Stumbling around the internet, I found this informative editorial posted on a website that I’ve never visited before. The article is called “Gold is money; therefore a hedge against inflation and deflation.” Even is some may already know the things it presents, I believe there are many people who don’t read such informative articles too often (myself included) and would therefore benefit from it.

Here’s an excerpt:

Gold is money; therefore a hedge against inflation and deflation

Hubert Moolman
Dec 15, 2008

Warren Buffett one of the world’s most successful investors apparently once said the following about gold:

“It gets dug out in Africa or some place. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it.
It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”

Well, Mr Buffett let me attempt to explain to you and the “Martians” why this is so, as well as correct your statement (if it was your statement) that it has no utility.

First of all, gold is money; it is not like other commodities that we use mostly in production, consumption etc. One of money’s main functions is to store wealth. We therefore earn money, we hoard it, we guard it and then we exchange it for assets when needed.

Gold is the premier store of wealth that this world has known for the last 3000 plus years. Even the fact that gold is not the official currency in the countries of the world has not changed this fact. I know of no place in the world, now or many years before, where gold is not known and not highly valued.

So in summary, gold is money and it derives its usefulness from being money and therefore people dig it out, melt it down and guard it like they would guard money.

You can read the full article, and many others, on the 321gold website.

Here’s to prosperity,
Armand

image by: artist.dude

Our only security is our ability to change.
— John Lilly

Whether you want a better car, a better paying job, a bigger house, or a fluffier cat, you will have to face one big ugly spiky scary thing:  change. It’s not that scary though.

As living beings, we are constantly changing in order to adapt to our environment and live good thriving lives in it. Some changes are massive and difficult to make, while others are small and simple. But no matter the size of the change, there is a common pool of factors affecting almost all individual changes:

• age
• education
• environment
• demonstrations
• trialability
• perception of usefulness
• perception of value
• economic benefit
• importance of advantages
• importance of disadvantages
• perception of ease of use
• time
• effort
• economic costs
• opinions of important people
• influential peers
• goals
• temporal effects
• organizational support
• support mechanisms
• self-efficacy
• fear of the change
• fear of failure
• beliefs and values
• attitude
• innovativeness

Each time you want a change in your life, all (or most) of the above factors play a role in the outcome, in deciding if that change will happen or not. Of course, some of them have more influence than others.

That’s a dangerous sleep schedule. Nasty productivity killer that could make your life gloomy (quite literally).

Why is waking up very late not good for you

First off, let me give you an idea about the numbers: I used to go to bed between 5-7am and wake up between 4-6pm (probably a bit earlier in the days when I was motivated to wake up and do something).

What did that schedule translate to in terms of energy levels, productivity and general well being? Gloom and doom.

I used to wake up groggy, knowing that it was gonna be dark really soon (if it wasn’t already), knowing that the rest of the world finished being constructive for the day (the world that was immediately around me), knowing that I may have just lost another day of my life to sleep. It was hard to motivate myself to be productive and constructive when the general feeling those around me were sending out was that it’s time to relax and rest. Made me feel like joining them in that - even though I just got up.

How I started waking up early

Missing that many daylight hours certainly didn’t have good results in my life. Also, I believe that it encouraged and fueled my MMORPG addiction, making it harder to break. But just how I got out of that, I got out of this too. All it really took, for me at least, was the desire to want to do it, the motivation to improve.

I knew it was bad for me. I knew it wasn’t getting me anything other than frustration. I knew waking up early was the better option. So one day I just decided that I have to wake up early - and it worked. Maybe I’m lucky to be able to change this fast, or maybe the change was underway for a while. That is not that relevant though, what is relevant is that being aware of the negative effects it had encouraged the change.

Now I’m going to bed before 1am and waking up at about 9:30am, not the earliest time of the morning, but a huge improvement from 6pm. The change in my energy levels and productivity is noticeable. Both have increased quite a lot, even though I’m still adapting to the new schedule.

Be careful when you sleep

Be careful what sleep schedules you incorporate in your life. If you find yourself having to work late during the night, try not to make a habit out of it, or if you can’t avoid that, try to still wake up relatively early the next day - I know it’s hard. It will save you the trouble of having to re-adapt to the normal life hours, the ones with daylight and good mornings.

Actually, in the end what is important is that you find a sleep schedule that works for you.

What is your sleep schedule and what are its effects on your life?

Soon after doing that, I was hooked too (maybe I thought I was special and would not / by the way, don’t try drugs).

Addictive

Gaming time started with 4-5 hours a day, and went up to 10+ after a couple of months.

Of course, you can’t play for 10+ hours a day and still have time to work on something like a blog - not when it’s fresh and you’re trying to get it off the ground. So at that point I had to give something up (another time consumer). Blogging being hard work, long hours, and rewards being somewhere in the future hiding behind a lot of work, I chose to give it up in order to keep playing that game. MMORPGS are designed to offer quick rewards in the beginning so it was a great thing (yea right).

For a while, playing it felt sort of good. After seven months of blogging with no big breakthrough, some quick rewards and an artificial feel-good feeling were a nice thing. So I played on.

During the following two to three months, there have been a couple of times when the feeling that I was wasting my time made its presence felt. I acted on the feeling and tried to quit the game. But I wasn’t really meaning it, so that resulted in being out of the game for 5 days at the most. So I kept playing.

Not productive

After spending so much time in the game, my character got to a pretty high level, among the highest on my server. Then I got in a good guild. Made more friends in the virtual world. Gained more items. And then, the feeling that I shouldn’t be doing it, that I should quit and do something productive, returned. But this time it was going to be even more difficult to quit than it has ever been before, because I was standing to lose a lot of things I worked for. Losing all the time invested, all the money invested, all the game friends, the game items, the reward-cycle, the artificial feel-good, the instant gratification… I wasn’t really meaning it this time either, so I kept playing (I think this was during the summer, June-July or something).

With the summer coming to and end and some important content updates for the game announced for release during the autumn, I had to keep playing and get to check them out. So no attempts to quit during that time. And of course, in the autumn, when the updates came, there were no quitting attempts either, “why quit before getting bored of the new stuff” I said to myself.

Finally broke the addiction

But after the updates no longer felt new, the feeling that I needed to quit sneaked back into the frame. During December, the feeling was constant. And in January 2009, I decided to try and quit once again. So I tried, and this time I succeeded (go me!). It was a combination of factors that made it possible, but that’s not the point of the article so I won’t mention them.

After successfully getting out of the game, I started working on the blog again. The problem, though, was not only that my old readers had left me, but I lost something else too. I started experiencing lack of focus, surfing the net purposelessly, procrastination, lost creativity… and for the past two months I’ve been trying to fix those bad habits by using brute force, with no success though.

Pifanee: lost my purpose

And then, after really thinking about it, I realized something. All those effects were signals of a bigger issue, and the issue was that I had lost my purpose and values while I was gaming. They just sneaked out the window while I wasn’t paying attention.

After quitting the game, my blogging was purposeless. And of course, when you’re doing something without a purpose, your actions are unguided and you usually end up asking yourself, “why am I doing this?”, or “why can’t I just focus on this task?”

That is how I lost my purpose, values and focus; or, to be more precise, that is how I let them slide by me. I am hoping this will serve you as a guide, in case you lost your purpose too and are wondering why you can’t seem to get yourself back together again; or as a warning of what might happen if you do something similar.

If you just can’t stop wasting time, find your purpose.

I will talk about the importance of purpose and how to set one in one of the next posts.

Did you have a similar experience and would like to share it? Please do so in the comments.

PS: I can’t regret that gaming period. Having not done it would have meant not knowing what I know now, and I believe most people lose their purpose at least once in their life. And I wouldn’t have met the people I did. Great people. : )
PPS: That game was Rappelz. It’s a crappy game really, very buggy, and the developers are smoking Hello-Kitty catnip - they don’t listen to the English speaking community, at all.

From an article published in Yale Environment 360:

For the new urbanists, building an eco-town is not a matter of building “green” buildings. For some, in fact, green buildings are non-starters, taking 25 to 65 years to recoup the energy used to build them; and once built, they can become quickly obsolete, saddled with already out-of-date technology.

“Everyone gets seduced by the ‘green bling,’” Stephen Platt of Cambridge Architectural Research told me. “Making the houses energy-efficient is the easy bit. The key problem is making this a long-term socially acceptable place where people will want to live and prosper.” More important is creating places that, like Vauban, encourage people to change their unsustainable behaviors and then enable them to do it.

Do you think we’re ready for green living? Do you think the green technologies are ready for us?

photo by: Claire7373

1. Your body;
2. Your mind.

Abusing your body usually results in pretty nasty health problems when its youth starts wearing off.

Abusing your mind on the other hand, through constant thinking and study, has very pleasant results in time. You won’t be one of those using the “I’m old, my memory isn’t as good” excuse at 65. You won’t forget why you’re holding a toothbrush in your hand, or that your birthday is five months from today. No memory loss at old age sounds too good to be true? Read on.

Holbrook Jackson (1874 - 1948)  a British journalist, writer and publisher, recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time, maintains on the matter of studies and old age:

No labour in the world is like unto study, for no other labour is less dependent upon the rise and fall of bodily condition; and, although learning is not quickly got, there are ripe wits and scholarly capacities among men of all physical degrees, whilst for those of advancing years study is of unsurpassed advantage, both for enjoyment and as a preventative of mental decay. Old men retain their intellects well enough, said Cicero, then on the full tide of his own vigorous old age, if only they keep their minds active and fully employed; [De Senectate, 22, tr. E. S. Shuckburgh, 38] and Dr. Johnson holds the same opinion: There must be a diseased mind, he said, where there is a failure of memory at seventy. [Life, ed. Hill, iii, 191] Cato (so Cicero tells us) was a tireless student in old age; when past sixty he composed the seventh book of his Origins, collected and revised his speeches, wrote a treatise on augural, pontifical, and civil law, and studied Greek to keep his memory in working order; he held that such studies were the training grounds of the mind, and prophylactics against consciousness of old age.

~ Holbrook Jackson - The Anatomy of Bibliomania (free full text!)

Constant study is one possible way of avoiding unpleasantries such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and depression, while keeping a good memory capacity. A lazier more comfy way would be waiting for science to advance enough and allow an emulation of the same process - but this option isn’t sure to be available, let alone in time for us to use it.

I’ve noticed that people tend to get mentally lazy as they age. Their jobs usually tire them out and they lose their appetite for thought and creative action, being content with what other people and the media think and do for them. It is at that point that their mental abilities start to decline, and the quality of their lives usually follows this descending trend. And that is a sad depressing picture, considering that old age can be a perfectly creative, functional stage of life, if only the mind was constantly kept challenged over the years.

The American Academy of Neurology released a study (February 17th, 2009) saying that participating in certain mental activities may delay or prevent memory loss.

“This study is exciting because it demonstrates that aging does not need to be a passive process. By simply engaging in cognitive exercise, you can protect against future memory loss,” said study author Yonas Geda, MD, MSc, a neuropsychiatrist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.”

The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.

Don’t let your old age be an age of memory loss. Keep thinking, keep your mind alive! When playing with the brain, it’s a case of use it or lose it, so use it.

For years and years, misinformed consumers were duped into paying through the nose for television, music, phone calls and information. NOW IT IS FREE. THIS IS THE FUTURE!

Isn’t it funny how with more and more free stuff around people have less and less money? Getting things for free should mean that you’re saving some money. But it just isn’t true. The opposite is. Free costs more.

Things are offered for free, yes. Free calls. Free music. Free television. Free books. Everything is free, but free is selling you something else. Something that isn’t sold to you directly and isn’t the main focus in the picture. Kind of like the current sidebar featured video (the one with the ball). You’re being told to look at the free stuff while your pockets are being picked (okay not really like that but you get the idea.

In the end, free is just another business model. A better one. You’re paying without being aware that you’re paying, and that makes everything in the sales process easier. Which means that you should be more careful who gives you candy. Yes, remember what your mom told you, “never take candy from strangers.” She was right.

Here are the 4 little known truths of free stuff.

4. It’s free, as long as we sell you another thing at the same time.

Well, I kind of told you about this one in the introduction. It basically plays with your mind tricking it into not noticing the part of the process where you have to pay. One marketing technique that is employed in this “get it, it’s free” game is the norm of reciprocity - I help you, you help me back. That way, by offering you something for free, I can ask you for something in return later. And you, being the nice person that you are, will accommodate my request in a friendly manner.

So you get something (that you maybe don’t even need) for free, but you will pay something/somehow later on. And you will most likely want to pay!

3. It’s free, because we need your attention.

With so many advertisements and information literally everywhere around us, the attention resource people have is being challenged. You can only look at and analyze so many things during the day, and what better way to get attention than with something that has the magic word in it: free.

And getting your attention leads to the point above, scoring an indirect sale or relationship that leads to sales for the one giving away the freebies!

2. It’s free, because it kind of sucks… and it has to be free.

Okay, this is a bit of a generalization, but it does apply to some cases. Like free IM software for your phone, free voice calls, or free books. The free IM software sometimes (quite often) eats your messages and doesn’t deliver them, instead bugging your friends advertising itself; the free voicecall may have the call quality of a 1949 Russian military field radio; the free book will only tell you what you already knew (using crappy pictures).

If anyone has a crappy product they can’t ask for money in exchange for it. So they just give it away. But they don’t necessarily lose in this. They gain some popularity and exposure. Which they can use to push and sell an improved version of the crappy product they gave away for free.

Or they’ll say the free product/service was just a sample and you have to pay to get the real thing.

1. It’s free because we’re selling something else and helping other industries sell too.

Think about Skype, or MSN. You can make free calls on Skype, but you need:

• A high speed Internet connection ($50 a month)
• A sound card ($200 version strongly recommended for best performance with branded products)
• Speakers ($50)
• Skype Microphone ($112 version recommended)
• Skype Headset ($165 version recommended)

In the case of MSN you need:

• High speed Internet connection ($50 a month)
• A display (or more!) with a big diagonal so you can talk more nonsense with more friends (52″ $2,299 recommended)
• An ergonomic wireless keyboard from Microsoft ($183 one recommended)
• A Microsoft wireless mouse to go with the Microsoft keyboard ($83 one recommended)
• Comfy ergonomic chair ($900)
• Microsoft operating system ($276 Vista Ultimate recommended)

And it would probably be okayish if those were one time costs - but they need replacements and updates/upgrades. So they are free products/services, no lie there, but you have to pay indirectly to be able to use them. But that’s ok, because they’re free!

And then there are those “prizes” you get when you win a free watch but have to fly to Hawaii and sit through a three-day sales pitch to claim it.

Free from free

I believe that the vast majority (>95% ) of free products and services out there are just “evil” marketing. Getting something for free will usually result in you taking an action intended by the giver, which means buying something or being “prepared” to buy in the future.

Giving something away for free creates a friendly bond between the giver and the taker. And such bonds can be easily exploited for profit.

So, be more critical about what is given away for free. Being careful about what you’re being offered for free and trying to see what are the real costs and purposes can help you save money, energy and time. And those are valuable resources!

Remember: Nothing is for free, even when it’s free.

Pleasures arising out of several joys are not happiness. They are, in fact, unhappiness because they have the restlessness, which makes one unhappy. Happiness means ease and complete lack of restlessness and pleasures of senses do not have that mental ease. Whatever we enjoy with the help of the senses is sensual pleasure only. It is a kind of unhappiness. It is happiness in name only. Psychic bliss is above senses and cannot be had from their objects. Just as the soul, being psychic, cannot be achieved with the help of the senses; non-sensory happiness, being in the nature of the soul, cannot be obtained with the help of the senses.

We have to find a thing, where it is. How can we find it where it is not possible to have it at all. For example, consciousness is an attribute of the soul, and can be found in the sentient soul only, not in inanimate entities. Likewise happiness is also an attribute of the soul, not of inanimate beings. Happiness can, therefore, be had in the soul only, not in inanimate objects like human bodies. This soul does not know itself and is, therefore, wandering with wrong faith; in the same manner this being attempts to find happiness in non-self objects and that is the root cause of his unhappiness. The direction of the search for happiness itself is wrong. When the direction is wrong, the present state will also be full of unhappiness. For getting real happiness, we have to see within, to know our own being, for our happiness lies in ourselves. The soul is a depository of eternal bliss, full of everlasting joy. Therefore, those, in pursuit of happiness should turn their efforts towards their inner beings. Those looking for happiness elsewhere, will never get it.

Real happiness is a matter of experience, not of speech, not of demonstration. It can be had only by being introvert, cutting ourselves from all the non-self entities and being one with our soul itself. Since the soul is full of happiness, experience of the soul is the experience of happiness. Just as one cannot achieve the soul without experience, in the same manner one cannot get real happiness without the experience of the soul.

If we ponder deeply over the question, we realise that happiness is not to be had from somewhere else, for the soul is itself made of this happiness, is nothing but happiness alone. That which is happiness incarnate has not to find happiness anywhere else. Happiness is not to be possessed, it is to be enjoyed, to be experienced. It is not necessary to torment ourselves for getting happiness. There is no trouble whatsoever in happiness; restlessness has no happiness. Restlessness is itself unhappiness and its absence is happiness. As such there should be no desire for happiness, for desires themselves make us unhappy. Absence of desires is real happiness.

I completely agree with all the above text says, so there’s no point in me commenting it. Just a note: if it sounds too metaphysical for you, replace ’soul’ with ‘mind’ in the text.

A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste.
— Jules Carlysle

The question is simple: do you know your mind? More specifically, do you know what it is biased towards detecting when you look at things? What is the above picture about? Get voting!

What you have seen in the picture is associated with prior memories that you had (and what is currently on your mind). Sort of like a movie, in which everyone sees what they (mentally) brought to it. Which is a pretty cool and quick way to learn something new about yourself.

This image has been floating around the internet for a while and some say it’s related to some research, but since I couldn’t find anything (scientific) about the ‘research’ part, I’ll just consider it an interesting picture that’s worth a poll (there were no polls on it, and polls are fun, so here you go).

What did the message in a bottle tell you?

Penny Dollar: Can I borrow that book of yours How To Become A Millionaire?

Penny Wise: Sure. Here you are.

Penny Dollar: Thanks - but half the pages are missing.

Penny Wise: What’s the matter? Isn’t half a million enough for you?

Which is kind of what all the ‘how to make money’ and ‘how to get rich’ coaching programs are doing.

And that brings us to money, and with money, to the saying that “money is the root of all evil.” Which actually is an incomplete quote. “Money is the root of all evil” came from “The Love of Money is the root of all evil.” Some dumbass(es) somewhere along the line lost the first part and started a huge pointless debate on whether or not money is evil.

The original quote, in context: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Timothy 6:10) KJV (The King James Bible)

And if you had the patience to read this far in this short article, I will now tell you how to make money (online)!

1. Open Microsoft Paint.

2. Google 200 dollar bill (use google images).

3. Reproduce in Microsoft Paint.

4. Print.

5. Get rich! Retire at 14!

I had to do that.

Now, onto serious business. Can you remember the last argument (debate) you had? If you don’t remember, go on and have one right now. You can debate the existence of the abominable snowman, thought by some to stalk the Himalayan Mountains. See if you can prove or disprove his existence to one of your friends/family members.

If you do remember the last argument you had, are you familiar with these terms: “Argumentum ad Ignorantiam” and “burden of proof?” If you are, good for you. : ) But if you’re not (sometimes even if you were), you might have used them to defend your claims. Used them the wrong way, don’t get your hopes high.

Let’s have an example of the first fallacy, argumentum ad ignorantiam:

Johnson: It is impractical to send snowmen to the moon because the money spent for that project could be spent on bailing out crashed businesses…

Hanson: It is not impractical.

Johnson: Why?

Hanson: Just try to prove that I wrong.
(Hanson defends his claim by an ad ignorantiam, i.e., his claim is true, if Johnson cannot refute him.)

As you probably figured, appeals to ignorance are pretty common, and if you don’t spot or avoid using them, you’re having/believing fallacious arguments. This error in reasoning is often expressed with influential rhetoric, so being aware of it might be an eye opener in some (sometimes important) situations. Just remember that there are some exceptions, such as science, law courts, and some specific other situations where it is used for practical reasons and is not considered a fallacy. “The assumption of innocence until proved guilty” is a practical –not a logical– process that is an example of such exception.

Now let’s see an example for burden of proof:

Bobby: The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.

Obama: No he didn’t. There’s no Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Bobby: Prove it!!1!

Obama: (explicit language, click the link for his reply >) LINK

Here, our boy Bobby Henderson made a very bold claim, expecting Obama to find proof against it to negate the existence of the Monster. But it is Bobby who has to find proof supporting his claim if his monster is to stand any fighting chances. Without any initial proof of his existence, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not proven just because Obama can’t prove his non-existence.

Two more examples, The Invisible Pink Unicorn and Russel’s Teapot both make points about the burden of proof and/or the appeal to ignorance, falling under the same broken logic.

What’s interesting to note is that even some of the people that society regards as smart can be in fact ignorant and uneducated beyond belief (in some matters). Like Richard Dawkins, who believes in flying teapots that float in space.

Now, let’s try to ignore the fact that this post may have no real importance to you (but it does, really) and that I forgot what I was really trying to say, and continue. But if you know what appeal to ignorance and burden of proof are, this is the end (my only friend, the end). Mission accomplished.

PS: Don’t make these errors in your arguments.
PPS: Watch out, others make them constantly. Smack them with your newly learned fallacies when they do. Ladies like it when you do that.

OK, so you probably have a pretty good idea what the story of your stuff is, from resource extraction and production to consumption and disposal. What you may not know (not very well at least) are some of the facts and connections between the environmental and social issues that our planet is facing. And that is where “The Story of Stuff” kicks in to help you.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

So even if you know all the facts and connections (you smart person!), the movie is still worth watching. Because it’s funny of course!

Enjoy!

Oh, you can watch it in higher resolution on the official website.

Back to Epicurus’ cure for anxiety. Even though he wrote down these thoughts hundreds of years before the common era, the nature and source of anxiety seem to have remained pretty much the same to this day. We may not fear the gods that much nowadays (not enough to cause anxiety at least), but we still fear death, pain and wish for material happiness.

While this was not intended to be, and is not, a magic pill for curing anxiety, putting effort into becoming aware of these teachings can help a lot in controlling it.

The four-fold cure for anxiety:

Don’t fear the gods; Nor death; Goods are easy to obtain; Evils are easy to endure

1)  A blessed and imperishable being neither has trouble itself nor does it cause trouble for anyone else; therefore, it does not experience feelings of anger or indebtedness, for such feelings signify weakness.

2)  Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.

3)  Pleasure reaches its maximum limit at the removal of all sources of pain. When such pleasure is present, for as long as it lasts, there is no cause of physical nor mental pain present – nor of both together.

4)  Continuous physical pain does not last long.  Instead, extreme pain lasts only a very short time, and even less-extreme pain does not last for many days at once.  Even protracted diseases allow periods of physical comfort that exceed feelings of pain.

~ Epicurus

photograph by: Tikke Sang

The events have left hundreds of people homeless, affecting an area of more than 3,000 square kilometres. Entire towns were wiped off the map within about 24 hours at the weekend.

You CAN help

If those tragic events have moved you and you wished there was something you could do, you CAN help!

The Australian Premier John Brumby, in partnership with the Red Cross and the Federal Government, has set up the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Fund. The donations will be used to provide assistance to individuals and communities in towns and suburbs affected by the 2009 Victorian Bushfires.  An independent panel made up of community leaders will oversee the Appeal Funds operation.

Donations can be made using a secure online donations form or by phoning 1800 811 700.

You can visit the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009 page by following this link.

Don’t forget to tell your friends.

Marketing is the set of commercial processes involved in promoting, selling and distributing a product or service. A marketer is the person in charge of designing and executing marketing campaigns.

These days more than ever, at least online, you can see that a very large number of people are marketers (more or less successful) or aspiring to be. The aspiring online marketer usually reads the blogs and webpages of the relatively successful marketer trying to learn new tricks and be just like him. But the successful marketer is 80% of the time marketing to him and 20% of the time teaching him.

“There is no duty more indispensable than that of a returning a kindness. All men distrust one forgetful of a benefit.”
— Cicero

How marketing works

Marketing is an art — in that everyone can do it, but only a few can do it right.

It can be both very useful and almost exploitative. It can make good products known to the public, and it can sell dreams. It makes people want to buy things they don’t need. Sometimes it convinces people that they want things they don’t need. How does it achieve that? One of the techniques is exploiting the norm of reciprocity.

The norm of reciprocity

The norm of reciprocity is a technique that exploits people’s natural tendency to want to repay debts. I know that sounds unbelievably optimistic, believing in a good world where everything works out for the best all the time, because you might think that most people want to avoid paying debts. But no matter how cynical you may feel about the human race, people do have a basically cooperative nature, especially in face-to-face relationships.

It dates from our days as primitive members of tribes, just cavemen, who helped each other to survive. When one person does a favor for another, the other feels indebted and wants to return the favor to even out the score. Even today, there are still a few remaining tribes who have an economic system that is just a complex web of traded favors and debts, and they all manage to remember who owes what to whom.

The Hari Krishnas discovered that they could increase their haul of money from airports by giving away flowers. That is, if they just tried to shake travelers down for donations, they got rejected a lot. But when they gave travelers a flower, “…because we love you, and you are so beautiful…”, and then hit up the traveler for a donation, they got a lot more money. The act of giving the flower made the traveler feel indebted and embarrassed, and vulnerable to the request for money.

What you have to do is simply have patience and allow the heat to settle down. Allow the other party to make all their points. Then politely state yours and hopefully reach an agreement. If the heat is on again, repeat the procedure and try to change the way you state your point.

The youth was most carefully brought up. He thanks the gods that he had good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. He had the happy fortune to witness the example of his uncle and adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, and he has recorded in his work the virtues of this excellent man and prudent ruler. Like many young Romans he tried his hand at poetry and studied rhetoric. There are letters extant showing the great affection of the pupil for the master, and the master’s great hopes of his industrious pupil.

When he was eleven years old he assumed the dress of philosophers, something plain and coarse, became a hard student, and lived a most laborious, abstemious life, even so far as to injure his health. He abandoned poetry and rhetoric for philosophy, and attached himself to the sect of the Stoics. But he did not neglect the study of law, which was a useful preparation for the high place which he was designed to fill. We must suppose that he learned the Roman discipline of arms, which was a necessary part of the education of a man who afterwards led his troops to battle against a warlike race.

Antoninus has recorded in his first book the names of his teachers, and the obligations which he owed to each of them. The way in which he speaks of what he learned from them might seem to savor of vanity or self-praise, if we look carelessly at the way in which he has expressed himself; but if anyone draws this conclusion, he will be mistaken. Antoninus means to commemorate the merits of his several teachers, what they taught, and what a pupil might learn from them. Besides, this book, like the eleven other books, was for his own use; and if we may trust the note at the end of the first book, it was written during one of M. Antoninus’ campaigns against the Quadi, at a time when the commemoration of the virtues of his illustrious teachers might remind him of their lessons and the practical uses which he might derive from them.

Here you have his entire first book.

THE THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.

BOOK 1.

1. From my grandfather Verus [I learned] good morals and the government of my temper.

2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character.

3. From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.

4. From my great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.

5. From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators’ fights; from him too I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people’s affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander.

6. From Diognetus, not to busy myself about trifling things, and not to give credit to what was said by miracle-workers and jugglers about incantations and the driving away of daemons and such things; and not to breed quails [for fighting], nor to give myself up passionately to such things; and to endure freedom of speech; and to have become intimate with philosophy; and to have been a hearer, first of Bacchius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written dialogues in my youth; and to have desired a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Grecian discipline.

7. From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline; and from him I learned not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters, nor to delivering little hortatory orations, nor to showing myself off as a man who practices much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display; and to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing; and not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress, nor to do other things of the kind; and to write my letters with simplicity, like the letter which Rusticus wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; and with respect to those who have offended me by words, or done me wrong, to be easily disposed to be pacified and reconciled, as soon as they have shown a readiness to be reconciled; and to read carefully, and not to be satisfied with a superficial understanding of a book; nor hastily to give my assent to those who talk overmuch; and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me out of his own collection.

8. From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not peevish in giving his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man who clearly considered his experience and his skill in expounding philosophical principles as the smallest of his merits; and from him I learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favors, without being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.

9. From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who form opinions without consideration: he had the power of readily accommodating himself to all, so that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was most highly venerated by those who associated with him: and he had the faculty both of discovering and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed much knowledge without ostentation.

10. From Alexander the grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding, and not in a reproachful way to chide those who uttered any barbarous or solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but dexterously to introduce the very expression which ought to have been used, and in the way of answer or giving confirmation, or joining in an inquiry about the thing itself, not about the word, or by some other fit suggestion.

11. From Fronto I learned to observe what envy and duplicity and hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and that generally those among us who are called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection.

12. From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.

13. From Catulus, not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault, even if he should find fault without reason, but to try to restore him to his usual disposition; and to be ready to speak well of teachers, as it is reported of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love my children truly.

14. From my brother Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed; I learned from him also consistency and undeviating steadiness in my regard for philosophy; and a disposition to do good, and to give to others readily, and to cherish good hopes, and to believe that I am loved by my friends; and in him I observed no concealment of his opinions with respect to those whom he condemned, and that his friends had no need to conjecture what he wished or did not wish, but it was quite plain.

15. From Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by anything; and cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness; and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity, and to do what was set before me without complaining. I observed that everybody believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he did he never had any bad intention; and he never showed amazement and surprise, and was never in a hurry, and never put off doing a thing, nor was perplexed nor dejected, nor did he ever laugh to disguise his vexation, nor, on the other hand, was he ever passionate or suspicious. He was accustomed to do acts of beneficence, and was ready to forgive, and was free from all falsehood; and he presented the appearance of a man who could not be diverted from right, rather than of a man who had been improved. I observed, too, that no man could ever think that he was despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man. He had also the art of being humorous in an agreeable way.

16. In my father I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable resolution in the things which he had determined after due deliberation; and no vain-glory in those things which men call honors; and a love of labor and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in giving to every man according to his deserts; and a knowledge derived from experience of the occasions for vigorous action and for remission. And I observed that he had overcome all passion for boys; and he considered himself no more than any other citizen; and he released his friends from all obligation to sup with him or to attend him of necessity when he went abroad, and those who had failed to accompany him, by reason of any urgent circumstances, always found him the same. I observed, too, his habit of careful inquiry in all matters of deliberation, and his persistency, and that he never stopped his investigation through being satisfied with appearances which first present themselves; and that his disposition was to keep his friends, and not to be soon tired of them, nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; and to be satisfied on all occasions, and cheerful; and to foresee things a long way off, and to provide for the smallest without display; and to check immediately popular applause and all flattery; and to be ever watchful over the things which were necessary for the administration of the empire, and to be a good manager of the expenditure, and patiently to endure the blame which he got for such conduct; and he was neither superstitious with respect to the gods, nor did he court men by gifts or by trying to please them, or by flattering the populace; but he showed sobriety in all things and firmness, and never any mean thoughts or action, nor love of novelty. And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. No one could ever say of him that he was either a sophist or a [home-bred] flippant slave or a pedant; but every one acknowledged him to be a man ripe, perfect, above flattery, able to manage his own and other men’s affairs. Besides this, he honored those who were true philosophers, and he did not reproach those who pretended to be philosophers, nor yet was he easily led by them. He was also easy in conversation, and he made himself agreeable without any offensive affectation. He took a reasonable care of his body’s health, not as one who was greatly attached to life, nor out of regard to personal appearance, nor yet in a careless way, but so that through his own attention he very seldom stood in need of the physician’s art or of medicine or external applications. He was most ready to give without envy to those who possessed any particular faculty, such as that of eloquence or knowledge of the law or of morals, or of anything else; and he gave them his help, that each might enjoy reputation according to his deserts; and he always acted conformably to the institutions of his country, without showing any affectation of doing so. Further, he was not fond of change nor unsteady, but he loved to stay in the same places, and to employ himself about the same things; and after his paroxysms of headache he came immediately fresh and vigorous to his usual occupations. His secrets were not many, but very few and very rare, and these only about public matters; and he showed prudence and economy in the exhibition of the public spectacles and the construction of public buildings, his donations to the people, and in such things, for he was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man’s acts. He did not take the bath at unseasonable hours; he was not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he ate, nor about the texture and color of his clothes, nor about the beauty of his slaves. [Footnote: 1] His dress came from Lorium, his villa on the coast, and from Lanuvium generally. [Footnote: 2] We know how he behaved to the toll-collector at Tusculum who asked his pardon; and such was all his behavior. There was in him nothing harsh, nor implacable, nor violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the sweating point; but he examined all things severally, as if he had abundance of time, and without confusion, in an orderly way, vigorously and consistently. And that might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates, that he was able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.

17. To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind; but, through their favor, there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the trial. Further, I am thankful to the gods that I was not longer brought up with my grandfather’s concubine, and that I preserved the flower of my youth, and that I did not make proof of my virility before the proper season, but even deferred the time; that I was subjected to a ruler and a father who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man’s power to bring himself very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought, or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler. I thank the gods
for giving me such a brother, who was able by his moral character to rouse me to vigilance over myself, and who at the same time pleased me by his respect and affection; that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, in which I should perhaps have been completely engaged, if I had seen that I was making progress in them; that I made haste to place those who brought me up in the station of honor, which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with hope of my doing it some other time after, because they were then still young; that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or Theodotus, and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was cured, and though I was often out of humor with Rusticus, I never did anything of which I had occasion to repent; that, though it was my mother’s fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me; that, whenever I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other occasion, I was never told that I had not the means of doing it; and that to myself the same necessity never happened, to receive anything from another; that I have such a wife, so obedient, and so affectionate, and so simple; that I had abundance of good masters for my children; and that remedies have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against bloodspitting and giddiness …; and that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any sophist, and that I did not waste my time on writers [of histories], or in the resolution of syllogisms, or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in the heavens; for all these things require the help of the gods and fortune.

Among the Quadi at the Granua. [Footnote: 3]

Who are your teachers? What did you learn from them?

It would be a good idea if you would set to write a list similar to this. It would remind you of lessons, practical uses and people who are important to you. It would also make you humbler knowing that you owe important lessons to others.

works used: THE THOUGHTS OF THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS; LONG’S TRANSLATION EDITED BY EDWIN GINN; through Project Gutenberg