Here is the 'Toward Civilazation' blog post from Seth's blog:

Toward Civilization

This is Seth at his most profound, making a case for something important. What intrigues me about this is how he links these posts into his primary theme. I mentioned in my initial intro that I sum up his primary theme like this: 'Creativity in the workplace.'

Here is the link in this article: the challenges to the agent of change (the person thinking creatively about a problem) are the same whether you are seeking to make a change in a workplace or in the culture at large.

And the forces of the status quo or inertia or 'we've always done it this way' apply the same back pressure, regardless of where the conflict arises.

Because of these similarities Seth can take his theme (creativity in the workplace) and carry it to a much broader audience on a much broader stage (creativity in the culture and its generally civilizing influence).

As a writer, it is very appealing to have this freedom, and by choosing your core themes carefully, you can find ways to do it.

But even more important than what you choose as a theme is your own thinking and writing. How you execute and what you choose to write about affects your ability to do something like this.

You might choose the theme desk chairs. If you mostly blog about the price of desk chairs at local stores, it is hard to make the leap to suddenly consider the importance of sitting in civilization.

But, if you choose to write sometimes about price, sometimes about design, sometimes about your personal experience, sometimes about the experience of others, and sometimes about the desk chair you saw on the side of the road, then you give yourself the freedom, and your audience the mental latitude, to consider desk chairs in a broader perspective.

By writing this way, you also give your audience a vision of themselves as part of something larger. In Seth's case he is saying, "You can see that what we do is part of something bigger. Our desire to make things better is part of the civilizing influence which ties us to the forward movement of mankind and the great motion of history."

That is a powerful method to motivate people in their own individual struggles and to keep them coming back to you for more thoughts and more writing.

Here is my favorite quote. It is worth thinking about, on its own:

Every day, with every action, to make something more civilized.