Manifest(o) Choice (Or Change Your World, Yourself)

"If you can't change the world. Change yourself. And if you can't change yourself then... change the world." Matt Johnson of The The

This past week I've been following breadcrumbs online, discovering new ideas and people. New to me, at least. And that's one of the beauties of the web, for while we do have to pay webhosts and service providers for storage and access to our information, it's always there. Somewhat removed from space and time, people around the world can happen upon what you've put out there at any time. Like I wrote about last time, everything is new for somebody. And truthfully, every action is new for everybody, every time. Every time is a choice. It's a matter of waking up, taking control of that choice. Own it.

Hugh MacLeod, aka @gapingvoid, comes up with some brilliant distillations of thought and reality. Currently, he's working on uniting his tribe using the description of "crazy, deranged fools" or CDF. These are people who take control of their lives, not necessarily changing them, just recognizing that they have control, have the ability to be creative with intent in whatever they are doing. It's about intent.

Hugh's developing take on creativity is going to probably produce a manifesto of some sort. Manifestos are meant to help manifest a desired reality. Usually political, like the Communist Manifesto or the US Declaration of Independence, a manifesto is developed by an individual or small group who wants to change the world, really change it. They then publicly put forth their document and sign it, allowing anybody else to join in the cause by signing as well. Hugh has created an email subscription-based newsletter.

His ideas are in good company. By different routes, I came upon @KathySierra's Clueless Manifesto. This again goes to the beauty of the Internet, as she wrote it on her blog back in February of 2006. Also, an extremely smart and forward-thinking person in the ways of the economy, Umair Haque, wrote his Smart Growth Manifesto this just past January. Both of these, in their own contexts, discuss how this world needs creative people, people who don't see limitations and status quo, who take things as they are and decide if they think they can be better, and then do it. Anybody can be creative in any setting, it's just that it's the people, the connections between, and the authentic creative contribution to humanity that matter. Individually, or en masse, we can wake up.

I've been long interested in how people or small groups of people get so passionate about something that they want to take over the world with it. @chrisguillebeau is very inspirational with his Brief Guide To World Domination. The interesting thing about manifestos is that they usually are more about the individual than the world. Our world as we each see it, is a matter of perception. What we do in that world is a matter of intent. Manifestos publicly declare that intent.

What would be your manifesto? The act of writing it is powerful. So do it!

Peace.

Matt Johnson 02/22/09