morality theatre

In fact, it is probable that but for Mary's existence and Fred's love for her, his conscience would have been much less active both in previously urging the debt on his thought and impelling him not to spare himself after his usual fashion by deferring an unpleasant task, but to act as directly and simply as he could. Even much stronger mortals than Fred Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the being they love best. "The theatre of all my actions is fallen," said an antique personage when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who get a theatre where the audience demands their best. Certainly it would have made a considerable difference to Fred at that time if Mary Garth had had no decided notions as to what was admirable in character.George Eliot: Middlemarch BOOK III. WAITING FOR DEATH. 24. CHAPTER XXIV.

mode of engagement

to be not engrossed -- either as working-on-something or being-entertained, both of which I happily (properly?) can do alone, either with a book (or online) or tv -- I want other people with me. to ~peruse a book. now: The Search for Beauty in Islam -
I want a couch to sit on,
and someone else in the room, or in and out of it. around.

pursue happiness

Not being a materialist in the U.S. is kind of like not appreciating opera if you live in Milan or art if you live in Paris. -philip greenspun on materialism

also see Phil Greenspun on retiring young. "Retirement forces you to stop thinking that it is your job that holds you back. For most people the depressing truth is that they aren't that organized, disciplined, or motivated." # (via kottke) may be also relevant for someone who works from home-

for follow up on brokerage & closure

Broker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti : "Brokerage and Closure", Ron Burt -Dec 2 2005
Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti: Ron Burt, "Brokerage and Closure", Oxford Press mid-2005 -Sept 2 2004

Visible Path - Relationship Capital - Centrality : Ronald Burt's Brokerage and Closure by Stowe Boyd

gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/ronald.burt/research/
link to pdf of introduction to book Brokerage & Closure. plus chapter outline. etc. and 12 other people marked this page on del.icio.us - from there can browse their links with related tags: social capital networks organizational analysis creativity research burt creative etc

Brokerage and Closure

I dunno, dan, about this 'book description' (by the publisher - this is on the book, right?) :
Social capital, the advantage created by location in social structure (?) is a critical(bleh) element (bleh) in business strategy. Who has it, how it works and how to develop it have become key questions as markets, organizations and careers become more and more dependent on informal discretionary relationships. The formal organization deals with accountability; Everything else flows through the informal; advice, coordination, cooperation, friendship, gossip, knowledge, trust. Informal relations have always been with us, they have always mattered. What is new is the range of activities in which informal relations now matter, and the emerging clarity we have about how they create advantage for certain people at the expense of others. This is done by brokerage and closure.
Ronald S. Burt builds on his celebrated work in this area to explore the nature of brokerage and closure. Brokerage is the activity of people who live at the intersecting of social worlds, who have a vision advantage of seeing and developing good ideas, an advantage which can be seen in their compensation, recognition and the responsibility they're entrusted with in comparison to their peers. Closure is the tightening of coordination on a closed network of people, and people who do this do well as a complement to brokers because of the trust and alignment they create. Brokerage and Closure explores how these elements work together to define social capital, showing how in the business world reputation has come to replace authority, pursued opportunity (has come to replace) assignment, and reward has come to be associated with achieving competitive advantage in a social order of continuous disequilibrium (that's along object-phrase).
--
why is this so poorly written? isn't it poorly written? (I underlined some of what bothers me.)
and Brokerage and Closure are probably interesting, but not as here defined. "the activity of people who live at the intersecting of social worlds, who have.."

you are what you pretend to be
~ kurt vonnegut
New City 2/2/06 free will astrology - pisces

a genuine life

genuine means taking responsibility for the integrity of something.

vs [life as an invention / game /manipulation of objects ]-? --
they don't take responsibility for the integrity of anything.
they consume situations. they don't maintain them.
~don't create them.

genuine responsibility integrity maintenance

dB - I heard "thinking about throwing in the towel and living a genuine life" (which I smiled at); but did you actually say: "... throwing in the towel on living a genuine life"? oh and do by all means please write the above in your words-

origin of friendships

Do you have any friends with whom you share no institutional background? (aikido counts I think)
-apropos our talk about dates as interacting without context. -and our talk about high school. -and it goes to thinking about community...
Walking home from work tonite, I could not think of any friend I did not work with or go to school with. interesting - bcs I think of myself as tending toward one-to-one, non-context-dependent relations. and sure, some of my friendships have actually formed after the shared context is over - I've become friends with people that I did not know while at the institution. and (implicit in that anyway) with people that I did not actively share the experience with. but in every case -Every! I can't think of an exception- my friends did once work somewhere I worked or attend a school I attended.
Not a one that I met at a party or 'through mutual friends.' which, okay, it's not like I'm much for attending gatherings. butI ~picture myself as open to encounters of the 'bumping into on the street' sort. but, no, not one relationship with such a beginning.
does not bode well for forming new relationships through adulthood, does it?
So, no man is an island or something. rather: if you are an island, you are not going to know any other islands.
or in fact we are islands and it takes an ocean to make it us a world. no - not (natural) oceans but (constructed) bridges / or what do you call it when land is created where there was water. Donne really has little application here but it's what comes to mind.
the point, maybe, is that institutions are pretty important.
I can imagine that I have not found them satisfying; however, but for my schools and bookstores I would have no relationships except family. and relationships make the person, right.
p.s. will you please publish your drafts.

via

[French, from vie, life, from Old French, from Latin vīta.]

yes it means something precise for me.

x is viable if in the practice of or face of x I do/will not find myself in a state where I can't live like/with this.