Futurist

Here's an interesting moment from yesterday that has knocked my socks off in terms of "why" I am doing this incredibly mundane chore at work. I know, lately work related posts have started creeping into my blog here. My apologies, but in the meantime...the reasons why I work, what works and how to make my work meaningful consume my thoughts lately. Especially as the work I'm doing is so un-enticing, so un-interesting, so boring (my butt hurts often, I have to get up and walk around for no apparent reason.). The contracted job currently is to go through old files, remove staples, thumb through pages and pages of notes and throw away reams and reams of paper that is no longer necessary. I organize the remaining few pages left so that they may be scanned into the computer (and then these pieces of paper too will be thrown out). There is no analysis. There is no reason to read any of these pages. If it has a signature, keep it. If it doesn't, throw it out.

I read so many blogs these days. I found one by David Houle. The concept discussed is the "Transformation Decade" of the "Shift Age". Houle, a futurist (a job I've never heard of before), explains that everything is changing. Everything. We went from the Industrial Age to the iInformation Age. Houle states the 70's was the time in between. The 70's were the upheaval that "prepared" us for the new age. Houle proposes that we are in the upheaval for the next age, the "Shift Age". I'm only sorry he has given it an innocuous name. I believe things never really stopped shifting from the 70's. The shifts are simply more like earthquakes these days, but I've been learning how to live this way.

All this brings me back to the contract position I currently hold. I am tossing the old era (paper), regrouping the necessary and passing it over to be put into the new era. Entire floors of large buildings are becoming unnecessary as I plow through this. The idea of shifting into a new era has given me purpose in this position. Otherwise, I know I am working myself out of this job. I find myself, with each piece of paper that glides through my hands, wondering what project is next to clean up our lives as I (we) move into this next era.