Tag: money

Painful Consumption Experiences

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There’s a things in marketing called paying for painful consumption experiences. I heard about this for the first time a few days ago and it refers to things like boxing, triathlons or climbing. They’re not always pleasant and we potentially suffer pain when we complete them. From a marketing perspective it would be why people are willing to pay for these things and how to make them do it. How can you convince someone to not only participate in something that will leave them in pain but actively give you money to inflict it upon them.

When we think of it that way human behaviour can be bizarre. What it does suggest is that our everyday existences lack something so basic and necessary that we will go to extreme lengths to achieve it. It isn’t that we need to experience the sensation of pain, it is the affect upon the human body that experiencing this sensation has. Can we really compare sitting in an office all day or working in retail or whatever average job we may have, to being out hunting an animal for food to survive. Can we even compare it to working in a factory during the industrial revolution. The point is that after thousands of years of feeling the intensity and adrenaline of daily survival we’re now living such safe lives that we actively go out in search of this feeling our bodies have ordinarily been experiencing all these years prior. We need it. But why?

Anyone who has done something extreme like a boxing match, skydiving or climbing a rockface will tell you it makes them feel real. It makes life feel real. They know they’re alive because they feel true existence in that moment. Partly they’re finally there in the present moment. Your head cannot be in the clouds dreaming about the future, the past or dinner when you have to be fully focused on simply getting through that moment. No wonder people hunt out that feeling. You don’t get that punching numbers behind an office screen all day, and I don’t say that critically of punching numbers it is simply an example. The truth is not everybody wants a painful consumption experience. That is also fine.

But why pay for it. Surely we could just go out and swim across the nearest lake or create our own version of these extreme survival things in the nearest woods. That involves effort to set up so it is probably a bad example but there are plenty of extreme things we can do without feeling the need to pay for them or be manipulated by marketing. We put a certain type of value on things when we pay for them. In a way that is how we can create value. If it isn’t handmade or has some emotional importance the likelihood is the other determining factor is a financial one. This is society and this is how we have become programmed to get things. If we want it we pay for it. If we want adrenaline, we’re likely going to find something we can spend money on that will give us that feeling. The marketers understand. They understand us better than we do.

The Endless Pandemic

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What on earth is going on with this virus? As expected the winter months will bring an increase in illness, which is normal, but does that also mean there will be an increase in virus numbers too. Earlier in the week the government decided to ban gatherings of more than six unless you had a card reader and the necessary funds available, the Scottish government followed suit a few days later. Today apparently the ‘R’ number is now back above one. This ultimately means we’re going in the wrong direction and they’ve added over a million Brummies to the local lockdown list to prove it. At what point do all the local lockdowns just merge into one and we admit we’re back where we were in April. Apparently football fans may still be allowed back into stadiums in October though, with pubs open they’ll at least be allowed a couple of pints before they go in. When will they just admit they’re slowly letting the virus move through the populace and creating this herd immunity they were at least honest about back in the Spring.

Bringing back the spirit of ‘The Blitz’ is a cringe worthy act and one I poured scorn on as the government and the media did their best to drum up some national unity and sentimentality when they did. Today though when I had a moment of realisation and despair that this was not over any time soon it did make my mind wander to past wars such as the Second World War. This pandemic has been around and affected our daily life now for about eight months, I despaired when I thought it might hang around long enough to hit the year mark. The mental resilience people must have faced to endure six years of hardship and the unknown. Of course they adapted and just got on with it but it is never as simple as that. A pandemic is fearing the unknown but more it’s an unseen and invisible enemy, it could be lurking anywhere. I admit generally I just get on with my day as normally as possible but it is still there in the mind, and societies daily norms are clearly all over the place still. It’s only been eight months and it feels endless. Maybe we are soft, I wonder what our grandparents would have done. Adapt or lose. Just get on with it in the meantime. What else is there.

The Wrong Herd

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There are times we must question whether we are right. Nobody is ever one hundred percent right of course but let’s say more right than wrong. Someone who goes through life always believing themselves to be right in everything may not end up with many friends but could likely have successes in other respects. If someone goes through life always believing themselves wrong, would it be the opposite outcome? Probably unlikely. It must be important to be aware that we may just be wrong though. Is that humility? Maybe self-awareness?

I was thinking of discussing something in the news. One of those fallback pieces in which I decide to deride some politicians for their ineptitude, or an evolution in something on a geopolitical level that arouses some dissatisfaction within me. Usually a complaint of some sort. We’re less likely to be drawn to stories that have a positive and happy narrative remember. Maybe there’s something in that we could learn from. We’re drawn to stories of misery while living lives of misery. Like creates like as they say. Perhaps I should do a new ten day challenge and only write about happy positive things. I’ll probably pass on that one.

Usually the political stories I’m drawn to involve ones bashing the current government in the UK or the US, and commonly the opposition to both governments too. As you can imagine I’m not full of much belief in the political legitimacies of these two countries. Other people though must be. I say must be because not only did enough people vote in the two buffoons holding power but it also appears enough people want to vote in the establishment representatives who will most likely replace them at the next opportunity. When we see a large group of other people doing things we’re inclined to believe they may just be right and we may just be wrong. Herd mentally amongst many other names. It is easy to dismiss these people voting for these two sides as adherents of such a mental state but it’s likely I’m just swayed by another herd that I want to be part of. It’s likely a much smaller herd and one that feeds certain things in my fearful sense of survival but it’s a herd none the less.

With all this then we must all admit we’re being played one way or another. This huge game of power is rattling away as different groups battle it out for moral superiority and likely financial gain one way or another. Money corrupts, power corrupts, everything seems to corrupt, especially morality. Perhaps we’re just a corrupt species and we need to accept it. Or maybe we just need to stop worrying about whatever wrongs are happening in the world and focus on life as it unfolds before us. One extreme to the other yet again. It’s just exhausting that these arseholes continually manage to win power. More so when they’re clearly morally bankrupt and doing a bad job. It’s even possible to imagine things like this could finally defeat me and I stop giving a shit about the world. Maybe just give a shit in a different way. A detached way perhaps, or one that doesn’t get caught up in the hyperbolic nature of power. Or even my own perceived role within all this power. There’s got to be an answer somewhere. I’m sure we’ll see it too when we can finally figure out what it is that has been in front of our eyes all this time.

Permanent Seasonal Work

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It’s got to that point in life where I’m thinking of entering the cryptocurrency world. I’ve been given a hot tip and have been attempting for the last twelve hours to act on it. It turns out that buying cryptocurrency is not straight forward. I like things to be straight forward. It’s a complicated world too. Unless people are heavily into it people rarely know much or understand much about what it even is. I just like the idea that once bitcoin cost pennies and now they’re about nine thousand dollars each. Someone out there got stinking rich and is now swanning around having a lovely time. I would like that to be me.

It’s luck really. Unless you know the people who are creating these things and what their next step is, which is illegal of course and also no guarantee of success, then the likelihood is you’ll not make much or you’ll lose it all. They’re like penny shares and if the reward is high then surely the risk is even higher. Some may make a fortune but luck plays probably the biggest part of all. But then luck plays a huge part in all success in a way. Of course the adage that you make your own luck is accurate in many ways that doesn’t mean you’re ever fully in control, or potentially in control at all, of events.

I refer to success in making money in one particular way but this could relate to lots of things. Sports and music would be such examples. That isn’t to say the sports stars and musicians haven’t put in a ridiculous and almost obsessive amount of hard work and sacrifice because they will have but to deny the existence of luck and various events going their way fortuitously in undeniable.

I need some luck then. Am I a lucky person? I’m certainly not an unlucky person, I think I can cede that. Which means I must be lucky. Is there a middle ground? Well nothing is ever black and white so I’ll claim some variety of the middle ground once more. I do love the middle ground. There’s nothing quite like being indecisive. I think I wrote a piece on it months ago, something about the virtue of sitting on the fence. My memory tells me it was a good one. This may be less so but it is better than what I was originally going to write which was; “Tonight I am tired. I have been defeated”. Definitely an improvement. I try not to winge too much about not sleeping enough and working too much but I really need to stop averaging five hours a night. I’m used to doing seasonal work where you destroy yourself for six to eight weeks and then travel. This feels like it’s been going on since lockdown. The travel part really can’t come soon enough.

That’ll do for tonight. I thank you for your patience and your interest if you’ve made it this far. I’m off to bed.

Teach Me O Wise Leader

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There once was a man called William T. Riker. He was a fictional character in Star Trek, quite a popular and well known one apparently. There was also another man called William E. Riker, he was less fictional and created his own city called ‘Holy City’. He was a cult leader who also happened to be a conman and a white supremacist. Now is not the time for his story, I recommend either you check out his wikipedia page if you’re boring or listen to the latest episode of ‘The Dollop’ if you have a spare one hundred and two minutes and like jokes. In short though the city itself was at it’s height in and around the 1920s, 30s and 40s. It became a white supremacist theme park of sorts, people gave up their wives to him and he seemed to thrive on people’s attention. It was based upon his teachings of God, his love of Cadillacs and the ability to make money from selling fuel and access to peep shows. He also ran for political office multiple times and failed miserably each time. To put it simply he was a total character and he died a grumpy old man at the age of ninety-six. The land still contains one of the original buildings and was sold recently to Robert and Patricia Duggan for six million dollars. Robert Duggan recently made three and a half billion dollars selling an oncology drug and is a very wealthy man. He also donated twenty million dollars to The Church of Scientology making him their largest financial donor.

What I don’t understand, amongst many things, is how someone can look at that land and it’s history, I assume recognise it was once owned by a crazy cult and then turn around without one iota of irony and give twenty million anything to what is also clearly a crazy cult. The Church Of Scientology is based upon a science fiction novel, my brain does not understand the complexities of the human mind sufficiently to understand what it is that allows people to ignore that overwhelming fact. At least the Bible has fear built into it and large enough numbers to give it credibility in the minds of pack animals. When people started believing in the Bible we barely had science and still believed the world was flat…he says with a hint of irony. It also tells you that while money might be useful it’s clearly not the answer as people embrace whatever it is that Scientology has to offer. Do people living in the niche bubble of the super wealthy really have such lives devoid of the reality that we know, they see truth in a cult like Scientology? All the money in the world and they’re still searching for answers and happiness. Saying that we can’t dismiss the possibility that Scientology actually is the answer and that they allow themselves to appear to anyone who wasn’t denied the contact of a mother as a baby as crazies to keep the riff raff out. It’s a possibility but I’m sticking to the laws of probability here. I’m sure were I to give myself more time and read some psychology papers, if anyone has any please email them to me, that point out the everyday things I most likely do that are comparative to the offerings in a cult. Money, celebrity, power would probably feature but I would love to know the things I’m completely unaware of, the things I’ve been brainwashed not only into believing but so brainwashed I am unaware they are even things. Isn’t the mind wonderful. Now believe in mine for it is God. And give me your wife if you have one.

Prioritise Dreams

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There was an article on the BBC today which I found very interesting in how it allowed for different perspectives of how we view society. The article discussed how the hopes and dreams of youths are at odds with the type of jobs that will be available to them. Apparently “five times as many seventeen and eighteen year olds in the UK want to work in art, culture, entertainment and sport as there are jobs available” and that equated to over half of those surveyed only wanting to work in this sector. Seemingly the industry that requires people the most is accommodation and catering, unfortunately for them they require seven times the number of students who expressed an interest, wholesale and retail appears to suffering from similar disinterest. According to this article, the report believes “young people’s career aspirations need to be constructively challenged”. The article then moves on to how certain young people potentially feel they cannot achieve career goals because of their gender, ethnicity or social-economic background.

Now this article can be viewed two ways I would suggest. On the one hand it can be seen that the youth of today need to embrace a little reality, that they won’t always be able to do the jobs they want, must stop being fixated with being either Instagram models or footballers – terrible gender stereotyping I know but humour me – but also not allow the barriers of their own existence to hold them back from a more serious career. On the other hand it appears that the majority of young people want an interesting, creative career in the arts and entertainment world, and not to be working as waiters or hotel cleaners. To completely dismiss the first idea would most likely expose a glaring ignorance about the realities of life for many people, “destined for disappointment” as the article put it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in it. However what the article seems to not take into consideration, and this is understandable given the angle it is written from, is that if the young peoples desires “do not meet the demands of the economy” then perhaps the economy should not be the factor that dictates what work people do, perhaps society has it’s priorities wrong.

I would love to see the numbers of people wanting to be artists and musicians, over Instagram models and footballers, because that could change my perspective slightly. That is though my take on value in the creative arts world and I would be an ignorant man to not see the folly in that. There are many reasons young people will not get the jobs they want in life, but they don’t mention that perhaps these jobs just don’t satisfy people, maybe if people could choose they would not endure jobs that exist for no other reason than for the sake of existing, bring no real benefit to society or the earth, and are nothing more than ways to pay tax and kill time as we wait to die. Surely it needn’t be this way. Money, economics and business are not fundamentally bad things in their own right but misused and corrupted they lead to the real needs of people being either ignored or dismissed as childish dreams. We all dreamt of something when we were young though, why is we can never seem to remember our dreams?

Bureaucracy

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A bureaucratic nightmare is a phrase that you may not have said yourself but will have certainly heard said by someone else in a usually less than positive moment. Bureaucracy is one of those things that we all just love to hate. We spend three days filling out a one hundred page form to apply for a foot test or a visa to a foreign land, and bemoan the complete and utter waste of our time. At least you can enter those foreign lands I hear someone saying. Anyway when four months later we receive back a notification that we forgot to fill in Section 17 Subsection P which can be found by following the link printed at the bottom of the last page and will now have to pay a fine of four hundred and forty-nine pounds or be banned from ever filling out forms again, we forget about the waste of time, rejoice and decide now is the moment to finally tear down the state. We’ve all been there.

I’m going to Ireland for Christmas, how lovely. The dog will be coming along and it appears that despite Ireland being rabies free, she needs an up to date rabies jab if she wants to come with us. I can confirm she wants to go. Fair enough I hear you say. What I don’t understand is why she needs these things. I can understand requiring them coming from mainland Europe as this is an island and it is about keeping various diseases out, such as rabies in this case. However I don’t need any pet documentation to go to Northern Ireland, which while still being part of the UK is also coincidentally still part of the island of Ireland. I suspect very few people within the island of Ireland give much of a shit about taking their pet passports, or even getting one if they’re going back and forth over the border so what really is the point.

It makes zero logical and practical sense as it can be circumvented so easily which means it must be down to some political bureaucratic nonsense. This will be some EU law or regulation cooperative states abide by and I dare say this could be an easy moment to rant about the EU if I was that way inclined. That though would miss the point, this is more symptomatic of State, governance and institutional power. Regulations protect and eat away at liberties in different often polarised ways but we’re dealing here with the ultimate trip – time and money, and what they mean for power – bureaucracies most honoured of friends.