Bio-diversity.

I am in Melbourne, Australia now and took a run this morning through the Botanical Gardens. The bio-diversity of plant life, of bird life is absolutely staggering. That got me thinking about variety and individuality in all its forms.

There are more types of cars on the road here. It's more twenty brands with 5% marketshare each than the 7 brands in America with 14% marketshare each. The same can be said for coffee shops. There isn't a Starblands on every corner. Instead, little places without surly "baristas" selling a Disney-version of authenticity. The same with barber shops, people, newspapers and more.

This could be inaccurate. I haven't been here long and perhaps the unfamiliarity of the locale just makes the world here feel different. Maybe Australia is every bit as homogenized as the good old U.S. of A.

But true or false, we are too much the same. Too much iterative. Too much unoriginality. Too much generic. Too much in search of the lowest common denominator and "proven breakthrough. Too much look-alike. That, I don't think you dispute too much.