the inmate's journal : the corporation xxii : hr & the law v

So I became a spy.  Paid by Childs’ budget to be his communications man on Dream, paid by Haze’s budget to get him the inside scoop on Childs, paid by Maeby’s flesh to keep me quiet.  Judge me quickly if you wish, my adulterous beloved … you’re a spy too.  Looking behind the bathroom mirror at that party is spying, peeking at your lover’s bra tag is spying, scanning your husband’s Web history is spying, gossiping is spying … whenever you serve two masters, whenever you don’t offer full disclosure, whenever you withhold information, when you tell one thing to your inner child, another to your Super-ego … you’re a spy.  You spy on everybody:  your lovers, your children, your parents, your spouses, your boss, yourself.  The only difference between you and me is that you don’t get paid for it … but I was getting a bundle.

 

And I realized, blurry friends and furry frauds, as I honed the art of deception … being a spy is a turn-on.  What’s more fun than betrayal and secret knowledge, than testing your ability to play your cards with pokerface perfection?  Seeing how many cards you have in your deck, how quickly you can determine the exact hand that must be played, to whom, and how.  I was in a whirl, bouncing from Nob Hill rooftop patio lectures on “Transhumaning the Corporation” to Denver lunches with Maeby to briefings with Erikk on Paris-bound planes to Vancouver steambath workshops with Bobbi to Seattle lunches with Maeby to séances with Bobbi and Hubert St. Paterson to Phoenix lunches with Maeby to marble towers to legal ears to fine wines to moaning thighs to Hubert’s happy house below the happy hills of San Francisco where, in 10,000 nestled homes, 10,000 gurus of tomorrow live—Buddhists, yogis, self-helpers, craftspeople of all persuasions, transcendentalists, authentic people, vegans, nice people, Pilates and Feldenkrais disciples, hypnotherapists, tai chi evangelists, homeopathic addicts, herbal tea gulpers, detox aficionados, avid acupuncturists, Ayurvedic consultants, all believing a new age had dawned and they were responsible—merging the spiritual life with capitalism in ways that would have caused Jesus to crucify himself in the crib.  And Hubert would hum Vedic hymns and light his shrine, intoning to me and the small group of partially clad followers smoking pot, gently necking or weeping on cushions scattered around his enlightenment den—

 

I believe that we live at a time when the principal metaphor that shapes awareness, relationships, power, institutions and action is shifting from machine back to nature itself.  Those that are making this shift, organizations such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Southwest, are pulling ahead of all their competitors. The new organizational work is to set up and maintain a healthy ecology rather than an efficient machine; it's really a game of Sims rather than an engineering project.  The live web is this metaphor in action. It is giving people the experience of living inside this new metaphor. This is the power of blogging and social web tools—100 million people are going to a new world not by boat but by their computer or their mobile phone.

 

Jude, Maeby said to me as we both ran our fingers around the rims of our wine glasses, Don’t worry about these new age consultants.  They’re a release valve, that’s all, they help people get rid of excess steam … no one sensible believes them and Erikk’s certainly not worried about them.  He’s interested in the technicalities of Dream, how Bobbi’s using Dream as a cover for his real operations of undermining policy by appealing to base hope. 

 

I think Hubert’s ahead of his time, Bobbi said, finishing off a plate of dried cherry-avocado risotto and a vintage bottle of Merton Cab while he asked the woman who was driving his yacht to turn down the music … my challenge is to recognize the truths of what he’s saying and … at the same time … recognize that turning New Bank in the right direction is like turning the Queen Mary around in a swimming pool … to transhumanize the corporation is to return to nature but in a new way … a way that uses technology to transform nature to be the new nature … that stops the war of politics and personalities versus principles and performance … 

 

Nature, said Erikk Haze, as he slept on his large leather chair in his spacious executive office, is flies and earthquakes.  Nature is Antarctica and the Mariana Trench.  Nature is a billion insects.  Nature is wives eating their husbands, mothers eating their babies, men gulping down women, sons hacking off their fathers’ heads.

 

All of our relationships are being changed, said Hubert, as he lit incense made from the cremated bodies of Indian gurus—from machine and utilitarian relationships to being natural and human again.  All power in the world will change as a result. The optimal conditions, I call Trusted Space, will drive the optimal trajectory for growth.

 

Jude, Maeby said as we ordered one slice of pistachio roulade with two forks and giggled, Erikk’s particularly concerned whether Bobbi’s been successful in raising hope to the point that it might have influence with those who might have influence with Mr. Blood … it’s not as if we think Dream is going to succeed but that it might succeed by not succeeding.

 

… where we all … together … Bobbi said, as he asked the waitress to sit beside him and began taking off her pants … transform transactions into relationships, vision into reality, the future into the present, education into lifelong learning, control into leadership, information into opportunity, global markets to local living economies … it’s my fundamental belief that as we do this, we’ll become more peaceful, cooperative, and profitable … 

 

You want nature? Erikk Haze said, as he slept in the labyrinth of his mind.  There’s no new nature; there are only more words, more bodies, more images, more policies, more laws, separating us from nature so that we can forget what nature’s like. 

 

I do my best to act as a guide for the perplexed, Hubert said, as he led a liturgical dance in which bodies were transfigured and souls became transparent.  I do my best to help corporations such as New Bank see the future of using nature's rules.  I do my best to help you use them. I do my best to set you on a course to find your place in this new world.

 

Jude, Maeby said as we climbed into a red convertible and aimed it at outer space, What we have to do on this is to ensure non-success and non-failure … that is, that the New Bank stakeholders who are into the new paradigm stuff don’t perceive that we’re not into the new paradigm stuff.

 

… and that this force, Bobbi said as he sipped a martini at the gentlemen’s club and motioned to the petite and very naked brunette to join us … dormant in humanity for so long … once it’s unleashed … will be unstoppable … fueling growth and opportunity unimaginable in the entire course of human history … this is the new work, the new corporation, the new human, the new nature.

 

Nature? said Erikk Haze, as he slept on the mattress of the law.  Nature’s what humanity’s spent all of history trying to get away from.