MyGigNet and the Golden Rule: What Are You Willing to Offer? Is It Equal to What You Expect You Deserve?

I came to this place -- one that is feeling centered and more comfortable, like home -- with a clear intent. I wanted to talk about who you could trust. And why. I came prepared to make the case that, intended or not, the wolves are about, masquerading in the garb of sheep. Some of them adorned -- prize winning ones, but wolfish result, just the same. I came "home" to vent indignant outrage, the way we all do when we are in our most sacred and protected of spaces.

I was fully prepared to say, without hesitation and with fullest conviction, that my spleen was inflamed, not by the experience of getting reamed by the best and the lowest of them. Nor was it because I'd heard it all before: how great it used to be, how hard it's getting, how a Springsteen can't be discovered the way the industry is, how -- a lot of things. I was angry because my anger was my brothers' and sisters' anger.

I came to say that, how it is, is that we know who we can't trust, but that we still deal with them or, that we hoard our most personal gifts from fear of losing -- losing traction in the first scenario and losing ourselves in the second. I knew what everybody else had to know. And, if they knew it, then they were trustworthy, which validated a premise. "Why Don't We Build It?"

The answer was easy, because no one that might have thought about it ever did anything about it. Even after I took this a few more steps past a summary and every implication, after others encouraged me forward while still others claimed impossibility -- even after loss after loss, anguish after anguish, mine and my community's -- I kept this consciousness and its will to be bigger than me. I couldn't identify it, but there it was, undeniably there.

It is more than mere feeling when there is consciousness attached to it. I was mulling over this when it occurred; the language of consciousness and of emotion was music. It is the one language that we share between ourselves, our conscious selves, our cosmos. If we can agree upon that, then we can trust each other, because that's the part that makes us the same. You don't have to play the instrument to make music. You can move an amp, man a booth, run a club, listen to a choir, or just want to play. If you're there, then you're there. The greatest musical vibe is the one that's shared.

That you can trust.

Now, to pragmatism.

I have heard, as old as I am, essentially one thing: everybody's looking for assurance, but not thinking as much about what assurances they can (or are willing to) give. It takes a few to move many; many more are then moved. MyGigNet is now a group of qualified, committed professionals, like you and like those you want to be. We are not any more special than any of you. We are just doing something about it.

There have been object lessons all around us. When people are called to act upon their principles, there are obstacles. Initial frustration is natural, giving rise to "why me, what have I got, what can I do?". The successful ones changed the first response to "why not me?" and the follow up questions changed their polarity. "Why me?" takes any empowerment potential and places them out of phase like unmatched speakers. I sucks energy and goes nowhere. "Why not me?" bursts the energy forward and outward. It ripples. It can become a wave.

What Can You Offer? Is It Equal to What You Expect You Deserve?

I would have rested my case here, but I read Boyd's post of Heather's email. Remember coming "home", earlier? Read her email.

Then I'll rest my case.

David Kahl
CVO, MyGigNet