Monday, February 20, 2017

odds and ends

Odds and ends...
New Zealand startup offers unlimited holiday and profit share to attract workers Gaming company Rocketwerkz claims staff focus better when not stressed by issues that need attention outside the workplace.
It (the above) sounds zany and counterproductive, but if someone is throwing money at it -- if someone is actually taking the trouble to trust its workers on a par with its cuff-linked classes ... I like it, even if it confuses a mind like mine that was brought up on the feudal template, however subtle.

And then there's ....

If you ask Jeff Shea where he’s going or where he’s been, you better grab a drink, sit back in your favourite chair and brace yourself for a long story....Shea’s passion for travel, however, isn’t about numbers, goals or risks. For him, travel is akin to a sacred experience, one that expands the mind and one’s horizons....Walking across New Guinea changed my concept about what’s important. They believe that a person’s wealth is determined by how much money he’s given away rather than what he’s earned. That’s a pretty remarkable concept to me. I viewed everything through that new filter. I came from the US thinking we knew what was important and that primitive people needed to learn from us. But when you walk with these naturalists in the forest, you realize that these guys are brilliant. It imbued me with a tremendous respect. Instead of thinking that we are the advanced people, I realized we are losing a lot.
This guy is 60 years old. What I want to know -- as I used to want to know with spiritual-life adventurers -- is, "How much does it cost and where is/did the money come from?" Nobody mentions the high-probability aspect that Jesus, for example, far from being a pauper shuffling around in tattered sandals, was actually a middle-class guy who spoke three languages (the carpentry business demanded it) and was better-heeled than many of his contemporaries. Spiritual life requires comfort within which to reflect. Well, who pays? How? And how much? For myself, I used to be embarrassed to ask such mundane questions in the face of so ethereal and wondrous a story as religion painted. These days I think that if you can't ask and answer the mundane questions, religion can go piss up a rope


1 comment:

  1. We had potlatch societies in the american north west.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch
    How things are financed always boggles my mind. But big numbers are meaningless to me. Sometimes, in town, traffic will bring me to wonder where all these people came from.

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