CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

How often have you wanted to do some art, only to get frustrated by the effort? Don’t give up. There are solid business benefits to practicing art.
In business, we are constantly trying to put things in an analytical, logical and well-defined boxes. Ones we can understand, monitor and control. The world though is much different place. One that is dynamic and ever changing. Everything is happening at once challenging all of our mental and physical resources. As Albert Camus (Nobel Laureate) once said, “We may live to reason, but we do so in an unreasonable world.”
In the real world, our ability to be creative is often more needed than our analytical ability. Driving a car is a good example. You can’t drive just using analysis, things are moving too quickly. Analysis takes too long. It’s impossible to calculate the exact distance between us and cars moving in all directions. We have to make use of our intuition, conceptualization, spacial, perceptual and global skills to make the right…

The great digital age we live in affords wondrous opportunities and efficiencies. My doctor can pull up all my medical history, tests, treatments and RX’s on his laptop. Providing the foundation, he needs to prescribe a path for healing. He can do this from any place in the world with the flick of a few keys. 
It’s nothing short of art the way my doctor uses digital records. Applying his reason, judgement and ownership to the process. His experience, talent and time the additional ingredients. 
Unfortunately, these key elements are often missing in the mainstream of business today. This same digital age can produce information to push us through the system, to categorize us, to control us with only the thought of process in mind. 
It has birthed the faceless, stage named,customer service representative who only does the pushing and owns no part of the process, let alone the client base. It has spawned the ditto world we live in. Often the jobs are uninspiring especially for the well-…

https://anchor.fm/david-young7/episodes/Dancing-Near-The-Grave-A-desert-tale-e4fk32
You could almost hear the band warming up from the highway near by. The random blurts of the horn, the rhythmic strobing of strings drawing it back into play, the notes sounded one at time by the piano player and a few notes of music from the singer. All sounds played out from a small town just over the Nevada border between LA and Las Vegas. 
A forgotten place except for becoming a Mecca for sun seeking seniors. Just a couple of casinos, a small downtown area and lots of desert style homes. The music emulated from the one great place to eat, Vince’s. Nestled against a picturesque cliff surrounded by palm trees, it looked very bit the part of an oasis. The long-standing owner whose name graced the place spared no effort in making it a true fine dinning experience. One he ruled with standards and routines he would not bend. It attracted a loyal following among locals and the wise traveler who knew about…

Many roads lead to the high desert of Nevada. Route 395, a favorite of mine, first cuts through the picturesque Eastern Oregon Country then into a small corner of California before releasing you to the vast vistas of Nevada.
The long drive leaves you anxious for any road that looks like a short cut. Standish at the intersection of 395 and route 139 appears on the map like it might have that promise. A small road in the middle of the town turned you directly South into Nevada avoiding the junction traffic a few miles to the west. It never really saved much time, but the promise was there.
I learned over time that Standish had a story, a story of a larger promise. A spec of a place now with a population of 85. In once flourished in 1897, billed as the new Utopia of the West by the Associated Colonies of New York led by Miles Standish. The town by his namesake was one of two to be built on a European model for Utopia. Where the people would leave the town each day to work collectively i…

Henry David Thoreau once said, “Not until we are lost, do we begin to understand ourselves.”
When you are lost though, it can be difficult to find the “Lost and Found” department for people.
There are many ways you can find yourself lost. Too many problems and failures in the rear-view mirror of life, loss of love, no one to reach out to, being stuck in a remote place, shoved aside by society and loosing the strength to risk. All these and many more can leave you frozen in time, unable to take advantage of opportunities or new relationships, even if they pass by you everyday.
The world is a dynamic and wonderful place. Most of us recover from being lost. We gain a new spirituality, find internal peace with what has passed, meet a special person, rediscover our dreams or finally risk finding that new opportunity. The time lost gives us space we need to gather our resources and venture again.
For some, it’s a much longer journey than others. They find only darkness in the world. Even f…

Breaker Boxes
There are never any small accidents on the circuit. It’s always show time with flashes and smoke. It's one thing to create the power, but it is the meter that makes the money and the breaker that saves the day. They stand silently doing their work, gathering the art of the street over time...
David Young