“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” “I would not change it.”
-As You Like It. Shakespeare
<This is where I am this week!>
My new next door neighbor is taking the month of November off. To shoot deer – lots of deer. And then he fills up his freezer for the winter. Seriously – in 2007. My wife and I, just a few feet away, have a guy that drives up to our house every other Saturday and fills our freezer with boxes of pasta, hot pockets, and pizza. My neighbor and I represent the -, and I’ll apologize for this phrase now, “paradigm shift” that is coming at you fast down the Internet superhighway.
Let’s say you are a Seeker. You go out, maybe not to the forest, but to the store for your groceries. You go up and down each aisle because you forgot your list. If a new store opens in town, you try that one out. Maybe you go to a newsstand and buy a paper, or you see a lot of movies. If you need a new pair of shoes you might actually drive to the local mall and, hear me out, walk from store to store until you find a pair that you like. And when you need information, you go to a search engine and you -literally- search for it until you find what you need. Perhaps, if time permits, you visit a few of your favorite blogs and scan the latest posts. You go. You seek.
Now, let’s assume you’re a Receiver. You wait for the grocery truck to come up your driveway (and of course he starts to learn your preferences over time – sound familiar?). The store literally comes to you. As we do, you have the newspaper delivered to you every morning. You wait for Netflicks to send you your next movie. Shoes? Did you know that there is an alternative search engine that literally searches just your mall and displays only those shoes sold in that mall on your screen? True fact. Why trudge around the mall for hours? Please! And for information? You got it – preset Google Alerts and a nice Feed Reader. I use Netvibes. Every morning with my coffee (mailed to me by Gevalia), I read the email – right!- that comes to me, and then I scan the articles that Netvibes has brought to me.
So who’s the smart one? The time wasting, gas guzzling, aisle cruising Seeker, or the high tech, super efficient Receiver?
Well, before you answer that, let’s discuss the down side of Receiving. If there was an imaginary strike involving our delivery guy, who would starve? Not my neighbor, because he has a skill for obtaining food that I don’t have. If you’ve seen the movie Red Dawn, you know what I’m talking about.
And if you haven’t seen that one, what about The Secret Garden? 
Do you remember the little prima donna holding out her arms like a scarecrow? “What are you doing?” her handmaiden asks her. “I’m waiting for you to dress me.” This is the worst side of Royalty, is it not? (The Last Emperor) I do nothing; the world comes to me.
No offense (none taken?), but my wife and I haven’t ever owned a TV. Why not? Because we fear that loss of self-control whereby we sit on the sofa and are entertained – passively. To read a book or to play a board game with friends is to Seek entertainment.
Searching and surfing the ‘Net is not necessarily inefficient, it can be honing a skill. To have intelligent machines cut up your steak and put it on your plate may not be as cool as you think.
The Ideal You is clearly a mix of Seeking and Receiving. But what mix? What is worth doing yourself and what is best done by others, or by technology? Who do you want to Be?
Everything that is done for you is efficient, but it atrophies your own abilities.
Everything that you do yourself is probably a waste of time, money, and energy.
I mean, you’re not a Luddite, right?
If you feel like sharing your thoughts, that would be great. Just volunteer one thing – what do you Seek, and what do you Receive?
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September 23rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
[...] Ionut Alex Chitu wrote an interesting post today!.Here’s a quick excerptAnd when you need information, you go to a search engine and you -literally- search for it until you find what you need. Perhaps, if time permits, you visit a few of your favorite blogs and scan the latest posts. You go. You seek. … [...]
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
This is a great piece, Charles! I was having a discussion on this very topic with Branton the other day. I said that my life would be ‘de-riched’ (the opposite of ‘enriched’, of course) if I weren’t continually exposed to new things. If you’re a Receiver and you’re relying on the technology to figure out what you should receive, there’s always a fear that the technology will limit you.
The great news is that it doesn’t have to. You can be a Receiver and still get new things, and I think that any personalization technology worth its salt (VortexDNA included) recognizes the importance of discovery. It’s the difference between a pizza guy saying, “Hey, Charles, I know you! You ordered the pepperoni last time, so I’ll give you pepperoni again because I know you so well,” and the pizza guy saying, “Hey Charles, remember that you got the pepperoni last time? Well, people who like pepperoni tend to like this totally new pizza that has nothing to do with pepperoni — want to try it?”
Oh, and my cousin Jack goes elk hunting every November, on a horse. I, on the other hand, had half a cow delivered recently from a friend’s farm. Not exactly hunting, but not hot pockets either. So where do I fit in?