surpass western culture in the next 50 years. They are ahead of the West in some areas but have the potential to get ahead in all areas. Just 100 years ago, Europeans considered America backward, and now Europe is in danger of being left behind. The same can easily happen again as, this time, Asia becomes the center of the world.

With this incredible potential comes many challenges. The population density is both a great opportunity and a great difficulty. The governments for the most part want to help but do not know how. Infrastructure is badly needed. Millions are getting left in the mud in the shadow of the shiny new towers – both figuratively and literally. One of the biggest challenges is communication. Hundreds of languages and dialects hinder communication between neighbors, and even though English is being taught throughout the region, cultural background and even figures of speech are causing small and often unnoticed barriers. It is the small things that cause friction. Friction slows progress. Experts in communication can help find the small things and eliminate or at least lubricate them.

I want to help Southeast Asia grow, and I think I have a skill-set that will greatly help them in their growth. I am a communicator. I am not one of those experts that bought a college degree, although I have spent thousands of hours of research on the topic. I became an expert by actually doing communication. Now everyone talks, sure, but communication is more than that. It is the ability to understand your audience and put your message in the words and format that they will understand. Communication is two-way. Good communicators recognize that they can learn more from their audience than they could ever hope to teach. Good communicators must be humble enough to learn or they will have nothing of value to teach.

I am passionate about communicating and helping to make communication easier for others. I want to be part of something big. Southeast Asia is huge! Huge in population, area, and resources, sure, but also huge in potential and need. I have the ability and the desire to fill the need and help them achieve their full potential.

I think I finally get it!. I know most of you do not care, but to me this is huge. I have struggled for years with the fact that I could not find a word to encompass all of my interests, all of my personality, all my dreams, passions and all of what makes me, me.

I enjoy programming but, unlike most geeks, I like talking to and trying to understand people. I enjoy teaching and learning. I am interested in sports, music, math, physics, drawing, economics and psychology. And actually have found very little that I am not interested in. I could honestly enjoy a career doing just about anything except that I would always be wanting to do something with all my other interests.

I love new. New is better, right? If there is a better way to do anything, sign me up. For a while I thought that might be the common theme. No matter what the area of interest, I fix things, find better methods, and invent new things. I am not an inventor, though. As much as I love new, I do not excel at making new. I have written several small applications, and invented a few gadgets, but I am not great at it. I enjoy it, but it is not my passion.

I want to be a part of bringing food, water, shelter, and hope to every part of the world. I want to design transportation systems and infrastructure that are built correctly based on what we know now. I want to re-design the personal computer from the ground up, based on interchangeable parts, open-standards, fiber-optics on the inside and whole host of other ideas. We have the technology now to build a new computing paradigm that is hundreds of orders of magnitude better than we have now. I want to invent a new alphabet that is flexible enough to represent all sounds used in human communication. It can then be simplified for each language in a way that a non-native speaker can use the common rules to determine what sound is being represented and the nearest equivalent in his language. And that is just the tip of the iceberg! There is more than I could ever hope to accomplish in a single life-time.

The good news is that I do not have to do all these things on my own. For each of these passions, there are many other people who would also like to help. These things might even happen without me, but I think I have found a way to contribute to each of these goals and increase the likelihood that they will happen.

I took a look back through my memory banks at all of the new things and better things I have been a part of so far. And what did I find? A common thread! Finally! Success, for me, has been to discover another person’s invention and tell everyone about it. Then after using it for a while, I talk to everyone that has used the new thing and try to make it better, bringing valuable feedback to the inventor and hopefully making the invention better again. I communicate!

Some of my interests are directly related to communication – linguistics, heraldry, writing, blogging, teaching and even programming. Other’s are not quite so obvious. Music is a form of communication, and one thing that has really gotten me excited is finding a better way to write musical notes. The most interesting thing about sports is jersey numbers, team colors, hand signals, and other aspects of communication in a high speed, high stress, noisy environment.

And there you have it! Or at least I do. One word, communication. That is what I am passionate about. I can even focus it a bit more. I communicate about better ways to make everyday life better for everyone. I do not build the future, but I help those who do. Then I tell everyone else about it, so they can enjoy new too!

A while back Tabetha told the story of how we met from her perspective, then suggested that I tell the story from my perspective. It is taken a bit but, here goes…

It all started the day I was born…well, let’s skip a few years. In 1989, my dad was enjoying a very successful career as an insurance salesman. I was twelve years old, and for the first time in my life, I had several friends. There was even a girl that I had just met and wanted to get to know better. But God had other plans. Late that year, my Dad decided to look for a full-time pastorate. He had gone to college and been licensed to preach many years ago, but had never pastored full-time.

So in late January or early February of 1990, on a Wednesday night, Dad and Mom prayed that wherever God sent them, they would go. They got a call that night from a church in Mississippi. At the time we lived near Nashville, less than 200 miles from Mississippi, so after getting off the phone Dad pulled out a map to see where Mississippi was. We had a vague idea that it was a state, but who knew that it was so close?!

The next Sunday they drove down to Mississippi to meet the church and my Dad preached what they called a “trial sermon”. I stayed in Tennessee with a friend because of a church activity that week. When they got back, my parents started packing. The church had not approved us yet, but Dad was sure we were going. I was not happy. Somehow the thought of living in a swamp miles from any people that knew how to talk real English did not sound appealing to me. Listen to The Misterslippi River Race, to find out what I knew about “The River”. Also leaving new found friends and an AWANA program I had almost completed was quite disappointing.

We were approved and moved in mid-February. I was surprised and a bit relieved when I discovered we were nowhere near the swamp. Unfortunately this also meant that we were 100 miles from the river. I had been to quite a few states by that time but had never crossed or seen the Mississippi. It was another 7 years before I got to do that. And even now I have been to every state east of the Mississippi and only five on the other side.

So all-in-all this move was a major disappointment. There very few kids at the new church, and only two other houses in the “neighborhood”. The weather was too hot for my liking in Tennessee, and we moved further south! The roads were made of dirt, and the whole state stunk. But, the next Sunday I saw the reason we had moved. She was a beautiful young lady about my age. And what a captivating smile! She was a bit bashful, and I was not quite sure how to introduce myself to a girl so I just stared at her, and occasionally I think I caught her looking back. Maybe Mississippi was not that bad after all! Well… yes Mississippi was that bad, but at least there was a diamond out there in the rough.

My sister Ruth, two years younger than me, set out in the new wilderness making as many friends as she could. I set out to explore the woods. Ruth and her friends were not nearly as interested in the woods as I was, so for the most part I was not interested in them. I spent most of my time with my younger siblings and friends building a tree fort and mapping the paths through the woods. This was also the year we got a computer, and that is a whole other story.

I was interested in one of Ruth’s new friend’s though. She actually liked to play with the younger kids, whenever Ruth let her. That was really neat because being the first born of 6, soon to be 7, I had spent most of my life with younger kids and felt more comfortable with them than people my own age. She was also a bit of a tom-boy and a had a real sense of humor, had a beautiful voice and could play the flute and a little bit on the piano. Did I ever mention that I really like classical music – especially flute and piano? She did not play classical but she played flute. Oh and the best part… that smile! I love that smile! I have never seen another smile like it. Yep, among Ruth’s quickly expanding circle of friends was the girl that had caught my eye the first week!

So we got to see each other occasionally, but I still could not get up the courage to actually talk to her. It was funny. We would sit in the same room talking to the same people. We would finish each other’s sentence – usually with a sarcastic remark. We would joke and have a good time together even though we did not talk to each other. She was the one friend of Ruth’s that I wanted to be around, but Ruth had a bunch of friends and wanted to spread her time fairly among them. Fortunately, Mom was on my side. I do not think she meant to be, but every time Ruth ask if one of her friends could come over, Mom would remind Ruth about her chores and tell her the house needed to clean before she had friends over. So whenever Ruth would ask Mom about Tabetha, I would help get the house clean, if it was another friend I would head for the woods. And the funny thing is that it worked! Tabetha got to come over just about every day. Of course, Ruth got to go to Tabetha’s house too, but that was fine. I needed time to map the woods, program the computer, and study heraldry. I was happy that Ruth and Tabetha were becoming good friends and that I got see Tabetha a lot.

That’s all for now. I will have to finish the story another day. In the mean time, take a few minutes (ok maybe hours) to tell your love story. Your grandchildren will thank you, and the rest of will enjoy the read.

Update: Here is part 2 – /our-story-part-2.html