Gatekeepers

Do you hear this a lot?  The economy’s bad.  I can’t find a job.  I have too little money.  Lack, limitation, scarcity!  And yet, there seems to be an amazing transformation going on...not just here, but globally.

In the late nineties I realized that the computer revolution was passing me by, and I went off to the Occupational Center to learn Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Pagemaker, and even HTML and web design.  But I wasn’t too heavily invested in the world of the Internet; I used it mainly for photography and email.

Recently I thought of starting an online business, and I discovered Internet 2.0 --a whole new era -- had arrived.   I felt left behind again, and so --as is my low tech custom -- I took many books from the library to see if I could catch up.  There are Dummy books, thank goodness!  There is WordPress for Dummies, U-Tube for Dummies, and many others. Sometimes I have over 20 books checked out.

I became acutely aware that the gates of opportunity have opened, and the gatekeepers are losing power. What do I mean? 

A gatekeeper controls access to something, like the city gate.  A gatekeeper decides who is going to be blessed with a contract for a book, an assignment for a newspaper, a gig on a network comedy show, a recording deal for musical performance, even a job.  Now people are writing blogs, self-publishing e-books as well as hard copies, doing U-tube stand-up comedy gigs, making independent music videos, using streaming video and podcasts to teach all kinds of courses, or becoming Permalancers, who work on different projects for flexibility and control.

These changes have been amazingly rapid, brought about by the tech innovations such as the i-pod, i-phone, i-pad, Facebook, Twitter,  blogosphere, U-tube, e-books, Kindles and more.
While I was taping numbers on the backs of my telephone land lines, the net generation was changing the world.  The Boomers and Gen-X are already old hat, and the recent generation is breathing apps, wigits, blogs and vlogs like oxygen.  Connectivity and collaboration are big.
I’m not even a Boomer -- I’m pre-Boomer.  Yet I’m fascinated with all the changes, AND all the opportunities.

One aspiring author, who had nine young adult books  rejected by traditional publishers, decided to experiment with a 99-cent e-book on Amazon.  She sold books, gained a following, offered other books at higher prices, and eventually became a millionaire.  She may be an exception...but also an inspiration. Young Justin Bieber  became a sensation through his U-tube videos and went on to become a mega singing star.

Billionaire Peter Thiel, of PayPal and Facebook fame, wrote an article, “The Education Bubble,” in which he criticizes the humongous debt students and parents are taking on for the college degrees required by employer gatekeepers. That may change if the Un-college movement gains strength.

Thiel’s controversial and very competitive program, “20 Under 20,” offers $100,000 to young people who drop out of school for two years to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.  One Thiel Fellow, 19-year-old Dale J. Stephens, is the author of an upcoming book,  Hacking Your College Education. He has a web site called Un-college.

So what does all this have to do with Religious Science?  Ernest Holmes says,  “We are open at the top."  We are open to new ideas.  As the world changes around us, we can use our tools  -- the Law of Attraction, Spiritual Mind Treatment, the power of our consciousness, our knowledge of our innate divinity -- to co-create with Spirit a life that we design and desire, a life that incorporates the best of what this new and changing world has to offer.

As he says:

“Today the possibilities of my experience are unlimited.  The Spirit flows through me, inspiring me and sustaining that inspiration.  I have ability and talent and I am busy using them.  This talent is divinely sustained and marketed under a Universal plan of right action.”

So ask yourself:  What talent, what passion, what strengths am I sitting on that could move through these open gates?  Will I fling the portals of limitation wide and allow Spirit to express through me?

And so it is.