Is modern marketing, with all of the digital data available, intrusive? You bet it is. The question is - is that a bad thing? I expect that depends on whether or not you enjoy shopping. Personally, I'd rather go to the dentist than go shopping. Oh - and I hate the dentist, in spite of the fact one of my oldest, best friends and his wife are both dentists. Clearly shopping is not something I am particularly fond of.
Data mining is the new gold field - how often have you been browsing the Web, jumped on to Facebook and IMMEDIATELY seen ads for the item you were just looking at or similar competitive items? It happens to me daily. Check the page header age for Yahoo the next time you open yahoo. Effective data mining. All tailored specifically for you. Personally I enjoy the fact that some algorithm does the work and I an led to sites that have exactly what I am browsing for. Now this is not necessarily bad and it is easy to stop. You can always use a browser like Tor or you can browse incognito, both of which I find to be a pain in the butt. I deal with it by deleting my browsing history several times a day and each day when I am finished with the computer. It is quite simple - I use Google Chrome but Edge and FireFox both work the same way. In Chrome simply click on the 3 vertical dots st the far right of the address bar, That opens a menu and and you click on More Tools - which opens another menu to the left. Click the Clear Browsing History option. I personally click the four top options and then the Clear Data box in the bottom right corner of the screen. Problem solved for a while. At the end of the day repeat the procedure and you will have a fresh start the next time you loginf Remember - these sites earn their money on site clicks and advertising. They have a powerful argument to make about effective targeted marketing. I do not understand why so many people are offended by this - welcome to capitalism. Plus, each browser has their own set of rules for clearing browsing data so do a little exploring. That's it for this weeks 2-on-1 blog. Be sure to check Ramana's take here.
This weeks 2-on-1 topic is pain. There's physical pain and emotional pain. Both have multiple causes and I'd wager most people would say emotional pain often surpasses even the deepest physical pain. Personally, that is the case as other than a couple of serious back sprains, emotional pain has pretty much always been stronger.
I don't know where we went wrong but the feelings gone and I just can't get it back. That is powerful pain.
The pain these songs are meant to assuage is that really deep, mind numbing pain only a relationship collapse can cause. Now nobody is suggesting that the actual physical pain of a cancer patient, for example, is not significantly greater than emotional pain. Is it not ironic that two of the most significant physical pains are giving birth and a slow, painful death due to cancer? Here's a quote I love - One day I hope you look back at all we had, and regret every single thing you did to let it end. That is firing back with both barrels.
Pain is a huge part of life, including our learning processes. We learn from our mistakes - you don't stick your finger into a flame too many times before you realize it hurts and it would be a good idea to stop. That makes pain a great motivator. If you are interested in the various types of pain and the how and why of it check Wikipedia here.
That's a wrap on Pain - this weeks topic, Be sure to check what Ramana has posted here. I'll close with a couple of appropriate tunes.
This weeks topic was my choice and it was inspired by one of our friends and readers, Tammy James. Tammy is a vocal proponent of the simple life. She calls it her minimalist experience. So what's it all about? What's this minimalist experience? More and more people are joining this movement. What makes it one of the coolest and most beneficial lifestyles to follow in today’s cluttered world? Everything I have read indicates minimalism is a lean, agile lifestyle. It may be necessitated by financial restrictions or handicaps like mine - that monthly SS check. Others choose minimalism even though financial limitations do not apply. Think the Tiny House movement. You can read about it here. The American Dream has shifted to an uncluttered one with a tiny house on wheels. Now I tried downsizing but my tiny house turned out to be a 3BR2BA single wide trailer and that did not work out to well. My daughter and her kids crashed the party and trashed the house. By the time you read this I will likely be without power, hunkered down with the family and our pets as hurricane Florence blows across North Carolina. You don't have to purchase a tiny house to be a minimalist - a small apartment will do just fine. The goal is to declutter your life and strip it down to what you need. To a minimalist that loves books you my keep scores of books.I - on the other hand have eye problems so I read a Kindle. My book storage requirements are the kindle itself and some "cloud" space. Decluttering can be a hard thing to do - most of us get emotionally attached to our stuff and so when it's time to bid adieu to that stuff you may find yourself in a deep emotional conflict. Keep at it. Don't give up. when it's done it's really done. My ideal minimalist space is a simple 1BR1BA apartment - maybe even a studio apartment. Need room for a guest, my dog Ginger and my wide screen HDTV. I really do need that. Hockey season starts soon. That makes me a happy guy. The secret to having it all is knowing that you already do. It is a wise person that understands the truth in that statement. Tammy is a wise person - and generous as she shares that nugget with her readers regularly. One of the joys of life on the simple side is you are in control of it. You own it - the clutter is gone so there is no excuse to not do what you want, listen to a song whenever you wish.
You can even choose to be a social butterfly if you wish. Tammy is something of a social butterfly in the very best essence of the term. One of the very best things about blogging is the interaction with people from all over, and Tammy's comments can be seen in several places. Her level of contentment is amazing as I have never seen a negative comment save maybe disliking a song by a fave singer of mine. If memory serves, he held a note so long it bothered her - LOL. Well lets try that one again Ms James - lol
By the way - do you know that our pal Tammy is related to a gent named Jesse James? I wonder if she inherited his shooting prowess - or if maybe the Marine did. So that is my little tribute to my buddy Tammy - an absolute sweetheart and a good friend, even if she is in Oklahoma ( that's a Texas thing) and the person that kick started my interest in the simple life. We'll see ya next week with another 2-on-1 topic featuring eastern (Ramana) and western takes on the weekly topic.
Curiosity - this weeks topic du jour was offered by my friend Ramana. Be sure to check his blog here for his take on the topic. According to Merriam Webster, curiosity is simply the desire to know and one that arouses interest especially for uncommon or exotic characteristics Tobacco was once regarded as a curiosity in Europe.: an unusual knickknack : curioThe antique shop was full of curiosities. a curious trait or aspect. Should one believe old wives tales, curiosity is responsible for wholesale cat slaughter but the current cat population is substantial enough to bring the veracity of that saying into question. And, the sheer volume of cat videos on Youtube certainly supports that notion. IMHO, curiosity is the single most critical behavioral trait responsible for mankind's growth and development. Science itself is based upon curiosity - why do things react the way they do? Curiosity drives all of those scientific experiments. We have a nearly insatiable desire to learn - and that is a very good thing.
How can you look at a picture like this and not be curious?
Curiosity is the key to our intelligence. It keeps us moving forward and drives our successes and failures. The curious mind is not derailed by failure - like the professional salesperson that sees every no as the removal of an impediment to the next yes, the curious mind sees failures as moving a step closer to the truth. Curiosity got us to the moon (with some serious mathematical help). Curiosity got the Mars Rover all the way to mars and curiosity got the voyager program going. Per NASA, the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-39-year journey since their 1977 launch, both Voyager spacecrafts carry a greeting to any form of life, should that be encountered. The message is carried by a phonograph record - -a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the divers Check out The Cabinet of Curiosities of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages. Curiosity is fueled by many things, but a primary motivator has always been money. The desire to open up trade across the entire continent for economic reasons kick started the Lewis and Clark expedition. The desire to create the most bizarre - but tasty - fried food has motivated food vendors at fairs since time began. I personally draw the line at fried butter - even I have my limits. Fried ice cream, though, is perfectly acceptable. Curiosity fuels fans of mysteries. One of my favorite series is the FBI Special Agent Pendergast books by Lincoln Preston and Douglas Child. Check out The Cabinet of Curiosities or check out the wide range of titles in the series here. I heartily recommend the series as an enjoyable read with quirky characters, wide ranging story lines and more than a few surprises. I have always been a curious fellow. That has led me to being what is known as a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. That is the trait that allows me to sit down and write these little dittys pretty much off the top of my head. Over the years my mind has been a steel trap for useless (read trivia) information. I assure you it has saved me a fair amount of money in bars over the years. My friend Brian Scott and I form a virtually invincible Trivial Pursuit team - BS is a dentist and our skill sets are very complimentary. It does not hurt that BS is also one of the two or three most intelligent people I have ever known. Curiosity has been crucial in our development and will continue to be - we need to guard against losing that spark inside us that drives us to learn. That's it for this week's topic. See ya next week, same bat time, same bat channel for another installment of 2-on-1.
