Tag Archives: behavior

Relationships

Catering to your preconceptions of Others

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Boxes

Cater to what I think you want

Don’t know if I have a lot to write about this, as I’ve just been able to encapsulate this thought into easy digestable words. But I’m sure that I’m not the only one that holds back on saying things for fear of thinking what others might do and/or think. I guess it could be some sort of a chess strategy, but in doing this, it also builds cognitive dissonance; and if its one thing I’ve learned after spending thousands of dollars for a Psych degree is that Cognitive Dissonance is a Bitch – to put ot mildly. Yet, I for some reason, even knowing the bitch that Cognitive Dissonance is, still deal with trying to predict what others believe. And when you cater to what you think other people believe and such,this can turn you into some sort of a ‘Shape Shifter'(Compartmentalizing), as you try to project the best image that suits whom you are trying to impress.

Ahhh, does that make sense? As I write this, it makes more & more sense, and I feel more & more disgusted that I am probably not alone in this concept – collectively, we do this all the time, presenting different self’s to different people in hope to persuade them or something. Or maybe its a form of bamboozling – either way, its a way of detaching from one of your self’s, probably your true self. So when you hear the phrase ‘oh, she ain’t being herself’, it can also translate to say ‘she is trying to cater to what she thinks you want’ – and this is the slippery slope that we glide down, daily.

Don’t know how much further I can go with this rant, but if anyone out there can relate, feel free to share your thoughts.

.:: LiBM ::.

Relationships, Tangents

Basic This, Basic That

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Desinged by http://zibaricon.deviantart.com/
Desinged by http://zibaricon.deviantart.com/

Basic Goodness

This one Woman told me that I “think too much”, which is probably true – but she framed it in a negative context (or that’s at least how I took it). And ever since she said that, things between us haven’t been the same, and by “been the same’, I mean she kinda brushed me off. Which is okay I guess, as they say, more ‘fish are in the sea’, and I further don’t have time for someone that doesn’t like the analytical nuances – which I convey.  And furthermore, these occurrences happen time after time, which makes me wonder a few things … A lot of things, but for the sake of this post, I want to find out what ‘normal’ people discuss.

Is it just Weather? The latest reality show? Workplace gossip? I tend to think I discuss these basic things also, but I would further analyze the situational factors of the reality show, and point out behavioral issues of one’s co-workers. And I look for the ‘meta’ things in life, taking the conversation to a level where the topic becomes the merits of the actual conversation (if that makes sense).  I even tried to search online to see what ‘normal people talk about’, and the more results I found, the more I realized that I wouldn’t want to subscribe to that sense of ‘normalcy’

Anyhow, I’m tempted to either change my ways – engage in that basic discourse, but a line from Lupe Fiasco keeps agitating me “When you dumb it down, its just harder to understand“, yup, guess its going to have to be good riddance to not just ‘bad rubbish’, but ‘basic rubbish’.

.:: LiBM ::.

UCN Articles

Whom are the better drivers? Men or Women?

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bad-driving

Whom are the better drivers? Men or Women?

This argument has been discussed for many years, and I’d suggest that up to the 90’s, the hands down argument was that Men were the better drivers than womenn; and that can be attributed just to the rise of equality/feminism. In the 60’s, Men were driving more than women because Men worked and the women stayed home, so by definition of exposure/repetition, its safe to say that Men were the better drivers. But as Women started going to work and being more independent, its safe to say that we have reached a point where there are just as many Women drivers as Men. According to a survey by Carrentals UK, they have attested that Women are better drivers than Men, and produced the following findings:

  • 57 per cent of men had been involved in one or more accidents compared to 44 per cent of women
  • 45 per cent of 36- to 45-year-old and men over 65 years old had been caught speeding
  • 60 per cent of men over 65 had been involved in an accident, compared to 30 per cent of women in the same age group.

Source: http://www.carrentals.co.uk/

Probably, a better way to look at whom are better drivers can be boiled down to whom can be distracted the easiest; and for Men and Women, they both have vices that cause them to be distracted while at the wheel.

Distractions for Women

  • Rearview Mirror: Women use this not to really check vehicles behind them, but to check their lipstick & massacre
  • Mobile Phone: A second not checking the phone is a second of missed Instagram pics from their friends

Distractions for Men

  • Women on the Street: If there is a hot chick standing on the street, we will definitely break our necks to catch a glimpse
  • Women in the Car: Self-explanatory

Remove the distractions that both Men & Women have and then they are both good drivers that can navigate the road with efficiency – hopefully.

.:: LiBM ::.

Media Credits:
Video Produced By Urban Comedy Network

 

Economics, Relationships, Social

Whom should pay for dates? Men or Women?

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who should pay

Is Chivalry Dead?

So you were able to persuade the girl of your dreams in going on a date with you, perfect. Things are going well, you give her your magic charm, she is smiling & laughing (hopefully not at you), the food is good, and you end up paying, and you take her home. Good Stuff. But the cycle of you paying for the meal after the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and to the 10th date, starts to leave you wondering, “When is she going to pay for the date?”. And this is the question that is the fuel for debate, and equally the source of arguments as some women, regardless of how long they have been dating their Man, refuse to pay for dates. Chivalry is not dead, is it? Yes, Men should do certain things, but we also live in an age of equality – with the rise of Feminism, women desire & want to be treated as equal, as they should be. But in some facets of life, they still want the Man to ‘take care’ of certain things such as dates – even if they are in a long-term committed relationship or even married.

A lot has been said also on whom initiates the date – meaning that if the Man asks the Woman out, then the Man should pay – I can understand that. But after awhile, once a mutual understanding is established, and once both parties are interested in each other, then that is when things such as dates should start being shared, right? This video illustrates the differing views between males & females on whom should pay for date – hilarity ensues as most women will stick to their guns that women should NEVER pay for dates, and where Men are always trying to walk that fine line of ‘wishing/hoping’ that women eventually start sharing or paying their ‘fair share’.


______
Starring Comedians:
Sylvana: @sylvanasays
Justin Laite: facebook.com/justin.laite
Produced by Urban Comedy Network

.:: LiBM ::.

Hip-Hop, Media

Push Back and Management

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Management Tales 101

Gotta give a shoutout to all Managers of the Independent Artists out there; management is a real tough gig. By definition of the job itself, Management is working for others, and hoping to fulfill their wishes and intent to the best of your capacity; so thus, you are working for people that already think highly of themselves and are a tad bit self-absorbed.

And the management of independent artists is a whole different beast I imagine; as the artist(s) are also co-managers, and necessarily do not have to take heed to your comments and recommendations. As most artists already have a ‘beautiful roadmap’ as to how they will make it in the game. The best thing you can do as a manager is to try and offer advice and constructive criticisms; though this may be a bit hard, because as a manager you are by very nature/definition a ‘control freak’ and/or have control issues – so not having free control over whatever you are managing, can prove to be frustrating.

So, here are a list of resources and potential problems with solutions for dealing with your independent artists:

Recording
How to deal with artists not recording and/or sticking to their schedule?

This is tricky, because part of the reason they may not be recording is due to lack of creativity, or due to laziness. So to sift through this if you are experiencing recording problems, is to stop making the schedules for them, and tell the artist(s) to start scheduling their own damn schedule – this way you can test their seriousness and work ethic.

Promotion & Brand Visibility

What do to with artists whom are not engaging and interacting with fans?
Some artists think that they just make music and perform – and that’s it. But in this day of age, I would liken artists as brands – and their are many ways to manage and promote your brand, and more importantly engaging and communicating with your followers/fans. With the range of tools that are available to us, it is easy to engage in ‘CRM’ (Customer Relationship Management) with a brands following, here are some good tools:

    HootSuite – scheduled sending of tweets (offers free & PRO accounts), and has mobile apps on BB, iOS, Android
    http://www.hootsuite.com
    Gmail – the amount of tools and features that gmail has makes it easy to send and respond from any computer or device
    http://www.gmail.com
    Google Voice – Allows you to get a virtual number that you can use as a business number; and can be managed via your Google gmail account.
    http://www.google.com/voice


Miscellaneous & Organization
Other things to help keep you organized:

    Notebook: bring these to meetings and document major goals and ideas so that in the future you can go back to these failed goals and see ‘what went wrong’
    Calendar: Usually everyone has a smartphone, so teach your artist(s) about how to use the calendar function (you’d be surprised how many people that have smartphones don’t use this feature). And for important events and milestones, add several reminders so that they can’t say ‘I never knew’. I love the Calendar, its a fail-safe bullshit meter

If you have any other items that I may have missed, please feel free to comment and let me know – heck, I’m still learning myself.

P.S.;  and I guess the greatest asset to have is PATIENCE, as you deal with some things and thoughts that make no logical sense.

Logic

All Reflection, Internal

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Hindsight is always 20/20; the day when we can load that app that allows us to jump a few months to the future – to take a glance of what will happen, and then return back to the present with the future knowledge – then, and only then when life will truly be ‘simple’. But things that operate that way, life is successive ‘if’ statements – with each decision yielding a different result.

I work with a lot of people, in various capacities – helping to complete projects. Maybe due to my insecurity, low or no self-esteem, I was always a contributor that felt on some level that my affect was minimal. Meaning that my influence on a collaborative project or on team members was minimal. I know this sounds like faulty thinking, and it is, and it is even sadder that as someone that studied Psychology, I should know better. Slowly I am realizing that self-confidence is a real artform: or a good acting performance. Working as a TV Director and Producer, it amazes me at how on-air talent are sometimes very insecure and nervous, and I would suggest that most people think that hosts are the most talented. Lol, but I can’t tell you how many times I’d have to re-shoot takes and go over lines with hosts. I guess even the most seasoned still need a bit of salt for flavor (yes, I created that just now).

It wasn’t till a few weeks ago with a conversation with a past co-worker over Beer & Pizza; a bit more beer than pizza, I realized that one of the problems all along – with the failed projects & collaborative efforts that I have been a part of, that the problem may have been that I didn’t take a stronger leader or parcipitory role; as I know/knew, but should of realized a bit more, even in group settings, people are a bit more concerned about themselves than the overall group – I know that may sound a bit shocking in the highly narcissistic individualized culture of the West. And this dynamic, which isn’t necessarily bad, does not bode well for the super hypervigilant creative person; because one of the problems with creativity is that you keep on creating – and you create in any field; including systems & people. So when the team is not making decisions for the betterment of the group, then its time to pivot or explode the group’s dynamics & structures. Which I am proud to say, I am starting to do, while also realizing and/or ‘wearing the blame’ that a lot of the reasons to why failed projects may of not ‘popped off’ was because of me. Because I didn’t do more to steer the ship away from the iceberg in the Atlantic. I don’t think I gave ‘All of Me’, didn’t work harder, and didn’t do more. Consider this as somewhat as a ‘middle step’ in a ‘step program’ of ‘Mid-mid life crisis’ – as the stench of frustration, anxiety, anger, and regret are manifesting into a manifesto and new outlook.

So I guess here is for me ‘scratching my itch’ – or at least understanding why I’m itching.

Aside: the title of this post is from Joe Budden’s classic joint from ‘Mood Muzik 2’ or ‘Mood Muzik 1’ (I can’t remember now) called ‘All of Me’ – which was a very self-reflective track, one of the most honest pieces of music that I have ever heard.

Social

Social DNA

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Social DNA

Similar, Complimentary, Opposite.

According to the folks at Energy Diamond, these are the keys, well in terms of balancing them, to achieve positive/optimal social DNA. I think they may be onto something because having your social network full of one set of people does not really do much in giving you a balance viewpoint on things. I know many people that only want to surround their world with similar thinking people – I think this is an attempt to lessen arguments & protect their sense of self (the overly religious do this a lot).   I truly think that if people adopted a more balance viewpoint by allowing themselves to be open to various inputs of ideology and reasoning, then we would have more tolerance, and ultimately more peace. But Utopia is a couple of generations away …. (I hope that I’m wrong though).
For more info check out www.energydiamond.com/socialdna/
Logic, Relationships, Social

Tangentical

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All About the Tangents Baby!

Getting things off your chest in random sequences … nah, I ain’t crazy

If you have been following this blog, then you must know that I like to go off on ‘tangents’ – which are somewhat long commentaries, complaints, stories, about particular topic(s). And in my day-to-day life I realised I do this too, like just pick any topic, and at will, I can just go off, bring up stats, complimentary issues, segway into sub-issues, etc. Some of my friends and co-workers find this annoying – but this post isn’t about their reaction, and I don’t want to go off on a tangent about that. But I recently met someone whom is almost identical in the ‘tangent nature’ and she referred to herself as ‘tangentical’ – and this is like explaining the whole experience of studying psychology: Attaching technical terms to feelings that you have always felt. If I can re-define this word that has not been defined, ‘tangentical’ to me suggests a disposition to use tangents through all facets of life and interactions with others, and to evoke emotions. You can argue with my definition, but will most likely lose to Supreme Court of Moi.

One frequent response of being Tangentical is that most people will say ‘I don’t get you’ or ‘I don’t understand, you talk to much’, which may all be some valid points. But being Tangentical is much more than just being able to ‘go off’ on a rhetoric diatribe, its about attempting to cover each and every possible trite question that the listener may have; so as to avoid the mundane questions.

Example: when talking to someone about why you don’t like Baseball, explain when your displeasure started, any personal experiences of playing baseball, and attempts to try and modify your dislike of Baseball.

So essentially being Tangentical embodies identifying etiology, subjective experiences, attitude/behavior modification, and logical rhetoric.

Now, if only I can learn the technical term for discovering technical terms to stuff we already experience … That would make my day/week/month/year/decade even more.

.:: LiBM ::.

Cre8ive Abstract, Logic

Just …..

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Just __________

Finding the motivation to keep on keeping on


It is such a simple utterance, yet we complex its meaning by uprooting real & mental obstacles. If you’re passionate about something – the thing that brings a smile to your face, the thing that gives you a tingly feeling throughout your body, the worst thing you can do is just stop following your passion. And we stop for many reasons, or find excuses to stop. Sometimes we become deterred, find ourselves uninspired, or get consumed with other life issues. Being in the entrepreneurial creative digital field, I run into people all the time that said that they stopped their passion for reason A through Z, but wish they had continued, even in a limited scope – and they all feel some sort of remorse or regret. And I usually see myself in them (pause), as I am guilty of it too, when I get frustrated, I deter and avoid the passion activity; and I think afterwards, “damn, why didn’t I just continue?”. Part of the reason why we just ‘stop’ is because we feel some friction or we are not seeing any financial reward, and let’s face it, the financial reward can be a huge source of motivation, but there exists a weird relationship between ‘passion’ and ‘money’. Like yes, following your passion in order to receive financial rewards is cool, but the money shouldn’t be the ultimate motivation – because it would confound your passion and art. As we all know, once you get money involved, you get other filters and variables involved, making your art and passion diluted with money.

Excuse the little money/motivation/passion rant, and let’s get back to the initial intent of this post, which I think it was to ‘just’ continue your passion. Don’t mind the haters, the nay-sayers: if you are getting some sense of fulfillment from your passion, continue it (**Disclaimer: lawful passions in your geographical jurisdictions).

So consider this post as self-medication for me to help me ‘just continue writing’, and the fruits of my labor will be realised in time – and if the fruit turns rotten, I still had a blast farming …. Ya digg?

.:: LiBM ::.

Technology

Developing Developer’s Immunity

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Overcoming Web Dev Insecurity

Deprogramming Insecurity

This one is for all my Developer’s out there, I’m sure you’ll relate. Its that feeling you have that is a mixed feeling of both being scared and optimistic about that web development project you got on your mind. Part optimism because you feel that you have a solid idea, but part scared because past negative experiences of scrolling lines and lines of code has caused you anxiety and heartache. You then say, “let me just jack a script”, and all the scripts you jack are good in some sense, but eventually you find out that it doesn’t meet your needs, so then you spend copious amounts of time trying to learn the script, testing, debugging, eventually leading to further frustrations.

I’ve been all through the whole development process of trying to take the shortcut, modifying existing scripts, and so on. And it has taught me that you really need to develop patience and a sense of immunity to tolerate your own insecurities and reluctance to a project. I don’t claim to have really figured it out, my immunity is definitely not the most resilient, but at least being self-aware about is the first step I guess. And the only way to overcome your fears and insecurities is to accept that you have them, and try to work towards a ‘better you’. A ‘better you’ that truly believes the adage that anything can be done with a little bit of hard work & perseverance.

P.S. This may sound like an inspirational piece for you, but is moreso for me, but if you’re inspired, hey, more power to you.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambienteye/2340600079/