Sick day

I spaced writing in this blog. Whoops! I will call it a sick day I guess. My voice is getting better at least!

Speaking

You never realize how much you need your eyes, ears, or in my case, mouth until you can't use them anymore.

I lost my voice yesterday night after recording a session in the recording studio. Since then I realized how often my family speaks to me and I give them simple answers throughout the day. I speak quite often actually. I take that one for granted.
However, even though I haven't been able to verbally say anything all day, (I probably can now, I think my voice is back) I have been chatting to quite a few people over the phone and internet all day long. It's interesting because I almost speak more over my phone than I do in person--just because I'm not always around people to speak to them.

I'm going to keep this short because I have some people I need to talk to: truth of the day? You never know how much you appreciate something until it's gone.

Pop Music

There is a lot of science that goes into "pop" music, or music that reaches a mass audience. It's all about marketing, sure, and the concept is that instead of having a targeted audience they have a broad audience or multiple targets, but it's actually pretty complex.

Some people think it's as simple as auto-tuning and tweaking all of your music, but it requires balancing all publicity (case in point Kanye West, who tweets and makes a big show of everything) to writing the perfect lyrics that appeal to just about everyone (usually highly emotional lyrics). Why do you think pop music is so focused on sex with women? --Cause pop culture today is about sex with women: women find thinking about sex appealing and men obviously find talking about sex appealing. In fact, there has been a trend of famous women coming out and admitting that they have had sexual encounters with other women (gaga, fergie, etc.) My point is, pop music is all about marketing. The trend these days is to feature artists together (eminiem ft. lil'wayne. B.o.B. ft. Haley Williams. etc.) The reason they do this is not because they think it would be cool (although Kanye West might think that is the case) but because it draws in a crowd to support their favorite artist. What that means is that even though you don't like Haley Williams, you'll buy the song because you like B.o.B. or Eminiem.

Just in one paragraph I've convinced you that pop music is a little more complex than just writing a song and playing it. It's all about making money and doing so through proper marketing.

Social Networking, Changing Marketing

Over the last few years, social networking has taken off as THE marketing tool. I obviously enjoy it since I am an active blogger.
It's free, it's easy, but yet there is a science to it. I will admit that I am pretty lazy with this blog on using it as a marketing tool. For starters I don't understand who my audience is--I assume it's just me and a few close friends and stalkers. I also don't have much of a purpose for this other than my own personal purposes: I like to have a place where I can just write about whatever I want.
But just because few people read this doesn't mean I'm not going to do it. I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to survive in life and not go crazy, I would need to have a few hobbies that I merely did for fun.
Using this blog helps me to voice my thoughts in a restricted way because I'm not going to write anything that I find so extreme that I would be uncomfortable with other people reading it.--once I hit publish, this is out in the world for anyone to read!

Short term relationships, really? Seriously?

Although I write in my other blog about the short-term relationships and how they are possible and can be done ethically, what I don't tell people if that...not really...

I mean, you can have a short term relationship in which you are both only interested in short-term activities, but it isn't going to be satisfying for you. You can also do it ethically with full consent and numerous other things, but in reality, the minor habits and behaviors that it would require in order to pull it off in that way would bug the heck out of every living person. There is also the fact that the closer you get to people, the more attached to you they become. Which basically means that you will be very very unhappy when you become separated.
If the purpose of a short-term relationship is to fulfill certain short-term needs, well then a short-term relationship in it's most idealistic form doesn't really exist. The short-term relationships that are possible for a person in this life are so warped and confusing that instead of fulfilling your core of essential needs they create more needs than they fulfill--if they fulfill any at all!

It is rather bothersome to me when I hear or observe people going down that road. I know how much unhappiness it can bring to them and I wish I could shake them and tell them to snap out of it, but they never listen.

These same people also tend to gain the loudest voice when they complain about the world and how the world can't fix all their problems and there is no hope for them. It is sad to see this because it all starts on that slippery slope argument that: its okay to have friends who are almost my boyfriend but not really because I'm not interested in dating anyone at this time. Therefore...



If I could go back and rewrite that article, I would expose everything wrong with short-term dating, in fact, I was about to publish the article that way but retracted it. The reason I phrased it the way I did is because the people who will benefit most from my dating blog are the people who refuse to date, are too proud to date (either because they think they know everything, or think that it's beneath them), and the people who are scared and uncomfortable dating.--consequently, these same people are also the ones who are interested in having short-term relationships, even though they are destructive to them. I have an article planned to further emphasize the importance of this issue, but it will be a while coming, and I would rather people continue reading my blog because they were interested in that first article they read that really related to them, whether it is the short-term one or the one on marriage, than I would have them scared away from reading a chastizement of their behavior in the first article they read.

How do I know all of these things? Because I've been down that road. I've had "short-term" relationships and I've had what were long-term relationships that happened to end. I remember the long term ones and still appreciate having been in them. I also remember the short-term ones and feel disgusted by them and wish they never happened. They literally made my life worse. I've learned from them though and that's why I became a dating coach: to share with people the things I know so that they don't go through a lot of the mistakes it took me just to learn this stuff.

I could fix you if you would let me

I'm a fairly empathetic person--i feel bad when people get into situations that I have ever been in before, though I have one clause to that statement: they have to be attempting to get beyond the situation and progressing, otherwise if they are just being miserable I don't feel for them because I have always tried to get out of situations I didn't like.
In any case, I feel there are a lot of things that I have done in my life and so I often find it easy to relate to people.
But there is always one side effect to being this way. I get really frustrated with people at times because I have a solution that will fix or aid them in their problem and yet I feel as though a lot of my advice and help is rejected on account of my poor persuasion powers at the tone of delivery.

Sometimes i think it might just be my ethos that I don't portray correctly to send people the message that "look, I've been there done that", or perhaps people look at other areas of my life and think: "why would I trust him, he's kinda shady?" I would hope the persuasion is on the fault of my character and not because I failed to persuade with a good verbal argument; although I hate that my questionable character at times could prevent people from believing what I have to say. Quintillion was right a good life is more persuasive than any verbal argument.

With that in mind I think I'm going to expand this blog to also include small anecdotes and thoughts of mine (it already does that), so that there is a public place of record of my life and hopefully that record will help me to be persuasive with other things.

And to start it all off, I want to say that I have always had good intentions. --If good intentions was all that it took to be ethical, I'd be the tops; but life isn't that easy. I'm a utilitarian, as I said previously, and if it doesn't bring more good for more people then your intentions fall pretty flat. But I think it's important to note that I get very moral when I am the cause of bad things, and often times those bad effects or the possible bad effects, deter me from doing a lot of things until I can prove that they'll be more good than bad.


I would honestly love to spend my life devoted to helping other people. If I can find a way to make a living at it I definitely will do it, but it's a matter of making money doing it because I just don't see it as very beneficial to large amounts of people if I am unable to take care of myself and have to have other people take care of me so that I can take care of them.--kinda goes against the tribal system doesn't it? (shamans, medicine men, chiefs, etc. staying at home sending others to do the hunting for them so that they can help the people with other things) We did after all get away from the tribal system when technology advanced, so I assume it's generally a good thing.

What make$ the World Go round?

I didn't mention this, and maybe tomorrow I'll write about it (note to self): Not all exchanges are equal. Sometimes one person gets a better deal than the other person. Discounts are like that: people give you 50% off because they know you'll do other things with that as well, such as purchase more products (more money for them), get rid of their excess supply (liquidate it), or become a return customer, or even just come to the store in the first place--my point is, even though there are "discounts" there are also things going on behind the surface that you don't see and yet somewhat make up for what looks like a rip off.


Now apply that to me going around to get desserts: Well, let me just say that I'm more loyal to people who have given me desserts and so when it comes time to lay the blame one someone I avoid those people. I also tend to be more inclined to aid people who have helped me in the past. Politicians do it too when they accept campaign donations and etc. etc. --Is it fair? Not always. Can it be avoided? Always.

I will DEFINITELY explain that one tomorrow!

--I made this comment yesterday as an afterthought to my previous post.

Now I'm going to explain what I believe to be true about discounts and trades, as well as the ethics behind paying and accepting bribes.


Discounts occur when someone sells or trades something at a lesser value than it is worth. For starters, you should never give REAL discounts. You shouldn't ever sell or trade anything at a lesser value than it is worth, you should always try to get the exact value of it's worth. Why? Because there's this principle that I call "the principle behind energy". Energy can't be destroyed, when energy disappears it is merely transferring into another form of energy. What about power? --Well power is kinda the same way: it's there, it's just a matter of where it is. When you use power, you're trading something for another thing. What about money? --Same thing, money doesn't ever get destroyed, but where does it flow?

So in order for the world to be fair, we would need perfectly balanced trades. In an ideal world people would pay for products based on their worth: value of the product, the scarcity of the product, the emotional attachment to the product, etc. So when you sell for less, someone benefits from it who doesn't deserve it. --HOWEVER. Most of the time discounts ARE given to products at their exact price because the extra 25% on a 25% discount goes towards the store paying YOU to shop in their store, it goes towards YOU being loyal to them. See, it goes towards other things even though it's a discount. But it's important to understand this, because sometimes people honestly sell things for less than they are worth and they really aren't getting anything from it.

More frequently though, people get things for free that they don't deserve. This is where it becomes incredibly tricky to track the exchange of money or power or whatever: when people give me dessert, are they buying a loyal and beneficial friend or are they giving a hand out to someone who doesn't deserve it?

I try to pay back every good deed people give me as best as I possibly can. I try to be the best friend I possibly can to people who give me things. I really do. Does it always happen?>>no, not always, but I hope those same people get things from me that I make the mistake of giving out for free.

This actually brings up an interesting concept: In what way is it ethical to hoard (and use) all free and cheap things? Well, if you're a utilitarian, as I claim to be, if you take things for free that you need and it allows you to give more free things to other people, then theoretically that would be true. However, it would be incredibly hard to keep track of that. --I would say this is a loophole because it is in fact a true statement and it is a good philosophy to run on in life (I buy into this). But because of the complexity of it, it would be deathly hard to prove the ethics of it, and if someone simply lived their life to not take free hand outs they could be certain of their ethics.
The trouble with loop-holes is that at some point in the loop you have to stop caring and just do it.



Now on to my explanation of bribes and campaign donations. I'll keep this brief: Any kind of donation is perfectly acceptable as long as the donation goes to what the person donating expects it to (the person receiving it is ethical about their use of donation funds) and as long as it is something ethical for them to donate to (meaning it's on a case by case basis). You donate to the starving kids in africa fund because you expect it to help pay for food for those kids. You donate to a politician's campaign because you expect it to help them be elected either because you like the guy, like what he's going to do in office, or whatever.
It is perfectly ethical to use money to trade for things you want, including donations (which are actually just trade offs that you don't see the immediate effect of).



Ahh...such makes the world go round: trading, Buying, selling, true capitalism, gifting, donating, bartering, it's all the same.

If life wasn't this way we'd be in terrible trouble because nothing would be fair (free handouts are not fair and disrupt the system, therefore communism isn't fair, socialism and social systems aren't always fair either).