Paradigm Shifts Through The Application Of The Intellect

NPR : The Holy Life of the Intellect by George Bowering Listen Now From NPR This I Believe

I found this again when going through my del.icio.us tags. It was one of my favorites from a previous incarnation.

"We understand why the great poet Shelley wrote a poem to what he called "Intellectual Beauty," and called it an invisible power that moves among the things and people of this Earth. It descended on him when he was a youth looking for wisdom from the words of the dead. Intelligence literally means "choosing among." Shelley called it the spirit of delight."

One of the focuses that this new format will continue is on personal paradigm shifts and the resources that help bring them about. The ideas expressed here are mirrored by the musings of Herbie Hancock.

Attempting To Tag Intelligently

My recent forays into blinklist, ma.gnolia, and digg made me decide to go through and redo my tags - deleting all of the tags in these systems and revamping my tags under del.icio.us. As I stated in a previous post, there were some websites booked marked on blinklist as "economics" which in truth did not fit that label. Even for my own use, indiscriminately tagging a website with every possible tag seems to go against the concept of organized knowledge or intelligence. It seems to be a matter of cutting down clutter. I de-tagged a number of sites. My next step will be to investigate those tags which have only a few occurrences to determine if there are in fact useful. This is all based upon my recent reading of "The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems" by Scott A. Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman of Information Dynamics Lab, HP Labs.

Its still difficult to assign websites to specific categories even when you have a number to choose from and I have a new found respect for librarians. The web, however, is even harder to delineate as a book usually has a finite and focused purpose but a website especially one like TED can have multiple resources and multiple purposes. The tag "economics" has a wide ranging applicability and works at multiple levels. Other tags forced thinking as to how I wanted it defined. "Development", I decided was the process that took place in realizing a economic implementation after research, design and planning. But even then its not so simple to place a particular website on one side of the fence of the other. Does the Clinton Foundation do development as I defined it? Yes, there is a component of the Clinton Foundation directly involved in development.

Retirement Fits Into My Plans Does Social Entrepreneurship?

David Bohl, writing for Small Business Trends | small business experts asks Entrepreneurs, Does Retirement Fit Into Your Plans?

Though not an entrepreneur, I am supposedly included among the "Approximately 78 million Americans comprise the Baby Boomer demographic." However, I am less and less enamored with the standard deal of making sacrifices to get ahead and earn a respectable living. Truth is that I make a respectable living. I still place the highest value in family, friends, and community as well as hold honesty, integrity and ethics in high esteem.

Yet, I am also one of those who does not fit or identify with the generation we are born into but then according to Brazen Careerist I might be misidentified. I miss being part of the Jones Generation 1954 to 1965 by 6 months, and I think I should score higher than the Generation Jones maximum of 6 points on Margaret Weigel's test, pushing me into Generation X at least virtually. Though asking if I text my 84 year old mother seems a bit warped.

I do "plan to work in some capacity during my retirement years." So the the question still looms: how to continue experiencing happiness and fulfillment in your personal and professional life well into the Golden Years? The question is part of the reason for this weblog. Creating this weblog is another personal paradigm shift I have been undertaking as an answer to this question.

David Bohl's answer