Then years ago, when I escaped from the US to Central America, I said I was transitioning from preventing bad to doing good. To me, what that meant was not a change in my job as it was already doing good. It was a change in my other activities—the things I did in my spare time to make the world a better place.

I had years of what one would call activism time. Two big examples are:

• Working on the Don't Waste Washington initiative to prevent the Hanford Reservation in Eastern Washington from becoming the dumping site for all US nuclear waste.
• Working to educate people about Nicaragua and show why the US government war against Nicaragua (in the 1980s) was both morally wrong and actually counter-productive to US interests.

Both were important, the first a clear success and the second at least helped end a war. Both needed to be done but both were very clearly in the category of preventing bad. It's hard work and it is sometimes harder to see the positive results. For me, personally, it was time to retire from preventing bad but that didn't mean I no longer wanted to contribute to making the world a better place. Thus, I decided that doing good what where my efforts needed to be placed.

My two years in Costa Rica showed me that was not the place for me. The biggest issue was that it seemed that most Ticos thought Costa Rica should strive to be more like the US. Thus, many of my ideas of doing good just didn't fit there. That inspired my move to Nicaragua. Here I have found open and warm people and, in general, what seems good to me seems good to my Nica neighbors.

Unfortunately, I have gotten drawn into the world recently. That is, the areas where there is clearly bad happening that people need to address. That includes current wars, the next war, Monsanto and so on. If I had to summarize what I have seen, we first had activists accepting the Clinton administration as OK who forgot to wake up during the Bush Jr. administration and then somehow thought that Obama was, well, not just a shill for a different set of corporate interests than Jr.'s administration.

Note to self: "Get back on your do good track. Let others try to prevent bad and, if they don't succeed it is their fault, not yours. In the mean time, you can have some local successes."

So, that's it. That's what I need to do. It is not as easy as it sounds but it clearly is a hell of a lot easier when you live outside the US.

Now, you may have noticed that I tagged with with "RBE" meaning, of course, Resource Based Economy. Personally, I see a move in that direction as the most critical thing to get done. But it is also very hard to separate yourself form preventing bad when working in that area. While I am all for the ideas of The Zeitgeist Movement and have unending respect for Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project, each effort has a side which tends to suck me back into preventing bad. Personally, that is just not good for me.

I realize that what I need to do is work on RBE things which can be positive for the players involved. While all the world needs to be involved to make an RBE work, there are clearly positive contributions which can be made at the local level. Some will just prepare others for an eventual RBE, others will just make life better on a local level. As I am willing to accept that the world will not be on an RBE in my lifetime (and it might even self-destruct before it gets there), that is no reason to concentrate on preventing bad.

I have started some projects which I find as positive. (Some are on http://steprojects.com.) I had hoped to offer positive contributions to TZM by blogging there but, unfortunately, they censorship and control of their blogs is unacceptable to me. I tried to plus into The Venus Project but their need to do everything in secret was unacceptable to me. So, I am blogging here. I would like to find (or create) a place where the goal is all is to move toward an RBE but we are each, as individuals and and groups allowed to openly say what we think.

I suppose this is actually all a note to self. I reminder of what I need to do and why. Thanks for listening.