Welcome to the Sea of Echoes

I’m working on a project now in journalism and it’s a very interesting study in team dynamics and motivation.  We have a large group of seven really bright people on the team and there are a lot of ideas competing for attention.

Since I pitched the original concept for the team project I kind of got selected as informal project manager.  The management style I’m experimenting with is getting people to come up with their own ideas and run with them.  On two occasions I’ve noticed a tendency for people to try to give other people direction, which results in the ’subordinate’ person feeling trod upon or pissed off.

The theme of escaping mindless drudgery is a popular one in films like the Matrix, but it even works its way into books like ‘The Four Agreements’.  Most of us know what it’s like to be Neo at the beginning of the Matrix - facing a dead-end job which we probably wouldn’t choose but for necessity.

The funny thing is that this system of drudgery is built collectively by all of us.  When we gaze through the clerk at the checkout stand or ignore people passing on the street, we’re being Agent Smith.