Monday, August 18, 2014

Sell Me An Insurance, Please

I think the insurance agents are exploiting the need we constantly have to feel safe and the need to know what will happen. But, still, when it comes to actually proving the safety they insure the insurance companies don't really insure you for nothing. For once, they come and tell you that whatever happens to your house you will be reimbursed. And you think, hey, next time my neighbour forgets the water tap on or has a problem with his pipes, I don't have to ruin my vacation plans and pay for the repairs. But after two or three years of paying for this insurance, the neighbour does it again and I turn up to the insurance company and they tell you that that is not insured or that the insurance will only pay for the repair. Now, i am thinking like this: i am paying the insurance company 1% of my investment and in 10 years you give these guys 10%. Now if I never benefit from the insurance they have their salaries assured, but for me it's just money spent. 
I want to have the safety feeling and that's how a salesman comes and sells me the dream of security. However, you end up finding out that the insurance doesn't really insure anything except the exceptional cases when you have nothing to do with this. And it's pretty sick and frustrating to discover that all the money invested by you ever in insurances would not pay off the trouble you have in case of the smallest shake. And I am not talking about the physical earth shake, but by any sort of shake you may live during the normal day life. 
So, basically "Lie to me" it's a beautiful title for the happening of a salesman coming to visit you with a smile on his face, with the lessons well learned about what answer to give you in case you say NO or I AM NOT INTERESTED or GO AWAY. I have lived through this a couple of times and it turned out they had answers to absolutely every answer of mine. One day, I decided to try them out and tell them really frankly: I am not interested. And of course the thousands of questions rolled. I had to make the effort of explaining my refusal. PAL, I DIDN'T ASK YOU OVER AND I DON'T NEED YOU SINCE I HAVEN'T LOOKED FOR YOU. Is it that difficult for you to get it? I am sure the answer is not, it's just that you can only think of your sale. Well, salesman, your death would not save anybody's life, thanks to Arthur Miller's insight, and my opinion is your sale would not make my life better, but poorer. So, please, feel free  to sell your goods somewhere else. 
Thank you!

Pal, I didn't call you, I didn't look for you, I don't need you.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Stand Out or Stand In

Our world is on constant movement. 
We live with the constant fear that every second spent is waisted. It has become so obsessive that the 80's expression of "sleeping together" no longer has the secondary meaning, but rather the literal meaning. 
And the fast pace we move in makes us forget to use words with secondary meanings or play with words. I am beginning to think the days when pun, irony and sarcasm were invented were slower times, clearly more challenging for the mind. People didn't have so much education, but they were challenged to use the little vocabulary they had in different circumstances. 
In a way we seem to live our lives more on the verge of correctly expressed, rather than richly expressed. Our thoughts are not entirely expressed. 
We don't have time to think of beautiful words, we just make sure we are saying it right. 
And that is how we are becoming robots who know how to "correctly" communicate for every type of receiver. The receiver is probably also a robot transcoding our message and putting words into actions. 
And in such a world it becomes hard to tell a story to people who cannot take time to think twice. We think at first and act upon our thought. It seems like we are all on a race against time. Funny enough, at the end of the road there is no prize. So, why rush when you can enjoy time to feel good and use your brain?
I believe that if you want to stand out, take time to think twice. Learn that pun, irony and sarcasm can actually win you an auditorium, while blending in can only fit you perfectly into the "world lego". 


Monday, August 11, 2014

Make Youself noticed, not blended

The clothing fabric makes all the difference... While models that fit so beautifully on the billboards wear clothes only for a few hours, the rest of us, the consumers, need to wear them for the whole day, so think twice when picking. And think your health is more important than being a look alike. And think you could be different by choosing to be different than the billboard. 
The fabric can actually make you feel uncomfortable and cheap, though thinking you could be special just by blending in. But think about the many people around you who are wearing for the very same reasons. 
The new moon is a good example of being differnt everytime...