The Abscondo Weblog

Happiness isn't a right

It isn't uncommon to hear a friend express sentiments like, "everyone deserves to be happy" or, "one day the right person, the right job, or the right opportunity will come along and everything will work out."  The unfortunate reality is that things don't work that way.

Perhaps it is true that excitement can "come along", pain "comes along"...as does tragedy, bliss, and moments of beauty.  But happiness and contentment are different...more elusive because a certain amount of skill and work is required.  Happiness implies an ability to hold onto an ongoing state that lasts from day-to-day, week-to-week, even year-to-year.  The state of happiness can only be achieved after a certain amount of work, skill, and determination is applied to the chance situation of something "coming along".

In order to find happiness in a career, it is necessary to spend years in training, complete a degree, put in years of hard work to get experience, and then find the strength to get up each morning to do what you have to do.  Without putting in the necessary work upfront, there is no way for anyone to stumble into a job or career which is rewarding and satisfying.  There is a process, as imperfect and unfair as it might be.

The same is true in love.  While common knowledge makes us believe that we ought to do nothing but wait for "the right person" to "come along"...happiness can never be found in love without first opening our hearts and minds so that we might learn the skills, put in the work, and do what needs to be done each day to maintain the relationship: becoming more sensitive, solving problems, communicating, and growing.  Most people haven't found long-term happiness in love either because they don't have a long-term relationship or because, without the right approach, the long-term relationship isn't working.  Indeed, a truly satisfying, rewarding, happy long-term relationship or marriage is as rare and elusive as a satisfying and rewarding career.  Friendship is no different.

I am in no way saying that the only way to be happy and content is to find a long-term relationship and a great career.  I've known plenty of people who have been happy without either.  But, even in these cases, a certain amount of wisdom, skill, and work goes into negotiating that life of happiness and contentment.

The founders of the United States, in the Declaration of Independence, did not guarantee happiness; rather, the right to the pursuit of happiness.  All human beings should have the opportunity to get the education and experience necessary to succeed.  All human beings should have the right to love whomever they choose...and to pursue any kind of relationship they want with any other person.  In that sense, we all have the opportunity to find happiness...as elusive as it may, indeed be in the day-to-day reality of our lives.

The end of isolation

I remember a time, before chat, MySpace, and Facebook when true loneliness and isolation was a part of life.  The structure of our society left us feeling disconnected from others.  Our deepest thoughts remained trapped inside of our heads.  If we were lucky, we had that one true love by our side or that one good friend with whom we could open up; but it was too risky or inappropriate to do so with colleagues or family.  So many of us felt deeply misunderstood and alone.

But today, the only excuse we have for feeling isolated is that we stubbornly choose to be.  Anyone can easily communicate with anyone else about anything at any time and from any place.  If we don't have "real-life" friends we can trust, we can open up to and form a relationship with a like-minded stranger.  What was once precious -- that feeling of being heard and of being understood -- has become common. 

Our lives are being made so much richer.  We are emotionally and intellectually evolving rather than stagnating in isolation.  But feelings of isolation, the frustrations of being misunderstood, were also a great source of artistic inspiration and life motivation.  Many of us would turn to writing, to music, or to art as an outlet.  Others would subconsciously pour that frustration into other ambitions: an education, a career.

The Church, oppressive governments, and greedy corporations all understood that people were more valuable to them, more dependent upon them, and more loyal when they were kept isolated, unhappy, and unfulfilled.  The Church invented the structure of marriage to limit our social interaction, oppressive governments make us afraid to share controversial opinions, and corporations want to keep us reliant upon them for subsistence, for information, entertainment, and for all of our material needs.  Institutions have kept us in isolation by design.  When starved of the satisfaction and the authentic fulfillment of deep, intimate, honest human connections...we are nothing other than loyal, obedient, eager subjects. 

So there is a flip side to this new social order.  Today, students are so often distracted from their studies because communicating with friends on-line is more compelling.  Employees are doing the same.  The end of isolation has left us not as motivated, not as hungry, and not as desperate as we were just a decade ago.  We have become more evolved socially, our thoughts are not controlled by institutions, and we are rejecting their rigid, inhuman ways. 

Enormous changes are coming.

Tuesday morning advice

I don't know if people like us ever feel content. I don't think people were designed to feel content. Where did we get the idea that we should? We are only products of evolution. Everything we are, everything we think, everything we feel is only a function of evolution. If a creature is content, it will only lay in the sun and get eaten.

The trick is to use that discontent, that angst, that desire, in a way that makes us more fit to survive and thrive in this cruel world. Modern societies make us live so far from nature. I suppose it started with the oppression of the Church those hundreds or thousands of years ago...and carries on to the way we've constructed our societies.

We are taught that we should be happy and content.
We are taught that we should be disciplined and under control.
We are taught that pleasure is dangerous and a sign of weakness.
We are taught to feel guilt about our truest, deepest feelings.
We are taught that women are second to men, when you are the truly intelligent ones...your deepest intuition is what our species needs most.

The only thing I've ever found that resembles peace, if only for a moment, comes when I listen to those thoughts and feelings inside of me.  It comes when I block out the judgments of the world and, instead, use the judgments of nature that come from inside. When I have found other people to co-exist in the same way....that is the only true peace I've found...the only true validation of my existence. To exist or to coexist with the knowledge that what is human, dirty, and imperfect is exactly what is perfect. To understand that this sick society -- with it's medicines, vices, experts, and psychotherapists -- is the sickness (not what's inside of me).

To know this is to understand that life, as lived on the outside, to the outside world, is merely a game. These aren't really things we should fight. We should try to live in accordance with those unavoidable factors (the ridiculous creation of money, property, morality, and arbitrary rules), but we should never look at those things as anything other than a game.

Your feelings are perfectly healthy and perfectly attractive. Your doubts are only the cancer of society seeping through your skin. Your questions are only nature itself living through you.

You are as you are. What is just is. Your uniqueness is the reason for your life. This is true for you and it is true for all of us.

So go out and play the game, but know what is truly valuable. Don't let the world punish you with its judgments or expectations. Take what you want, but don't let those things dull you.  Try not to harm anyone or anything.  Find peace in beauty and the strength to face the ugliness of the next day.

Just some thoughts on a sunny Tuesday morning...

The next revolution is the "personal revolution"

There is no longer a way for us to fight the system directly. The system is designed to crush all those who directly oppose it. We have to find ways to "opt out".

Opt out from the commercial media
Opt out from debt
Opt out from consumerism
Opt out from conformist thinking and conformist behaviors
Opt out from sucking up the earth's resources for no good reason at all
Opt out from our sense of self importance and our sense that we can single-handedly change the world

Opt in to being the unique genetic mutations that we truly are
Opt in to authentic human relationships
Opt in to all of life's beauty and pleasure
Opt in to great music, art, films
Opt in to a great sex life
Opt in to travel
Opt in to new ideas
Opt in to life
Opt in to being you

If enough of us do that, the revolution will have happened before the establishment even notices.

Technology serving nature

Nature both creates and perceives.  Sensation is nature's way of encouraging life to do so...to take input and create output.  Technology is only useful to the extent that it extends nature's processes while minimizing the extent to which it gets in the way of them.

To allow technology to "suck us in" is to forget this...to forget that even the most advanced computer, stereo, camera, car, or airplane is only useful to the extent that it serves life.  When I am able to capture my ideas and inspirations in a song, and your MP3 player reproduces these inspirations for you on your way to school, technology is serving life.  When you fly to the other side of the world in a day to spend time with the ones you love, technology is serving life. 

But the most direct way to celebrate life, to live fully in the moment, is to put ourselves in situations where we eliminate the technology link altogether.  Seeing a beautiful ocean on your flat-screen TV is great, but swimming in that ocean is divine.

So, while it is true that good technology provides us with sensations as it connects life's creativity with perception, it should never be used in lieu of the real thing...nature-on-nature in time and space.

The wall of perception

The music.  It's begging, pleading, screaming, enticing us to feel better...to escape the cage of our worried minds which are filled with cries of loneliness, sick with too much information, swimming in fear and self-doubt.  The sights, sounds, tastes, sensations, ideas...all surrounding us at all moments...we lack nothing but the ability to perceive and receive.

Could anyone have imagined?  After we have torn down all the old walls...censorship, social pressures, national borders, taboos, traditions...we would find that one insurmountable wall remains: the invisible wall that surrounds each of us.  This isn't a wall that filters the garbage emanating from us, but filters all that comes toward is.  It is lack of perception...small-mindedness...failure to see and to hear.  It is the sound of the voices in our heads drowning out a world rich with sounds, colors, ideas, pleasures, and sensation.

We have achieved a world in which anything is possible but nothing really happens.  What is real exists only in our isolated minds...which is to say it doesn't exist at all.  Because, in reality, nothing can be real if we cannot allow ourselves to forget ourselves...to be tickled by that which comes from another!  Everybody is talking but nobody's listening.  It is the last wall standing...the great bottleneck.

And why?  Because we all want attention.  We want to receive the gift, not give it!  We reach out to the world selfishly, with such a loud and obnoxious tone like "LOOK AT ME!!!!"  And in so doing, we forget that we all want the same thing.

So the language of attention-seeking needs to become the language of perception.  We need to reach out to others in a way that satisfies their needs...to write songs and books not about how great I am, but about what you feel...to walk down the street not hoping somebody smiles at me, but to smile at another...to say that which we all feel but have never said.

It is also important to realize that to be perceived is not necessarily to be heard, noticed, understood.  To feel perceived is also to hear a song that speaks to you, to read a novel that says what you've always felt, to see a painting which reminds you of your childhood, a beautiful woman who reminds you of your dreams, a smile which reminds you we're all the same.  Perception is two-way and cannot be any other way. 

So listen to people, get some new music, read a new novel or poet or philosopher, go to that obscure art exhibit, find stuff that speaks to you and soak it up in silence.  But don't waste your time with the language of attention-seeking (mainstream music, TV, preachers, and ideologues).  You will only remain frustrated and alone.

How can you be perceived if nobody is listening?  How can you expect perception if you aren't listening?

 

Fill the gaps

If we can just be honest with ourselves and consistent with reality for a moment, there is something quite obvious that needs to be said.  The paradigm under which we live is currently fucked and on its last legs.  It is the end of an era and, sigh, it is about time.  Our fundamental assumptions about ...well, everything...are now quaint and laughable.

Fuck Adam Smith and fuck economics.  Economics are the modern day equivalent of 1 + 1.  Yeah, it equals 2, but so what?  Let's move on.  OK I lost you with that.  I only wanted to open a crack in your mind on this dark corner of cyberspace in which you, yourself, are surprised you ended up and are already becoming suspicious about. 

Greater material wealth -- economic growth -- does not equal happiness and is obviously not the goal, nor the answer.  We need to adopt a paradigm for our own lives that says: fill the gaps.  In which area is your life lacking?  Are you lacking friends?  Make some.  Are you lacking sex?  Get some.  Lacking time?  Make some.  Are you lacking art?  Go to a museum.  Are you lacking money?  Make some.  Are you lacking good food?  Cook some.  Get it?  It's so simple and yet we have become so lobotomized.  Don't have any decent clothes?  Buy some.  Don't have a comfortable place to live?  Work toward it.  That's balance.

Economics says we can find happiness through more money and more stuff.  But the simple and obvious fact is: anybody with so much money and so much stuff that they don't know what to do with isn't any happier.  They still have gaps.

More stuff means more pain in the ass.  I have to figure out how to use it or where to put it.   I have to throw away the packaging.  It's a pain in the ass.  And more money, at this point, adds more pressure with respect to where to invest it.  So, over the past few years, I've been more focused on the gaps in my life: friendship, romance, art, sleep, doing absolutely nothing on a Monday morning.  By filling those gaps I have climbed the ladder of happiness.  I could have made more money than I do.  I certainly could have bought more than I have.  But I don't want it.

So let's extend this to the macro.  What we, the human race, need is certainly not the effects of more economic growth.  We need to start conceptualizing the idea of balance (but not in a fluffy liberal way).  We need to selfishly start filling the obvious gaps.  The good news is: you know what they are.

The stagnating effects of American nationalism and the dogma of corporate supremacy

What's funny about American politics, as someone who is now viewing things from a comfortable distance, is the shared sense that nothing drastic can actually be done anymore...that the way things are is pretty much the way things have to be.  And yet we still expect that, somehow, meaningful change is possible...that compromises can be found so that nobody is harmed!

This isn't the case elsewhere in the world, where drastic change is not only possible, but is the norm.  Two related but different ideas are at the root of this phenomenon: 1) American nationalism, and 2) the dogma of corporate supremacy.

American nationalism tells us that America is the best, by default.  Why is it the best?  Because it is America and America is the best.  See the (circular) logic?  So everything that is in a given point in history is just as it should be because that's the way it is in America, and since that's the way it is in America then that's the way it should be.

The problem of corporate supremacy is a bit more interesting.  Any mildly ambitious idea is simply considered impossible.  And why?  What has emerged is a kind of common knowledge that nothing can be done that might conceivably harm a large corporation!  Take the example of single-payer health care -- the only party harmed in such a system would be the insurance companies.  So what?  A few insurance companies lose a source of revenue, their stock suffers, investors lose some money, but the greater good is that those same investors have guaranteed health care...that their health care is no longer tied to employment status.  Yet there aren't more than a handful of American politicians willing to touch this idea, and none will (as they rightfully should) shrug their shoulders at the idea of screwing over a few insurance companies in favor of meaningful reform.

If we are not willing to harm the bottom line of powerful corporations for some greater good, true change and true reform simply is out of the question. 

Nationalism and the dogma of corporate supremacy need to be attacked directly.  Politicians and voters need to stop pretending that any meaningful change can come from such a status quo.

How you look at stuff

At the risk of dancing all over a cliche, or sounding like an annoying motivational speaker, I feel compelled to write about the importance of attitude (or perhaps, more accurately, perspective). 

What matters most in our lives is not circumstance itself, but how we perceive circumstance.  I've noticed, in my life, that it is possible for me to have two nearly identical days in terms of my routine and what happens to me.  One of those days can feel brilliant while the other is drudgery.  The difference depends solely on my thoughts.  Am I lost in the moment or worrying about the future?  Am I appreciating the way things are or worrying about when they might change?  Am I seeing beauty in an old man on a bicycle or lamenting old age itself?  Am I living in fear or living with hope?  Living with regret or celebrating experience?  Thinking about money or thinking about love?  Thinking about a relationship or thinking about chores?  I could certainly provide more examples.

A more complex illustration of this phenomena has to do with friendship or a love relationship.  If one focuses primarily on the bad in a person, it is easy to demonize and run for cover, to play victim, to fall into depression and hopelessness, to destroy a potentially healthy relationship.  Indeed, to look at a relationship through the eyes of negative thought is to take offense with every word or gesture...to misinterpret and even imagine problems.  Taking this view of a relationship begins a spiral that no amount of conversation, argument, or rationalization will end.  Nothing that the other person can do will penetrate such a dark cave of despair.  The entire relationship then becomes a burden, a source of pain and unhappiness, and a symbol of everything that is wrong in one's life.  In reality, the only thing wrong to begin with was the way of looking at things. 

A negative spiral in a relationship can end in two ways: either the relationship can end or the spiral can end.  In the case of ending a relationship, we fall deeper into our own thought patterns and convince ourselves of our own rationality.  On the other hand, both people can simply decide to stop it...they decide to take a positive view of things and accept each other unconditionally. 

In a healthy relationship, it is necessary to take every word and gesture with its best possible meaning or interpretation; not its worst.  Only then can two people experience the relationship's full potential, allowing it to strengthen their lives and add a new element of happiness.

Still, the idea of "positive-thinking" is enough to make anyone roll their eyes.  That's because we normally conceive of positive-thinking as something that is done through sheer will-power...as though the achievement of such a state can only be attained by fighting our human nature.  It is interesting that we only talk of human-nature...say that someone is "only human" in the negative sense.  It is every bit as much human nature to find happiness, comfort, contentedness, bliss, beauty in something as it is to find worry, hopelessness, pain, and fear.  So the only question is: what part of one's human nature does one want to celebrate, embrace, and live?  It is actually an easy choice that is as simple as making up one's mind and taking the first step.  The rest of it follows effortlessly.

To make this shift is to take a momentary leap of faith.  That conscious leap ends the destruction of the downward spiral and begins a renewed time of growth, love, passion, and happiness.  Having a friend or loved one who is there waiting for you to take this leap helps, but it is also something that can be done within the invisible realm of one's own mind to impact every aspect of one's life.

The Infobeing Manifesto: an alternate system

It’s one thing to talk about all of the overwhelming problems the world is facing, its another thing to fight the powers who are causing these problems, but what is needed is a real, feasible, and powerful alternative.

We humans are inherently neither good nor evil; but are to be judged by the consequences of our actions.  We are all subject to the laws of evolution that govern all aspects of life on earth.  While we are spiritually bound by our shared human experience, concern for with what is right for the species and for the planet is secondary to the instinctual drive to ensure our own survival and that of our families. 

We are all subject to the laws of evolution that govern every aspect of life on earth. While the fundamental forces of evolution within the earth’s biosphere (the realm in which biological life exists) are inescapable, humans also exist within and are capable of altering natural ecosystems. In addition, we simultaneously exist within and are capable of both creating and altering man-made ecosystems, which are generally referred to simply as “systems”. While these man-made systems are not necessarily biological, they too are governed by the laws of evolution. These systems include the workplace, financial markets, industries, governments, militaries, cultures, religions, sports leagues, and social movements. All of these systems are created and shaped by humans with specific purposes and intentions.

Because of our power to create and shape systems, there is a need to judge which of these creations are healthy and which are not. Through what lens can we judge whether a system is good? Because we will always be dependent upon natural ecosystems and a healthy biosphere, we must consider the extent to which man-made systems promote not only social justice and individual survival, but also the long-term survival of our species. So systems can be judged both by the results they produce for each of us and within the context of the impact they have on the biosphere.

With these guidelines, it is easy to incriminate today’s most powerful institutions and the systems they uphold. But incrimination alone too often only gets us ridiculed or ignored by society. While we are all spiritually connected by that which makes us human, our concern for with what is right for our species and for the planet seems to be secondary to the instinctual drive to ensure our own immediate survival and that of our families. To merely offer criticism does nothing to help others survive and therefore it doesn’t often motivate fundamental change. Fundamental change will only happen when we begin creating alternative systems that 1) help individuals meet their immediate needs for survival, and 2) have no negative long-term impact on the biosphere upon which we depend for long-term survival.

We all depend upon functioning systems for survival. In order to survive and thrive within any system, it is necessary to believe in and remain loyal to that system. And so for loyal members of a system, that system’s propaganda – biased points of view that enforce adherence to that system – understandably can supersede critical thought. It could even be argued that it is the more practical individual who shuns truth for the improved likelihood of short-term survival.

Resistance movements, focused on stopping destructive systems, have seen only limited success – perhaps mainly in cases where a critical mass of members subsequently opt-out of a system (thus weakening it), or the rule-makers decide to change the rules in order to achieve more desirable results. But when there is no viable opportunity for members to opt-out (a legal system or economy), and where the rule-makers are currently achieving the results that they believe are desirable to themselves, little success is seen through resistance alone. This is why something even more desirable than the status quo needs to be created, and it can be done.

In contemplating an alternate system, it is also important to understand that systems do not exist in isolation. In nature, ecosystems exist within, and depend upon, the larger landscape. The same is true with man-made systems. So, for a system to be sustainable, a natural condition is that it must be based in reality – compatible with the larger landscape upon which it depends. For example, when the rules of a social system conflict with the national legal landscape, that system should be considered less good and desirable because it is less likely to survive. An alternate system must be compatible with the larger landscape (or strong enough to overtake it).

To summarize, humans exist within many competing and overlapping man-made systems and natural ecosystems. But if the purpose of man-made systems is to enable humans to survive within the biosphere, systems are wrong to the extent that they destroy life directly or destroy the biosphere upon which all life depends.

Resistance is important, but the real solution is to create a better system that everyone to thrive without destroying the biosphere upon which we all depend for our long-term survival.  So let’s go beyond resistance and open the door to an alternative, better system.  With today’s relatively cheap and powerful communication technologies, we intelligent humans have never before been in a better position to do so.

The Infobeing Revolution

When people are given an opportunity to join a highly-functional, healthy system that provides superior benefits, they are more likely to opt-out of destructive, dysfunctional ones. Imagine a strong, sustainable system that 1) removes many of the dependencies people have on destructive systems, 2) enables members to thrive within a sustainable social framework and economy, and 3) works to peacefully change external, destructive systems.

Imagine a system that ties members together through the Internet, providing a reward structure compatible with the following goals:

- Members are given the tools they need to survive and thrive within the natural ecosystem,
- No harm is done to life,
- Focus on overall quality of life vs. materialism,
- Open to everyone, regardless of other affiliations or traits,
- A meritocracy of equal and unlimited opportunities providing fair rewards for all members,
- A reward system to incent behaviors that  benefit others,
- Focus on continual personal and community development.

This system could be designed by and maintained by a group of loosely affiliated founders working strategically toward the delivery of the various components needed. This group of founders would consciously work together to create rules and technologies to support the goals outlined above.

Ideas alone are not enough.  This movement needs to be grounded on something tangible. 

What is needed is a “virtual society” that exists both within and outside of existing societies. We won’t stop fighting the corruption and inauthentic culture around us, but we’ll do so within a strong, inter-connected community where we belong and in which we have removed some of our dependencies on the institutions we oppose.

Let’s explore some of the possible characteristics of such a system. In order to make our members less dependent upon flawed systems, a technology platform is needed that provides everyone with unlimited opportunities and appropriate incentives to grow and achieve an improved quality of life. Using this platform, everyone would be able to contribute their unique skills and interests to the benefit of the larger community. Doing so would result in tangible financial rewards and provide opportunities for a rich social life within a vibrant and healthy community.

While this network would be constantly expanding and improving, all of the necessary technology is already accessible, in fact much o fit is free (open source), today. But today the individual parts are not functioning as a system, only as disconnected parts. What is lacking is a group of individuals to piece it all together in the right way and to establish the right rules...then to spread the concept far and wide.

The idea is to enable everyone to effortlessly connect with all the right people in order to maximize their value to the community. Need 5 people to help you complete a software development contract? Send out a message, quickly assemble a team, and get right to work. Need 3 guys to help you move? No problem. Want to clean up a park and get paid for it? We could provide this opportunity. Want to get paid for the valuable service of feeding the homeless? Not a problem. When a system is set up to reward healthier behaviors, those behaviors become the norm and the revolution is complete.

A key component of this system would be the incentive structure. We should consider a point system to promote the right kinds of behavior. Members could earn points by helping others or doing positive work within the community. One way to look at it is that doing favors for others buys you the ability to ask for favors later. This system is much like the age old model of the “barter economy”, but it is more efficient because, through the point system, a favor done for one person can be returned by a different person…so everyone is free to maximize their value to the society by doing what they are good at and interested in. Aside from transactions between members, points might be granted to members for performing good deeds (like cleaning up a park or registering voters).

Yet even with such a point system, there is still a need to buy food and shelter in the physical world (which probably couldn’t be purchased with points). So an auction might be set up where individuals sell points they’ve earned (using market forces to set a point exchange rate). Some people would rather buy points than earn them (in order to purchase services or labor from network members) and, because valuable transactions within this system are based on points, there would be a demand to purchase these points.

In order to ensure that work performed by network members is consistent with the values and goals of the community, a rating system could be set up to hold everyone accountable. Each transaction that happens within the network might be subject to a community rating. Individuals, by way of their association with projects and transactions, might be subject to a “Green Compliance” rating. We could set up a list of criteria and allow anybody to review and rate transactions. So, for example, John might give Jane a ride to the next town in his H2 Hummer and, while he negotiated 10 points for the favor, he might later receive a Green Compliance rating of only 1. These ratings would reduce his payout, effectively discouraging him from driving a Hummer. Of course the individuals busily rating transactions would get points for doing so…performing the valuable role of encouraging responsible and beneficial behaviors (holding others accountable isn’t currently rewarded in today's Capitalist system).

The realization of this idea is the start of a new society, with virtual citizens from around the world, with its own economic (point) system, its own democratic governance and laws, and its own way of providing members with the opportunity to earn a living and achieve a more desirable lifestyle.  It fills in the gaps created by real-world governments.

While the above section lays out a vision of what this network would look like, along with a few simple examples, the first step is to establish a network of founders. At this time, we could use founders with the following skills: Web Development, Linux / Open Source Portal software development, Java Developers, Economics and Law (to devise a feasible and legal point system if possible), PR, Marketing, Sales / Business Development, and many more.

If we are going to change the world we have to proactively create alternative, healthy systems. This is just one example. Instead of waiting around for change to come from the establishment, we can be smarter than the establishment and put our skills to use. Doing so will be rewarding, but will also be a significant challenge to the “founders” of this network. It will involve constant negotiation and strategizing, disagreement and arguing, but time is running out and this sort of thing needs to be done.