The New Irreverence

My new ex-girlfriend - who is now an avid reader of howtorockstar, and has been paying attention the Donnie Davies play-out I have been pointedly outlining (here and here and here) - is brilliant. While I was researching the background of the Singularity and Lateral Thinking as part of my defining Singulateral for her this morning, I began to explain the concept of Po. As in, Provocative Operation.

A Po (rhymes with 'go') is an "idea which moves thinking forward to a new place from where new ideas or solutions may be found." So far so good. If anyone is interested in how good ideas come about, then obviously learning of Po's helps us to better understand the process from getting from one place - the challenge - to another - the solution.

Here's where it gets interesting and relevant. It seems that for the correct Po to be formulated or unveiled, that a number of Po's must be presented and sorted through, most important, silly ideas. Even more interesting is that unless the silly ideas are considered and processed that the subsequent good ideas are left undiscovered.

How this is relevant to us is that after I had pointed this out, my new ex-girlfriend says to me, "Like Donnie Davies."

Wow. Uh, yeah. That's right. Exactly like Donnie Davies. And exactly like $trick9.

And that's the point I have been intuitively aware of with this material, and why I have been showcasing it here, and stressing in emails to my peers and colleagues the significance of the material. We need these alternative (bad) ideas presented in the right spirit, ie sincerely, in order to see our way clear to the good idea.

Why? Why? Why...do we need a good idea? Because that's how all of us who are not bad people are going to get out of this mess we are in, and move into a future that is as fantastic and fun as we want it to be. In other words we have to go through the bad (well-conceived) ideas to get to the good (well-conceived) ideas.

I know George Bush is the wrong idea. And I know Dick Cheney is an insane unhealthy criminal warlord. But do I hate them? Oh, no. It's why I came up with the "102 Reasons To Love George Bush" list. Someone else being bad evil or hateful is their problem, but if they think I am going to hate the bad evil or hateful, well, that's incorrect. Hate is a bad investment of energy. Too expensive, and too self-hurtful.

All the people who have been dedicated to censoring the two artists Donnie Davies and $trck9, who are both presenting two obviously genuinely bad but genuinely well-conceived ideas, are missing the point. But my guess is that it doesn't matter, that one way or another pretty soon everyone of us who prefers happiness and joy over fear and anger are going to have good reason to celebrate life and dance again. You see, there are many ways that our current world situation/predicament can go, and inevitably an event will instigate this motion, and - very noteworthy - there are a lot more than one way that can be the right way.

And that's what I mean by singulateral. It's a juxtaposition of the concepts that belong to the Singularity and lateral thinking: Singulateral.

Worldwide, we will get to the right way because there are so many ways to get there. We just haven't been giving the silly ideas enough credibility, and after five years of post-9/11 fever, I am more than ready for the return of silliness. I mean, does anyone remember how great 9/10 was? I do. I was surfing. "9/10 forever! Remember fun!"

So bring on the New Irreverence, and let's put a whole lot more sacred cows out to pasture!