More Letters to the Corinthians

Emotional Quality

Purchasing decisions used to come down to three things: quality, price, and service. These factors made up what we used to call value. So if you needed a new washing machine, you’d consider the quality, price, and service of multiple offerings and then choose a winner. This system worked great. Granted, not all products have a service component. For example, when buying a new car, you think heavily about how you’ll get it fixed but something like toothpaste doesn’t require repair (unless you consider the store’s return policy).

Right after WWI, our criterion changed. We split quality into two when business discovered that people not only look at what a product does, they consider how it makes them feel. This new factor was dubbed emotional quality. So now we have four:

Tangible quality
Emotional quality
Price
Service

Bernays

Emotions are powerful drivers linked to our subconscious. And it’s because of our subconscious mind that we don’t always act rationally, especially when buying. Freud was the first to suggest such a thing and his nephew, Edmund Bernays, took it to market.

Bernays worked with the US government during WWI developing propaganda to support the war effort. Afterwards, he created the idea of using psychoanalysis in advertising. Previously, products were advertised based solely on what they did. Bernays taught business to talk about how they make you feel.

Costing emotional quality

Our spin today is to mix tangible quality with emotional quality in order to justify a higher price. For example, if you need a new t-shirt, you can buy one from Walmart for $5 or go into Hugo Boss and pay 82. In either case, you’ll be getting something to cover your body but with Boss, it’ll be a higher quality garment since it’s constructed of better material and takes more time to make.

So how much are you paying for tangible quality vs. emotional? To figure this out we need to consider cost. In the Walmart example, the cost must be below $5 so let’s pick 4. And the cost of the Hugo Boss must be higher, so let’s triple it to $12. Then we’ll add a hefty markup of 300% to arrive at a more than reasonable price of $36 for the higher “tangible” quality product. The rest of Hugo’s price is just emotional ($46).

Walmart

Mfg cost = $4, retail price = $5, markup = 25%

Hugo Boss

Mfg cost = $12, tangible price = $36, markup = 300%, emotional premium = $46 ($82 – $36).

In the end, you can buy something cheap or get a high-quality item that comes with an emotional premium. (In actuality, Walmart’s product probably costs around $2 and Hugo’s less than 5. We exaggerated the numbers to prove a point. And yes, Hugo pays a fortune to create their fancy image but image isn’t tangible, it’s emotional.)

Summary

I once met a guy at a car wash. He was the worker who gave out change and kept the place running. He was also an immigrant. We got to talking about prices and he said he got his rubber boots from a second hand store for 50 cents. He then added that he liked Second Hand Store A better than Second Hand Store B because of selection. I said, “that’s a pretty good price for boots.”

A common question is whether life is fair? And in some cases, it is. If you can live without labels, you don’t have to pay a fortune for most goods. Especially with fashion but the same applies to the Honda Civic, regular shampoo, phones without call waiting, and groceries items like eggs, rice, and beans. Business always provides an inexpensive way out, if you’ll choose to be practical. Think about this the next time you shop.

Note: For more information on Edmund Bernays and the beginning of marketing based on subconscious emotions, check out the BBC documentary, The Century of the Self, available on YouTube.

Vocabulary

I once read a book where the author constantly used the word, exacerbate. Eventually, I looked it up and discovered it had nothing to do with sex. So I had to reread the book.

Reading and listening to smart people requires owning a strong vocabulary. And let’s be honest, very few of us have one. So rather than being doomed into never understanding, let’s get down to the business of bettering our word power. Create a list of fancy words you commonly come across and make a personal dictionary—using definitions and examples that make sense to you. Here’s a sample of mine.

Adversary – Opponent in a contest, conflict or dispute. The verb is adversarial. The professions of politics and law are both adversarial in nature.

Allegory – Story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. Synonyms are parable, analogy, and metaphor. Many stories in the Bible can be viewed as allegorical (not to be taken literally).

Altruism – The practice or belief in selfless concern for the well-being of others.

Auspices – Protection, patronage, under the control of (e.g., Iraq was ruled by a monarchy under the auspices of the British Empire from 1921 to 1958).

Auspicious – Conducive to, or promising, success. Terry believed an auspicious future lay ahead for himself. Synonyms are advantageous, favourable, and opportune.

Capricious – Given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior (fickle).

Circumspect – Being wary and unwilling to take risks.

Conundrum – A confusing and difficult problem or question.

Corollary – A proposition that follows with little or no proof required from one already proved (like a second point based on the same justification as the first).

Disenfranchised – Deprive someone of a right or privilege, like the right to vote.

Disingenuous – Not being candid or sincere, typically by pretending to know less about something than you really do (insincere, deceitful).

Dogma – Principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. As in Christian dogma.

Egregious – Outstandingly bad; shocking.

Esoteric – Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. Synonym is arcane.

Exacerbate – Make a bad situation worse. Nothing to do with sex.

Foster – Verb meaning to encourage or promote the development of. Usually associated with something regarded as good. It also means to bring up a child that is not one’s own by birth like, a foster parent.

Fulcrum – Noun meaning the support, or point of rest, on which a lever turns in moving a body.

Hubris – Excessive pride or self-confidence (arrogance).

Incorrigible – A person or their tendencies not able to be corrected, improved, or reformed. “Oh, Winston, you’re incorrigible.”

Juxtaposition – The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect. The state of being close together or side by side.

Marginalize – Treat a person, group, or concept as if it were insignificant or peripheral.

Metaphysics – One of the four traditional branches of philosophy. It’s concerned with the fundamental nature of being beyond the physical. Metaphysical issues most discussed are the existence of God, the soul, and the afterlife.

Nefarious – An action or activity that is wicked or cruel.

Nihilism – The rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. Synonyms: skepticism, cynicism, pessimism, negativity.

Ominous – Giving the impression that something bad or unpleasant is going to happen (e.g., ominous dark clouds gathering overhead).

Precarious – Adjective meaning not securely held in position; dangerously likely to fall or collapse. Dependent on chance; uncertain – she made a precarious living by writing. Uncertain, unpredictable, unsafe.

Prudence – Being cautious (e.g., exercising prudence in an important matter).

Providence – The protective care of God or nature as in divine intervention (e.g., Michael placed his trust in providence).

Pugnacious – Eager or quick to argue. Those people who like to fight.

Sectarian – Denoting or concerning a sect or sects. Separatist, partisan.

Secular – Adjective meaning non-religious. Non-secular then means religious (or spiritual).

Serendipity – The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Good fortune (perhaps through providence).

Tenuous – Adjective meaning very weak or slight.

Ubiquitous – Found everywhere (e.g., his ubiquitous influence was felt by all the family).

Umbrage – Take offence to, be insulted or put out by (e.g., fortunately she doesn’t take umbrage at such remarks).

Vanguard – A group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas.

Time to start yours?

Unspoken Issues

The opposite of smart is dumb, and the opposite of hard working is lazy. Words like these aren’t just insults, they’re opposites to worthy attributes. So, it’s perfectly okay to use them. With that out of the way, let’s talk people.

Quality observations are all around us. We say a brand-new Honda is better than an old Chev because of durability and superior engineering. But can we talk about people in the same way—in regards to quality? If we could, here’s the criteria:

Smart
Hard working
Emotionally stable
Well raised

Smart doesn’t mean genius, it’s the ability to learn skills and retain knowledge. Hard working means reasonably productive. Emotionally stable says you’ve been loved to the level where your act is together. And well raised means you hold society’s goals within your understandings.

Well raised

Freedom is often described as “being able to do whatever you wish, as long as you don’t hurt someone.” So society’s goal, in terms of being well raised, refers to the acts of cordially living together. Every parent, no matter how bad, teaches their kids “please and thank you” along with other cultural traditions. But two practices have been removed from our norm that perhaps should be put back. They are:

Living within your means
Making babies only when ready

People who live paycheque to paycheque never have enough for retirement and often can’t get through the situation of temporary job loss. This creates the need for government programs and public assistance. And babies born to ill-equipped parents are not only robbed of their fair chance at life, but their circumstance can lead them into becoming a danger to others, including those who were well raised.

Low quality people

A common misconception is that low quality people are poor—they’re not. Yes, many are poor but most immigrants and many in low-income positions still provide families with hard working and emotionally stable environments, while encouraging and supporting education. So wealth is not the defining criteria. As a matter of fact, just as many low quality people can be found in the upper and middle classes. Why? Because the primary criterion is whether you’ve been loved and well raised, and many of us have not.

Parenting

Any good parent will tell you it’s work to successfully raise a good child. The effort required to love, teach, and provide is almost endless. So how do the dumb, lazy, emotionally unstable, and poorly raised do at it?

Parenting in the early years involves loads of physical energy and the later years require good mental skills. And though most of us get through phase one, thanks to help from neighbours and grandparents, it’s the teenage years that prove most problematic—especially when one is without a partner. Many kids are forced into leaving home early because their parent(s) can’t handle them. Lower quality caregiver(s) simply can’t continue to love fully grown bodies and they don’t hold the skills to provide teens with guidance. The result is eggs being tossed into the harshness of reality long before they’re cooked. (And we have lots of them.)

Culture

Ann Coulter, a popular representative of the far-right, once said kids born into lousy environments are statistically better off being adopted and the talk show crowd went nuts. She was tormented to pieces for mentioning such a thought. Now, I’m not advocating Ann’s position but do believe we ought to consider reinforcing the old norms.

Why can’t rappers make songs like, Don’t Breed ‘Em Until You Can Feed ‘Em, Let’s Be Smart About It, and Double Up? Aren’t school posters depicting young couples with captions like, “No Glove, No Love” and “No Pill, No Thrill,” only prudent? And shouldn’t speeches from politicians and social leaders include comments like, “Let everyone aspire to live within their means and only make children when it’s their time?” Crazy? Maybe. But many immigrants, with no more than grade three, know all about these things. Why? Because these sorts of messages have been pounded into them since birth. So if some parents aren’t giving kids these values, maybe society should. (Remember, it takes a village.)

Conclusion

There was a time when people valued financial astuteness and felt shamed by children born out of wedlock. But these views have shifted to valuing our credit scores and believing condoms are just for sailors. I’m not saying everyone thinks this way but views like these are commonly held among our lower quality friends.

Liberals hate this stuff. Issues like living within your means and having babies only when ready, or talking about the quality of people makes them crazy. You’ll never see a Michael Moore film about this. They wish words like dumb, lazy, emotionally unstable, and poorly raised were eliminated from our vocabulary because they’re demeaning to the ones created and raised under these conditions. But Ann is just saying you have to wait a few years.

The right is constantly criticized for offering simple solutions to complicated problems, while lefties believe everyone is innocent and we’re essentially all the same. And though some lefties suggest keeping the word stupid just to describe those like Ann Coulter, problems never get solved when swept under the rug.

Note: The National Review reports that 40% of babies born in the US are out of wedlock. When you factor in a percentage for parents who eventually get married or stay together as an unmarried couple, this percentage obviously comes down. And yes, consumer debt is at an all-time high.

Brexit

A lot has been made about Britain’s recent decision to leave the European Union. While most observers dismiss this as the realization of the inevitable, some fear it marks the end of the EU. Those of us on this side of the Atlantic are wondering who’s right.

European Union

The EU was initially constructed out of the European Common Market. An establishment that began in 1957 with the aim of economic integration among its six founding members (which grew to 12 by 1986).

In the mid-1990s, Europe took an even greater leap by folding together a number of existing bodies and expanding their roles. It became known as the EU. The model was equated to Europe becoming like the United States, with powers being shared between a federal body (in Brussels) and provinces or states.

The article, Public Sector, highlights the division of duties we have here in Canada between federal, provincial, and city governments. And we’ve seen a similar situation when Newfoundland abandoned independence to join confederation in 1949.

The “federal-style” changes brought about by the EU include the following:

A common currency backed by a central bank (in Germany).
A free-flow of Europeans to live and work anywhere within the Eurozone.
A central (or federal) agency for the regulation of food products (like the USDA).
A central (or federal) agency for immigration.
Central (or federal) agencies for public health, safety standards, industry, social welfare, foreign aid, the environment, and many other areas including a common strategy for justice and defense.

Changes like these go far beyond the wish to share open markets. They threaten the long standing notion of sovereignty and challenge national pride. And because of these changes, Britain was suspect from the start.

The two largest countries in the EU are France and Germany. They’re the engines behind the push. Most smaller countries readily complied because, for them, this was their way to survive. But middle-sized countries like Britain and Spain were constantly weighing their options. As a result, setbacks were expected.

Greece

We’ve also heard much about Greece and its debt, along with allegations that if only they had their own currency, they could devalue it and get out of this mess. But this is mostly nonsense. Does Manitoba need its own currency whenever times get tough?

Greece is now a province that simply spends more than it makes, due largely to an oversized and overpaid civil service (like Alberta). And when a province runs large deficits over time, it finds itself in financial trouble (like Ontario).

Fun facts

Two more facts to convince you that Britain will survive and the EU is still strong:

Nine European countries are not part of the EU including Norway, Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey.
Of the 27 member states, only 19 use the euro. Those abstaining include Britain, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, and Denmark.

Conclusion

Just imagine if Canada joined the U.S. in a similar manner. How would you like it (even if it did made economic sense)? And how would you like the idea of adopting U.S. social platforms like their gun laws? Then imagine the complexity of putting together 27 proudly independent nations, many with their own language, into one overriding body. Did you really expect a project of this magnitude to be accomplished without incident? (Especially considering their histories?)

The EU has, for the most part, been a success and is now roughly the economic size and population of the US. This affords them the ability to develop and sustain projects like the Airbus, effective environmental controls, and collective foreign policy. And today’s young people consider themselves Europeans as much as they do Irish, Polish, or Dutch.

Experts say the EU is a political experiment of the highest importance concerning how human societies think about themselves and their relationships with others. (They’re also witnessing a decline in the traditional loyalties we have to nations and see a shift towards transnational and regional units.) My belief is the EU will continue its success and Britain will someday join again. (Or, maybe they’ll be offered something like a notwithstanding clause and never leave.)

Ancient Greece

The effects of Ancient Greece are strewn throughout the Western world. We use Greek terms, acknowledge Greek gods, and admire Greek philosophers, but why? Western Civilization was formed under the old Roman Empire, which was heavily influenced by the ways of Ancient Greece. Rome overtook Greece in 146 BC and quickly discovered it was a more advanced society, so they adopted much of Greek culture. Hundreds of years later, Rome split into east and west. The West became known as Western Civilization and included most of Europe. Since early North Americans were predominantly of European descent, many elements of ancient Greek culture are still ingrained within us.

Greco-Roman

The time period between the conquest of Greece and the splitting of the Roman Empire is known as Greco-Roman civilization. Along with white columns influencing Roman architecture, the Romans incorporated Greek characteristics in art, music, drama, and dance. They also adopted the concepts of individual freedoms and democracy, and the Greek system of religion—copying their gods, one for one (Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, Eros became Cupid, etc.).

Alphabet and language

The first true alphabet was established by the Greeks in the 8th century BC. It was preceded by earlier writing systems of the Middle East but they consisted of only symbols or consonants. The Greeks enhanced the consonant system by adding vowels. And though Latin was the language of Rome, Greek was a fuller, more developed language that was used for many documents of the time, including the New Testament. (Note: like Canadian students take French, children in England used to study Latin and Greek.)

Literature

Greek literature begins with Homer, who is believed to have lived around 800 BC. Homer is known for two famous poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These pieces are believed to be the oldest available literature in Western culture.

The 24 books of the Iliad describe the mythical war between the Greeks of Sparta and the walled city of Troy (believed to be somewhere in Turkey). It starts with Paris of Troy abducting Helen from the King of Sparta. It ends with the Greeks deceiving the Trojans by sailing away and leaving them a gift of a giant wooden horse. But the horse was filled with soldiers, who exited in the middle of the night and destroyed the sleeping city, thereby winning the war.

Democracy

Back then, people identified with city-states—they didn’t really have countries. In Athens and the area around it, people practiced democracy for 200 years, between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. They convened 40 times per year and practiced true democracy, where individuals voted. It wasn’t a representative democracy like we have today.

Only 20% of the population were eligible since women, slaves, and foreigners engaged in trade were excluded from citizenship. So, from an Athenian population of around 250,000, only 50,000 could vote. They conducted themselves in a theatre that held 10-15,000 people and a quorum was 6,000.

Philosophy

Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Each will have their own article but take this for now.

Plato wrote volumes about Socrates, while Socrates himself didn’t write anything down.
Socrates is known for the Socratic Method, which is to admit one’s ignorance about a given subject and then draw conclusions about it from an adversary by means of direct questioning.
Plato was a celibate bachelor who established the Academy, which is recognized as the first institution of higher learning in the Western world (the first university). It lasted for hundreds of years. He’s also known for the idea that humans can be divided into body and soul, and that the soul lives on after the body’s death. His views inspired many religious beliefs and the term “platonic relationship.”
Aristotle is considered the father of science and much of our modern curriculum can be traced back to him. Though he studied under Plato for 20 years and agreed with the principle of afterlife, he’s not very existential, preferring instead to look for hard evidence. So Aristotle is the practical guy while Plato is the airy-fairy, mystic.

Religion

Though Greek religion was better and more exciting than what Rome had to offer, it was still a belief system that rested in destiny. The Judeo-Christian faith rested in hope. Not only because it offered a peaceful afterlife but also because it taught that each life was unique (therefore worth living). As a result, after incorporating Greece’s religion into their own, the Roman Empire later converted to Christianity.

Western Civilization

The West is widely described as the meeting of Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian faith. Initially, Greco-Roman civilization was the merger of Roman power and Greek culture. It started with Rome overtaking Greece in 146 BC. Major steps forward include the following.

In 285 AD, the empire had grown so vast that East was divided from West. The Eastern Empire became governed from Byzantium in modern day Turkey (later to become Constantinople, then Istanbul). To Romans, there was hardly a difference—this was mostly an administrative split.
In 313, Western Emperor Constantine and Eastern Emperor Licinius granted Christians the right to practice their religion, ending years of persecution. Constantine himself converted.
In 324, Constantine united the two empires by defeating Licinius, and ruled over them until his death in 337, moving the capital from Rome to Constantinople.
In 380, the reunited Roman Empire adopted Judeo-Christianity as its state religion.
In 395, the East-West division became permanent and the East eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. It changed its language to Greek (instead of Latin) and would lose much of its traditional Roman flavour.
In 476, the Western empire fell to the northern barbarians (the Germans). But life in the Byzantine Empire continued generally unchanged until the mid-fifteenth century when it fell to the Ottoman Turks. Along the way, in 1054, Eastern Christianity severed itself from Roman Catholicism to form its own sect called, Eastern Orthodoxy.

Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian faith are the initial tenets of the Western world. Sure, Britain later contributed economics and the Americans invented disco, but these guys started it all.

Note: Read a little more about the Iliad and you can watch the movie, Troy, starring Brad Pitt. See also Civilizations, History of Western Faith, and this video about Socrates.

TSX 25

Ask any financial adviser and they’ll say a big part of their job is “talking people off the ledge.” Soothing investor nerves is the psychological contribution they make for all those fees. But why do we freak-out so often? Isn’t it because we’re not always organized in our financial thoughts and at peace with our plan? So let’s get organized.

Money can only be placed into four groups: cash, GICs, bonds, and stocks. The most confusing of these is stocks.

Canadian stocks

Canadian stocks come in limited flavours and though we have a TSX 300, you only need to know about 25. The primary sectors are: financials, utilities, resources, and telecommunications.

Financials means banks and insurance companies. Here are the ones to watch:

Toronto Dominion (TD)
Bank of Montreal (BMO)
Royal (RY)

Manulife (MFC)
Sun Life (SL)

Utilities primarily means pipelines and power companies.

Enbridge (ENB)
TC Energy (TRP)
Pembina (PPL)

Fortis (FTS)
Capital Power (CPX)

Resources in Canada means oil companies and mining.

Suncor (SU)
Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ)
Cenovus Energy (CVE)
Crescent Point (CPG)

Teck Resources (TCK.B)

And our big telecoms are:

Bell (BCE)
Rogers (RCI.B)
Telus (T)

Good companies in other industries are:

Canadian National Railway (CNR)
Canadian Pacific Railway (CP)
Magna (MG)

Empire (Sobeys) (EMP.A)
Loblaws (L)
Canadian Tire (CTC.A)
Nutrien (NTR)

Honourable mention goes to Imperial Oil, Arc Energy, Encana, and Emera. This list gives you a good cross-section of the Canadian economy. So if Canada does well, you do well. And there’s no reason to believe that Canada won’t do well.

If I had a million dollars

The next question is: how should I invest my dough? Here’s what I’d do with a million dollars.

Cash – 10%
GICs & Bonds – 30%
TSX 25 – 60%

You always need cash in the event something goes on sale (i.e., a market correction).

Bonds and GICs give you stability. GICs need to be CDIC insured and laddered over 2-5 years. Bonds should also be laddered and only honoured by quality companies. Note: bonds must pay a premium to compensate for their risk over a GIC (I’d say minimum 1-2%).

When it comes to stocks, own the TSX 25. If you’re just starting out, buy them in order, one industry at a time. For example, if you have only $10K, buy the TD Bank (or your bank). With your next $10K, buy Enbridge, and so on until you own them all.

With only a million dollars there’s no need to go international and involve currency risk. We have plenty of good companies here at home. But if you have an international flair, look to the US and Asia.

Young people

Jordan has a good paying job but nothing for savings. He wants to start investing but doesn’t know where to begin. Here’s what I’d suggest.

The first $10K should go into a 5-year, CDIC insured GIC. The next $10K should go into a high-quality corporate bond. The next $10K into the TD Bank, and the next into Enbridge. Along the way, he’ll accumulate some cash. After stage one, his portfolio should look something like this:

$ 5K Cash
$10K GICs
$10K Bonds
$10K TD Bank
$10K Enbridge

Summary

Being organized relieves the stress of investing. You needn’t experience emotional pain for financial gain. Substitute companies into this list as desired but remember that owning and watching 300 stocks is unmanageable. It’s best to keep things simple. (Besides, getting rich shouldn’t be that complicated.)

Stanford

A previous article presented four types of guys to watch out for regarding sexual assault. One of them was opportunists and they were highlighted this week at a trial held at Stanford. We’re not going to talk about this particular case, but let’s dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding opportunistic sexual assault and then make some observations.

We must first answer three questions:

Who are the victims?
How often does this happen?
Who are the perpetrators?

Victims

The Stanford case, and most situations like it, involves a girl who got passed out drunk. So let’s talk about passed out drunk. When it comes to young people, there are four types of drinkers:

tea-toddlers
social drinkers
party animals
piss-tanks

Squeaky clean tea toddlers don’t drink; social drinkers have a few but don’t get drunk; party animals get drunk often; and piss-tanks get hammered all the time, many times to the point of passing out.

As a result, party animals and piss-tanks make up the bulk of the victims. But social drinkers can also cross the line, albeit unintentionally.

Frequency

It’s estimated that opportunistic sexual assault occurs 2-300 times per week in North America (Canada and the US), which equals 10-15,000 times per year.

Perpetrators

Perpetrators are young men with medium to high sex drives, who are usually also intoxicated.

Medium to high-drive men who drink beyond the “social drinker” level make up 30-50% of the population. As a result, approx. 40% of young men are potential offenders. Because of these high numbers, they can’t all be classified as monsters.

Nature

By nature, every weekend thousands of young girls get passed out drunk, and by nature, a large percentage of boys have high sex drives. Combine these two with opportunity and you get a crime that has been occurring for centuries.

Usually girls travel in packs—ensuring that if one gets drunk, a friend is there to care for her. But sometimes the drunken wildebeest gets separated from the herd.

Feminists believe that drunk, horny men will act responsibly if we throw some of them in jail. That the threat of punishment will override their naturally raging hormones into not committing a crime that their uninhibited drunken selves believe is easy to get away with.

Anti-feminists say we should just teach young girls never to get drunk.

Conclusion

People often have strong opinions without proper knowledge. Knowledge that is sometimes denied because certain topics are labeled as taboo (therefore, not socially discussed).

Everyone has to accept the truth about the male sex drive and that opportunistic sexual assault can be carried out by almost anyone. Then we need to acknowledge that young girls naturally get drunk as much as young boys do—so stop saying it’s their fault.

Feminists have traditionally focused on educating males about the severity of the crime with little mention about prevention. But perhaps some of the solution lies in adapting social behaviour to reality. For example, Mabel, Betsy, and Inga go to a party and Inga gets wasted. Derrick tells Inga she can sleep in his bed. When the two remaining girls have their conversation, it could go like this.

Mabel: “Do you think Inga is going to be okay?”
Betsy: “Ya, Derrick said she could sleep in his room.”
Mabel: “Maybe we should take her home.”

Also informing young people about reality is a better approach than denying it. Because a well-informed Mabel can access that though Derrick may seem like a fine young man—40% is a high number.

In mathematical terms: Passed Out Girl + Drunk Horny Guy + Opportunity = Potential Foul

We can’t stop young people from getting drunk and we can’t change the male sex drive, but we can consciously try to remove opportunity. This way, Mabel and Betsy get to go to heaven, Derrick is potentially saved from himself, and Inga doesn’t have to write a 12-page letter.

Note: Lack of prevention doesn’t make sexual assault any less of a crime (if you forget to lock your doors, someone taking your stereo is still stealing) and the actions taken at Stanford were definitely at the deviant end of the 40%, but the point remains—if a girl passes out at a party, take her home.

All About Exercise

Exercise is by far the most dreaded word in the dieter dictionary. We so hate gym-freaks telling us how good they feel after their workout that we secretly wish them all pulled muscles. It’s not that we dislike nature’s physical aspect; it’s that we don’t want the freaks to be right.

Exercise does two things: it burns calories and it makes you feel better. Burning calories is beneficial for weight loss. For example, if you burn an additional 200 calories per day, you’ll theoretically lose one pound every two weeks without changing an eating habit. Feeling better is wonderful regardless of size. Not only do you have the ability to do more but fitness guards against nagging health problems—like a sore back. So heavy people should long for the benefits of fitness as much as anyone.

So why don’t we do it? Why won’t we exercise? There are three reasons: We think exercise is painful, we feel it has to be done too often, and (unfortunately) most of us are lazy.

Exercise is painful

Everyone is familiar with the expression: no pain, no gain. Well, other than in the bedroom, most of us don’t really like pain. Frankly, we fear it. We’re simply not the weekend warrior type and literally have no desire to painfully be the best that we can be.

The idea that exercise has to be painful is ridiculous. There is absolutely no need to feel pain on the road to health. The pain most people experience is from working with weights. Experts and trainers want you to weight train because it builds muscle. Their reasoning is that muscle burns more daily calories than fat. But what their thick heads don’t understand is that fat people aren’t the bodybuilder type. We’re never going to become classic jocks. And the pain of working with weights usually scares us away from the gym forever.

People do things they enjoy. Remember school recess. Running around feeling happy and free. That’s what exercise is suppose to be like. So only do workouts that you enjoy like, walking or playing a sport. Maybe try volleyball, bowling, table tennis, or golf. The objective is simply to enjoy being active (otherwise you’ll quit).

It must be done too often

We’ve all heard experts say that unless a program is carried out at least three times per week it’s essentially useless. So we figure, why go through all the pain of the first few workouts when we know we’ll never be able to keep it up?

Don’t listen to that baloney. That’s for athletes. For us, it’s wonderful to get in any type of exercise whenever we can. Walking to the mailbox, stretching in front of the TV, doing the dishes, almost anything qualifies. Just get off the couch and move.

Sure joining a gym gives you some place to go, and partaking in a regularly scheduled program makes exercise part of your routine. But, more importantly, you have to believe that any exercise is better than no exercise.

Most of us are lazy

Go to a gym. How many fat people do you see? Very few. That’s because we’re characteristically sedentary, slow moving, couch potatoes. Exercise and being athletic is simply not our style. Most of us were never good at athletics in high school and many of us don’t even watch sports on TV. So how do we get over this hurdle when we don’t like to jump?

A famous author once coined laziness as original sin. I’m not sure he’s totally correct but it’s certainly a major problem. The way to combat laziness is to get up and move. Get going on the job at hand. Stop psyching yourself out by looking at the whole job in its entirety, just do something. Don’t worry when you’ll finish, don’t stress over perfection, just get started. You can always stop.

For example, if you’re lying beside a pile of laundry that needs folding, pick up a facecloth and fold it. It’s not a big deal. Chores are simply part of life. Sure you’re fat and no one understands that you suffer from low energy, but for goodness sake you can fold a facecloth.

Approach all work the same way. Shut off your mind and simply get started. You’ll find the tendency to procrastinate disappears once you get your head right.

The best thing you can do at the gym is show up. If you show up, you’ll take one step. Then if your body wants to walk—it will walk. If it doesn’t—it won’t. Your mind’s job is simply to take one step.

And shut off your brain the moment you get going. You don’t want to hear yourself nag while trying to enjoy a workout.

Rules

For most people, there are three rules when it comes to exercise:

Enjoy your workout—if you don’t, you’ll quit
Any exercise is better than no exercise
Combat laziness— just get started

Your workout should be easy, fun, and possible. Don’t sabotage it with pain or fancy expectations. Only include exercises that you enjoy and do them only for as long as it feels comfortable (you don’t have to push yourself). Little stretch before, little stretch after, and you’re good.

The problem with so many programs is that they put you in a hurry, they’re too results oriented. Relax—you’re trying to make peace with exercise for life.

Personal trainers are great for taking someone who’s in relatively good shape and getting them into great shape. They’re not for people like us. They’re too focused on results. Our biggest goal at the gym is to show up—not a great match.

But they’re good teachers, so ask them about proper stretching techniques and all the different exercises available. But if they get pushy, give ‘em the finger (it’s your life).

Summary

The first two rules are easy to adopt but taking on laziness is a constant battle. Remember, it’s all about getting started. You’ll probably begin by walking slow for a short period of time and then nature will take you from there. Eventually you’ll feel like walking a little faster and maybe a little longer. In the end, you’ll arrive at a practical workout that you enjoy and that works for you.

Angels

In the search for meaning, there are many options under alternative. Alternate points of view are now becoming popular as humanity’s faith in classic religion continues to falter. Let’s start with some basics.

Deism

Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of God. Deism says there is a god, but it doesn’t intervene in our lives. Theism says there is a god and it intervenes.

A monotheist believes in one god; a polytheist thinks there are many.

Deism was conceived in the 17th and 18th centuries by an intellectual movement that believed in the existence of a creator, on the basis of reason, but rejected belief in a god that interacts with humankind. Deism comes in two forms: warm, which allows for some involvement, and cold, which says there is none.

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and many of America’s founding fathers were deists, along with Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Adam Smith, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Napoleon.

Religion

Including denominations, there are over 2,000 religions in the world. They generally give meaning to life and explain its origin. Religion also tends to derive morality, ethics, religious laws, or a preferred lifestyle from their ideals. Essentially, they all do the same things:

Recognize a creator
Define what the creator is like
Describe what the creator wants from us (the rules)
Give meaning to life

Many religions offer personal gods with humanlike qualities (like love and anger) so people can relate. Some say you can interact with them on a daily basis and become friends. Others describe God as being much more mystical, not humanlike at all. They believe the only way to experience Him is through imagination and other means of spirituality.

Deists say only that there is a creator and never try to explain anything more. They find it bizarre any church would claim additional knowledge and feel a belief system should focus on the experience of life, not so much on how we got here.

Meaning of life

In a deistic approach, the meaning of life is to live it. You’re supposed to go out there and meet people, fall in love, have your heart broken, climb a mountain, paint a fence, laugh your ass off, and get stung by a bee. That’s it. The rest will get explained to us at the end. It’s not about continually calling on some God to answer all your prayers. It’s about being in a group that’s taking a trip. Experience the trip, then we’ll talk about it later.

Angels

Warm deists also believe there is some, albeit little, intervention from above to ensure we get full value from our voyage. This comes by way of angels. Angels help us survive and experience the day. They watch over our safety and make us hit every checkpoint on the run. They can’t do much if you drive into a concrete wall but they can negotiate a few inches, which oftentimes leaves only a lesson.

Angels bring people in and out of our lives. Adversaries and allies, lovers and friends, neighbours and heroes, relatives and workmates. And they make us play different roles for each other. (For example, some say you haven’t lived until you’ve met an Italian.) Interfacing with others is a major theme on the trip, along with encountering nature, getting to know yourself, and meeting the god of the mystics. Then, spill a drink, grow a plant, read a book, have a discussion, get a job, and flip a pancake. It’s all life. So are feelings of empathy and holding positions of power. They’re just stops along the way.

Life is an experience that gets explained to us at the end. And angels help us through it.

Possibilities

Okay, so I like the idea of being a warm deist who believes in angels, but can I still have Jesus and belief in the Bible? Sure, if you can handle that Jesus was not God but more like Nelson Mandela, and the Bible as being no more divine than Plato’s Republic or Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Can I still respect religious people? Yup, we’re all on different paths. Classic religion may simply be where they’re at right now. What about reincarnation? Do I have to believe in crazy things like past lives? No, but reincarnation is within the realm of possibilities. Earth could be a training ground where passengers travel without remembrance of past visits. Then, when back up in heaven, everything comes together.

Is it okay to dislike people that try to evangelize me? Absolutely, they’re worse than telemarketers. But it’s all about the experience—both yours and theirs. Evangelical leaders encourage members to believe they’re doing the work of God. So if knocking on doors helps them further that experience, all the power to them. As long as they stop when you ask.

Let’s be honest, life is hard. And questions about meaning are unsettling because no one knows the answers—it’s all just belief. So for the sake of sanity, the reply is whatever floats your boat. Deists aren’t saying you have to see things their way. They’re simply providing another option for those who’ve examined religion and can’t buy in.

Conclusion

Everyone gets brainwashed to some degree by their upbringing—from atheism to fundamentalism. But individuals can be set free. Free to not only choose their own course but free to switch back. And it’s this flexibility that leaves room for doubt. Doubt that should eliminate the arrogance many of us feel towards our way as being the only way.

Couldn’t everyone be right? Couldn’t there be multiple systems all running at the same time? Multiple gods sharing one planet, or one god with multiple faces intervening with different groups so that atheists, mystics, and evangelicals could all be right? I don’t know. Your angel just told me to send you this letter.

Sex

It’s amazing how little North Americans know about our second most primal instinct. You’d think that after five thousand years of doing it there’d be some form of education out there, but there just isn’t. So here’s the skinny on sex.

Different drives

There are three basic drives: low, medium, and high. Hello! Why doesn’t everybody know this?

Let’s define them as follows: high drives want it once or twice a week, mediums once or twice a month, and no-to-lows between zero and two times a year. (Yes, zero is an option.)

Humans come in three different drives and some people have a hard time accepting the other two. We tend to think that everyone should be just like us, but there are three different drives.

50-40-10

Is there a gender difference when it comes to this? You bet. The percentages are as follows:

50% of men are high, 40% are medium, and 10% are no-to-low.
10% of women are high, 40% are medium, and 50% are no-to-low.

Now let’s do the math. If you apply the percentages against each other, you’ll find that:

25% of couples are matched (i.e., high with high, medium with medium, low with low)
50% of couples are close (i.e., high with medium or medium with low)
25% are mismatched (i.e., high with low)

So half of all couples have some sort of sex problem and one in every four have a real issue. Nobody did anything to cause this. It’s nature. And though 1% of relationships are made up of a high-drive woman with a low-drive man, 24% are the opposite (high-drive guy with low-drive gal).

The sex trade wasn’t created by accident. All the magazines, movies, strip clubs, massage parlours, on-street prostitution, and pornographic websites are there for a reason. Tons of people are horny. And you can’t just wish it away. It’s normal to like sex.

Plus we need to recognize the additional stimuli directed towards men. Between “Sunshine Girls,” billboards, Internet pop-ups, and beer commercials, they must see 20 bikini-clad babes a day. What do you think this does? It jacks them up, that’s what!

Mature adults must see what’s going on. There are different drives, most couples aren’t properly matched, and oodles of us are as horny as billy goats.

Male vs. female

The male and female attitudes toward sex have traditionally been seen as opposites.

Sexuality for women is an extension of emotional intimacy, whereas for men, it can simply be for pleasure. Traditional female sexuality assumes that you have to first be in love (or at least really like the guy), while traditional male sexuality says it’s also okay to roll around just for fun.

These are just traditional roles and not all men and women feel according to their gender. But regardless of your position, you must be sensitive to the other. Sex will always be an act of intimacy, whether physical or an extension of verbal. It’s just that women are traditionally quicker to get verbal and consider being physical as special, while men are typically the opposite—they can easily get naked but are slower to share a secret.

Female revolutions

Many developments have occurred over the past 50 years in terms of female sexuality. And TV role models illustrate the changes. Take, for example, the difference between Wilma Flintstone and Marge Simpson.

Wilma raised most North American women born between 1950 and 1970. Married to her bumbling, loudmouth husband, she laid the framework for the way many ladies conduct themselves today. And though she shared many a friendly giggle with Betty, in terms of how she treated her husband, Wilma was oftentimes a bag. Her angry, cross-armed, toe-tapping anticipation of conflict with Fred was etched into every child’s memory. And the notion of wives yelling at husbands became accepted as the norm.

Now fast-forward to Marge Simpson, married to the same sort of guy. Homer is certainly no better; he’s actually worse. But Marge rarely raises her voice and almost always forgives without issuing penance. But more importantly, for our purposes, Marge has sex. And not only does she have sex, she enjoys it. And so does Lois on Malcolm in the Middle and many others.

So female revolution number one is that it’s okay for women to have and enjoy sex.

Thanks to Marge and countless others, a major shift occurred. The 50-40-10 figures previously defined are much different among younger women. More of them are outside the no-to-low zone and into the medium or high as the ratios between the sexes are getting closer.

And the world is experiencing another female revolution. Women are adopting the sexual attitude traditional of males. In other words, more women are subscribing to the notion that it’s perfectly okay to engage in physicality just for fun. We see this everywhere—through marital affairs, web-based cheating sites, bar chicks aggressively hitting on cute guys, fewer constraints for getting to first base, the increased numbers in my swingers club, way more adult-only resorts, and almost everybody is getting naked on the internet. Something huge is going on here.

Dating protocol

Though it’s cool that women are enjoying themselves—and most guys are happy to see them aboard—we’re currently having issues incorporating this second revolution into our dating style.

The old structure was this:

attraction ➔ verbal intimacy➔ light physical ➔ more verbal ➔ more physical ➔ love ➔ all the way

Over the past few decades we changed it to this:

attraction ➔ verbal intimacy ➔ light physical ➔ more physical ➔ all the way

We showed the world that you don’t have to be in love in order to make out. You can just really like someone and there needn’t be any sort of commitment. So it’s now perfectly okay to have multiple partners before marriage. But today people are trying to change it to this:

attraction ➔ physical (skipping past all the emotional)

And this creates a problem. Sex without something of an emotional connection is unnatural. It sounds good in theory but doesn’t work in actual practice because we’re two-sided beings—both women and men. Adults having a physical affair who don’t acknowledge it could turn into something emotional are living dangerously. Even mature singles who regularly sleep around are missing core components to the whole experience.

Young people

This new quasi-structure of dating is messing with our kids. Google the words “making love” and you enter the world of fisting, yanking, and spanking. Okay for older folks in need of a little stimulation but beyond confusing for a teenager with a crush.

Young people need to be taught that liking someone involves skipping stones and holding hands in the park. You’re not supposed to immediately take off all your clothes. It naturally takes time for two people to arrive at a point where all that physical stuff feels right and things shouldn’t be rushed. We mustn’t forget that physical connection is an extension of an existing emotional one. Sure, our paths to romantic love are different. Men come from a more physical angle and women from a more emotional one, but the eventual act of lovemaking is the fusing of the two. That’s why it’s so great.

Sex without prior emotional connection is unnatural and not good for young people. It screws them up and forces them into actions they may later regret (girls especially, but also the boys). Teach your kids to take life one step at a time and only do what is appropriate for their age.

Note: This excerpt was taken from the book, Marriage Figured Out. You may also like the articles on Intimacy, Love, and Monogamy