Action and regret in the Twilight Zone

For me, there is always a hiatus in travel between finishing your visit and actually travelling. I call this the 'Twlight Zone', because as far as everyone you have visited is concerned, you have left and are no longer relevant to their lives, but your actual departure doesn't occur for many hours.... 

I am currently in that zone. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you just wait.. regretting things you didn't get done during your trip and dreading the many hours still left to spend, just waiting in this limbo of irrelevance to anyone's lives that I call the Twilight Zone.

You try to fill it with an endless landscape of meaningless tasks. I am sure that if a study were done, more books would get read during this time than any other. I now have 10 hours to while away, 6 in the hotel, until I get thrown out (officially called checkout) and then 4 in the interim period in which I will idle away ambling around the shops here and in the airport. If I were to scrutinise my trip, the purpose of my visit was over after the first day here - it usually is. The rest of the time has been filled with social visits and meaningless banter, whiling away the time until I leave.

Regrets, always. I heard it once sad that you only ever regret the things you didn't get done, and have always found it to be true. As actions are far harder than ideas and 'stated' intentions they take much more energy to get done, and often a lot more courage. This hiatus to ponder allows me to reflect upon this very thing. Actions are the only thing that takes our ideas and converts them into reality. 

Indeed, I have heard so many 'ideas' and 'intentions' over the past few days that I am completely full of them and am simply able to regard them as no more than hot air. Intentions and ideas unfulfilled lead only to regret, missed opportunities and inaction. 

Inaction, albeit sometimes not conscious, is in itself 'action'. it is failure to ensure things are done, failure to deliver, failure to keep promises, excuses given etc etc. But however it is dressed, it ends up the same 'what if?' and usually ends up in regret. However this regret is meaningless because participation was taken. Action was in fact taken, even though that action was the action of non-action.

Presently I am regretting not delivering some of the messages I tried to effectively. Regretting not seeing some of the people I hoped to do. Regretting not doing some of the things I wanted to, such as taking the last day here to see my son whom I haven't seen for over 2 years. Regret leads to self-criticism and dissatisfaction. 

Given the current climate generally, many people now out of work will regret all the things they never got done during that time. However if you look at it pragmatically, you never would have done the things you yearn for having done because by your 'active inaction' your decision was already made. Therefore best to stop regretting and let go if the idea that you would have done 'if only things had been different' - you never would have done. Simply accepting this and letting it go is the best remedy for regret.

Regret is never action, it is always inaction, but taken as a positive, it is a decision made and acted upon. Regrets are usually only reflected on in twilight zones such as these, and approaching death, where you have the slack in life to enable you to see how pathetic it all is.

Making Money in Virtual Worlds

There is a popular misconception that it is easy to make money in virtual worlds people even believe that there paths can be paved with gold.

This is a myth, similar to the one that anyone can make money on the stock market. Both come from the impression that some people have made it very rich for very little effort or investment. However, like most things that yield high dividends it is due to working the system and having knowledge - preferably from an 'insider' source.

As it was with the now failing stock market, everyone's cousin is suddenly an expert on this matter. Uncle Bob is now a Digital Media expert. After his job as a shelf stacker at Woolworths, he now turns his talent to networking in virtual worlds and engaging within social networks.

Auntie Dora has become a PR exec in Digital Media with a list of clients that don’t know exactly what she’s doing for them. However, her PR sounded good so they are confident that she knows what she’s doing. Thankfully they haven’t got a clue, because she hasn’t either. For her, at last, her long chats over the garden wall are paying dividends in baffling people with her rhetoric.

Previously unemployed cousins are now Heads of Digital Media in companies they founded themselves. It sounds good anyway and because they used to carry the tea tray in a PR firm they know all about PR too. These people all get away with it because we, the rest of the world, are the uninitiated in this new digital world.

It is easy for anyone to become a Digital Media guru. It is a young discipline with a low cost of entry. All you need is free accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Upcoming, Plick and a few virtual worlds, such as Second Life. Next step is to get someone to write about you – any online or media press will do. You can even give yourself a false identity and write about your alter ego so you become a publisher and blogger as well.

Finally, publicise yourself as being the best PR for digital media. This is a sure fire way to grab companies’ attention. They will immediately look up to you as someone with some credibility and knowledge of the situation, mainly because they have no knowledge on this area themselves and are groping in the dark more than you are.

Congratulations, you are now a Digital Media expert.

This is a scary scene and not uncommon. At this point, if you represent a company or your own enterprise, you would do well to remember the dot com bubble where everyone got on the bandwagon and some got sorely burnt. Virtual or digital media space is the new ‘dot com’ – or ‘dot con’ bubble if you get it wrong.

'Me too' is a very compelling scenario and no one wants to be left out in the cold. However, this phenomenon is moving along at such a rate that no one can keep up. Either people are afraid of being left behind so grab whatever looks like the best eye-candy or alternatively are too blinded by media headlights to move at all.

My advice is, as with all innovative technologies, when faced with a new environment or technical innovation follow best practices used in the past when adopting new technology.

Check out your provider for their track record, speak to their existing and previous clients to assess satisfaction. There are already a lot of disaffected and disillusioned companies out there that spent a lot of money for very little return. It would no do your CV any good if you were to help your company become one of them.


I hope this illuminates potential pitfalls in this expanding market. Please post a comment here should you need further opinion.