Spare time? Make the world smile!

Create acts of senseless beauty and random kindness.

There has been much discussion of what a post-scarcity world would look like.  One side of the debate posits that no one will create anything because they won't get paid for it.  You don't have to look far to find these dinosaurs in the world today.  The big conglomerates that produce the media and expending ever more energy trying to protect their "assets".   Come to think of it, when you look at it in those terms the energy budget could be thought of as upside down.  The media conglomerates expend great amounts of energy on defending their "territory" and ever decreasing amounts of energy on creating or finding new "sustenance".

The other side of the debate (as if there were only two sides to this debate, the world is not that black and white) posits that people will create for the sheer sake of creation.  The Free and Open Source movements are current examples that can be easily found in the world.  Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions, of person-hours have been contributed for "free" to the creation of tremendous monuments like Linux.

I'll posit a third idea.

That people will spend their time, their most valuable commodity, in endeavours that will make them and other folks smile.

For example:



If it is not immediately apparent to you, I want to bring two things to your attention.

1. These students spend a LOT of time getting everyone together and then choreographing this event.
2. I'd bet that not a one of them made a dime from doing this.

 These students did this for two, to my mind, fundamental reasons.

1. Because it was fun.  It made everyone around them smile.  Thereby making themselves smile.  Endorphins are a tremendous thing!
2. Those that participated got some whuffie.  Those that organized got even more whuffie.

They created something that was unique in that moment.  They also created something that will last a very long time.  Years, decades from now there will still be students who talk about the day a dance troupe broke out in the cafeteria.  Those students that were there will tell their children, or grandchildren, about the day this happened.  Whether they danced or observed, they all participated.

Here's another example from Improv Everywhere.



Improv Everywhere began life doing flash mob type stuff.  They've really opened up their repertoire as of late.  The organizers may be making some money through advertising on YouTube, etc. but I doubt that it is a tremendous cash flow by any stretch of the imagination.  The real question is how do they get 207 people to do these things?  Look at the smiles on the faces of the folks around them when they freeze.  Listen to the applause at the end of the event.  Go back, I'll wait.

Not only that, but they can help a cause.  Here's one of their latest events.  Again, pay attention to the smiles on the uninformed participants faces.  Not everyone gets what is going on... but those that do initially cannot believe it is happening but have a fun time with it once they begin to understand.



I recently showed a friend of mine a YouTuber that calls himself MysteryGuitarMan.  Here's an example of one of his videos.




The fact that blew my friend away is that MysteryGuitarMan has 500,000 subscribers.  I'm one of them.  He asked how the dude made money.  Through advertising and t-shirt sales was my answer, but that's not the real point, is it?!?  The real point is that MysteryGuitarMan can influence 500,000 people.  Directly.  That's not a large number, but neither is it small.  That's the truly powerful idea here.

Of course, that also brings us back to the initial reason for this post.  Why does he do this?  Do you think he had the idea of doing this for the money when he started?  Doubtful.  Very doubtful.  MGM started doing this because it was fun and because he loved creating.  It grew from there, and he may be financially successful from it one day... but I am willing to bet that he'd create even if he weren't getting paid in the historical sense of that word.