Early success – is that bad?

Success is a key concept in our world. It’s a key concept in our life, to be more precise. It’s the measure of all our actions, attitudes and thoughts. Each and every second in our life is dedicated to success, in one of its forms: from having a succesful relationship, to obtaining a success in a business contract, or to finish a personal task exactly as planned. Everything we do is planned with a positive scenario in mind, meaning we always intend to do only the best for us. And success is the most important fuel for our future actions: if we do have a high quality fuel, we will tend to have more and more successful actions. If our fuel decrease in quality, we will act in a more and more confused an ineffective way.

But what is early success? Is the retirement at the age of 30, after exploding with a dot com venture? Is the rock star that shined for one year and then sinked in the sea of depression? Is the young CEO that in the last 5 years of his thirties had never had a day of relaxation? And instead he has to manage 24 hours a day a huge multi-national company with more employees that he’ll be able to meet in this life?

Digital cults: reboot your epiphanies

In the 19th century, the populations from Melanesia saw a bunch of ships, with white people on board, carrying a lot of goods, called, generically, cargos. In their culture, white was also the colour of the dead people, so they assumed that those ships were the ships of the dead, returning their deserved goods. So the colonists quickly realised that they were treated like mithological characters. And so was born one of the most recent religions, called cargo-cult.

A religious movement doesn’t necessarily have to be old. It can be as effective as an old one, if it correctly replaces and enhances (sometimes) the need for catharsis. An epiphany can be a momentarily lost of conscience at a rock concert, or even a happiness boost from a family reunion. As long as it touches your inner chords and make them sing, it does the job.

In a world where the actual spiritual connection has lost its privileged space – the church – the epiphanies are held in a digital space and form. On the internet, at the computer, by holding your BlackBerry or Palm. As long as it touches your inner chords and make them sing.

I am not talking about those well-known cults that are using the digital media to gather sustainers, featuring tv shows of priests and so on. They are traditionals religions. I am talking about movements or so-called organisations that most of the time doesn’t even know that they are acting on a religious field. The Open Source fans. The Linux movement. The Apple fans. The GTD followers. To name only a few.