I've had a book outline kicking around in my head for more than a year now and I have posted most of it to a wiki page. I thought I might also publish parts of the outline here from time to time to get feedback in the comments. So here's the first try.
Except from "Revolution of Me" - A book outline by Chris Saad
INTRODUCTION
Our lives have many containers. Containers group things together so that they can be managed, distributed or understood more easily. Some of these containers are very old. Marriage for example, is a container of individuals who have a common goal for creating a life together. Some containers were created more recently. Albums, for example, are a container for individual songs compiled together for easy marketing and distribution.
These containers, however, are starting to disintegrate into their constituent parts. Marriages, for example, are starting later in life and more frequently ending in divorce. They are very often turning into dynamic combinations of steps and halves. Album sales are giving way to songs sold one at a time on iTunes and played on iPods.
This disintegration takes many forms and touches many aspects of our lives. The effects can be both positive and negative. A common result, however, is an increased emphasis on empowering an individual to make more granular choices as a free agent.
In the case of Marriage, individuals are now less likely to tolerate unhappy circumstances or bad pairings for the good of the family unit. They are choosing themselves - their individual needs - over the container.
In the case of iTunes, individuals are now able to have more personalization when choosing the songs they buy. They don’t have to buy a whole album just to get the 4 songs they really like. In fact, they can fill their iPods with just the songs they love.
In these two examples, we see two ends of a broad spectrum of changes occurring all around us as containers disintegrate and life becomes more personal. I call this disintegration process and the resulting personalization “The Revolution of Me”.
In this text I propose to highlight some examples of disintegration occurring in our social, political and economic containers, and examine how it results in greater personalization. My personal interest is in Technology, so I will tend to focus on anecdotal evidence in my field of interest. It is my hope that others will contribute to the text to fill in the blanks, provide supporting evidence and expand the other sections.
Comments, ideas and contributions welcome!