Observations In Life

I can’t believe it, but C-Span is actually on. My roommate has been watching it and as we listen a women is providing the details and paying respects to a recently deceased person. So why bring it up? Why does it matter?

It makes sense and is appropriate to spend time compiling a list of achievements for a person that has passed and summarize their life in front of a group of people. This is how we honor the person, yet it’s one of those things in life that doesn’t make sense. The person is dead. They can’t hear all of the great things you have to say about them. You didn’t say them in life, but now you can in death when it doesn’t matter to anyone else but yourself, for who are you benefiting?

I suppose the family may be consoled by being reminded of what they already knew, but overall you are only benefiting yourself by being the person who is “strong” and able to stand up and share witty stories with those who are weaker.

While an exception for self-righteous can be made for family members, everyone included the dead can benefit more if we share our heart-felt feelings in life.

It had been a while since I had gone to the gym. I even canceled my membership at my overpriced sports club, Boston Sports Club.

I put on a pair of jean yesterday and they were snug. Surely after washing them for the 50th time they must have shrunken this time. I had to face the reality that my jeans were still the same size, but I wasn’t. It’s funny how things change and as they change so does our perspective.

Classes on investments or classes to improve your life for that matter are an interesting place to observe and meet people. Depending on the class, they are filled with a broad mix of people, from all walks of life with the common goal of bettering their financial picture or fixing a problem area in their lives. They vary in skill and age and personalities and most importantly their overall goals in terms of net-worth, lifestyle and career.

Like many classes these groups of people can be broken down into further sub-groups:

You start off with the clueless. These people are desperate, in need of immediate financial repair and will listen to anyone or anything with a solution. The often want a quick fix and want the quickest and easiest path to riches. Sadly they are uninformed and often end up losing more money because they took the easy way out instead of figuring out what would work for them.

Your next group of people are the dangerous amateurs. They’ve taken a course before, read a book, know some buzz words and are freely willing to dispense “knowledge” and advice about what you should do with your life. Sometimes they share how they are doing with you, but often just keep talking and spitting out information without letting you get a word in edge-wise lest you ask a question and figure out their naivete.

Another group consists of the fairly educated. They take classes to improve their knowledge and are willing to discuss theory with you without dispensing advice. They often have advisors of their own and take their newfound knowledge to that person to ask questions.

There is the know-it all that likes to talk about how great they are doing and yet is unwilling to share their “secrets” so as to avoid competition. They are their for self-gratification and validation. Tell them how smart they are and they will be your friend for life and yet rarely if every will open up and help you.

You also have the Sharks. These are either people planted in the audience to talk about how good the course is and how much it has helped them so you feel compelled to buy and achieve their success or they consist of “professionals” looking for new clients of their own. They claim to be in the class because the topic is of interest to them, bur really they are there to hand out business cards and drum up business.

Finally there is the King or Queen. This the instructor and often self-dubbed guru who is willing to let you into the secret life of the rich. They are there to show you the magic of how to become financially free and just like them. They often accidentally let information slip out about the fabulous vacations they have taken, the expensive cars and homes they have and often have a rags to riches story. They are amazing sales people and know how to take advantage of your fear of being poor and offer the panacea to solve all of your problems whether it be a $10,000 dollar advanced course, $5,000 dollar software tool that enables you to point and click your way to financial freedom with little or no thought or time, or the amazing book they just came out with. The often desperate people in the class fail to see that the guru’s real skill is sales and that their wealth is coming from your purchases and not from their amazing system they are altruistically giving to you.

America is the land of opportunity. The question is, who is being given the opportunity when you attend a class that is supposed to better your life? Who’s life is the class really benefiting?

I was walking through Macy’s at the mall just “browsing” the cologne section. I knew I wanted something new and had some ideas about the hottest scents out there that might be good. As I walked around the counter, I noticed the saleswoman standing there watching me as I sprayed different scents onto paper strips to test. She could sense my frustration and approached me with the standard “Hi, may I help you?”. I followed suit and replied with the standard “No thanks, I’m just browsing.” At this point she took her cue and gave me space.

As I walked around the glass counter I met up with her again. She mentioned that some new scents had just come in and asked what I usually wore. That simple question and its wisdom would result in a sale. I went over my standard fragrances that I was bored of, and what I thought worked and didn’t. She listened. When I was done talking she motioned me over to a counter an suggested I try a new fragrance, the Lacoste Elegance Eau de Toilette Spray. She suggested that I spray it on my wrist and then walk away for 10 minutes to let it sink in. I did as instructed. She new like the dog seller at the pet store…allow the customer to see how they feel with your product and they won’t want to live without it. As each minute passed and I smelled my wrist and had others smell my wrist to get their opinion I grew more excited. She made me my own best salesperson and within 10 minutes I was back to purchase the largest bottle they had. Now I’m hooked.

We get bombarded with sales and advertising all day everyday. Our automatic response is to say “no” no matter what is being offered. It’s an interesting social phenomenon and those who truly understand it are more likely to be successful at what they do. Humans are overwhelmed with everything in today’s society, and our automatic response is to filter out the weakest messages.

The saleswoman understood me just as she’s understood hundreds before me and will hundreds after me. I’m happy with my new acquisition and will be sure to return for a repeat purchase when the time comes.

It’s amazing. It’s crazy. You’ll never believe it!…

Did you ever notice that there a million most amazing video and police chase shows on TV? They seem to fill the void between good and bad programming hours and interestingly or perhaps incestuously enough they all seem to contain the same “Amazing” videos from 10 years ago. This leads me to three conclusions:

1. Anything amazing in that could ever happen in the world, has already happened and has been caught on camera
2. No matter how bad the video, TV viewers will watch the same footage over and over again
3. There are still people in the world who haven’t seen these amazing things

This sort of product and it’s marketing must be the holy grail of wealth. Loud noises and chaos, human suffering and tradegy, and an unoriginal story line. Wait, isn’t this just like the news?

So I have been doing some unpaid editing/writing for an internet radio/podcasting station monthly newsletter. I’ve been doing this for about 6 months, and I guess I decided to do it because it was at least some kind of outlet for my media-related editorials. I sorta got into this because I’d applied for 1 job (forgot what it was for now) and I wasn’t shortlisted (though I’m sure that was unpaid, too). A few months later I was asked if I wanted to do this. I figured, what the hell.

Over the weekend I went to a ‘trade show’ of sorts - ok, it was a comic book convention, and this is a podcasting website/station dedicated to that sort of media. As we are internet-based, we haven’t been able to all get into one place at the same time to meet, until then. I was handing out my card, asking folks for audio interviews. One ‘employee’ who does the interviews turned out to be a 19-year old girl and neglected to 1) apparently take a shower 2) change her clothes (her tanktop was promoting a brand she is associated with). Bad enough, but worse yet, she doesn’t shave her underarms. This resulted in the most disgusting and embarassing B.O. I have encountered in a long time. Despite her enthusiasm, I was absolutely determined not to take her along to meet any important people. I was also incredibly disheartened that she is, in fact, where the stereotype of ‘Comic Book Guy’ (or girl) of The Simpsons comes from.

The managing director has had a falling out with one of his best presenters last year, who left the company. The MD claims he was only out for himself and ‘not a team player.’ Trouble is, the presenters that are left are just a little bit crap. The lady has B.O., the M.D. has a stupid character whom he ‘talks to’ on his shows (a la ‘Camp David’ on I’m Alan Partridge - don’t worry if you don’t know this reference). The web design of the site is terrible, and the email hosting of the site has had numerous problems. I’ve googled the MD a few times and what I’m reading doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

This has got me to thinking - I know none of us are getting paid, and it’s a start-up venture, so it takes a lot of work. I think it really could be a success. But how long does one have to put up with total mediocrity before one can feel proud of the work one has done, and who you’re doing it with? Some people will never get the chance to do great things at all, and I’m desperate to be a part of something I’d want to tell new acquaintances about at social gatherings. This is not something I want to admit I’m a part of yet, because it’s just so damned mediocre.

Will it get any better? Do I have a cut-off date by which if it isn’t any better, I bail out? I don’t know.

I could get into how my brother in college doesn’t understand that one can’t do great things immediately, and may never get to do so (most especially, in media). But, arguably, that’s what I’m learning right now, so eventually, he’ll get it.

Last night I went to my weekly trivia night with my trivia team at Our House West, in Brighton, Mass. It’s really a college bar that attracts Boston College and Boston University students, but we’ve found that it has the best trivia in town. So it’s not that these details matter, but they provide context for the crowd.

It’s hard for us working folk to go out hard and get drunk on Monday. After all, we don’t have the option of a 2pm first class of the day or even class only two or three days a week. This changes the social dynamics so that it’s unlike a typical after work place. Trivia starts at 8:30 or 9 which gives ample time for those who choose to, to drink hefty amounts of liquid knowledge (it’s funny how childhood memories and facts are remembered more easily after a few drinks that enable you to stop over complicating the answers).

Unfortunately last night, all attempts by me to rationalize my presense at this bar were shattered. As I entered the men’s room to do as nature intended me to do after a few beers I made the conscious choice to head for the stall as on urinal was already in use. God forbid the man in the urinal should think I want to have sex with him if I had used the one next to him, which is a fact I learned after making a previous post about modesty in the men’s room. To my dismay someone had expelled the contents of their entire dinner, dessert, and whatever crap they had used to wash it all down. It was only Monday night and the bathroom was trashed as if it was the scene of some wild college party, yet one look around the bar would have you believing otherwise as trivia teams answered questions about Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, The Galapagos Islands, the opposing team against the Dodgers when Hank Aaron made his debut, and the Oklahoma football player who was the two time recipient of the Butkiss award.

Perhaps all those studies are wrong and binge drinking is no longer a weekend activity but rather a full-time sport for some.

Is anyone else finding the Google Adwords interesting? I mention the word b* a _ n * k in previous posts and suddenly all the ads are to do with b * a _ n * k _ i * n _ g and l _ i * f _e a * s _ s * u _ r * a _ n * c _ e. Of course I’m getting geolocated because they are UK-centric ads. So I’m wondering what kind of ads everyone else is seeing?

Random stuff to confuse Adwords: television, celebrity photos, auction, back pain, coreography, medicine, voiceover, haberdashery.

So apparently there’s this archaeological project in the works over in Greece where archaeologists are trying to locate the island used for the setting of Ithaca (Homer’s Odyssey).

…

Okay. That’s cool. I enjoyed the book even though I was forced to read it by my tenth grade teacher who took all of her sexual frustrations out on the class (which I think says a lot about the book). But it gets better (or worse, depending on your outlook on life):

A Dutch geological engineering company has agreed to help.

Thompson said the company would sink sensors into bore holes, and likely follow up with sonar analysis of the seabed, as well as using material detectors that dangle from a helicopter and undersea sensors dragged through the water by ship.

Sensors? Sonar? Helicopters? Oh my. Sounds expensive. I wonder who’s paying for all of this?

Okay. So I know it’s totally inappropriate (not to mention ignorant) for me to assume any other country is run in the same fashion as America, but aren’t these things usually paid for by grants? The government? The government that is funded by the people of the country?

I’m willing to accept the fact that I may be completely wrong in this assumption because, really, I don’t know.

Regardless of who’s paying for it, it’s an effing book. You don’t see anyone running out to find Hogwarts and that stupid little train they ride to get there that I can’t remember the name of.

What’s going to happen when they do find it?

“People of the world, we have a most glorious announcement! After countless years and lots of wasted money, we’ve found the island that Homer based Ithaca off of!”

“Huh. Cool beans, guys.” Then everyone goes back to watching television and talking on their cell phones.

Read the full article here.

Advice and criticism are like peas in a pod. One is usually perceived as positive while the other usually perceived as negative yet they both really say the same thing…”you could be doing things better, and this is what you should be doing. If I were you…”. So while there is nothing inherently wrong with giving advice or criticism, what is interesting is that it is hard for people to follow their own affirmations about life. Talk is cheap. Action takes effort. Motives are never really known.

I give advice often and probably criticize just as much, never with malice in mind of course, but I guess it’s just one of those things I do. I question nature and purpose of advice and criticism and how they manifest and become part of our daily lives. Aside from being able to get on my soap box and get my ego stoked what purpose do I have if any when flapping my lips and speaking my mind?

When asking advice, people generally seek the answers they already know. Why do it then? Does it speak to lack of self-confidence and direction. Is it indicative of the fact that 99 percent of people want to be lead by the other 1 percent of the population? or do they just want confirmation of what they know and what they believe. When I criticize is it my lack of control or input to a situation that motivates me?

I have no particular point to this post other than exploring the nature of things and their relation to me. What do you think?