mikebrowne's posterous

I am a soda pop lover, the next time I am in LA I will be checking out Galco’s Soda Pop Stop. What a cool place, interesting man and a great story.

The Lighthouse Keeper Team :

Baptiste rogron / rogronbaptiste.blogspot.com ;

Rony Hotin / ronyhotin.blogspot.com ;

Maïlys Vallade / mailysvallade.blogspot.com ;

Jérémie Moreau / mor-row.blogspot.com ;

Gaëlle Thierry / gaellethierry.blogspot.com ;

David François.

Music : Romain Gauthier / ninomojo.com

Animation sure has come a long way since Hercules and Rocket Robin Hood.

How to Escape Materialism and Find Happiness

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns

Money can’t buy you love. It can’t buy you happiness either. Today’s materialistic world often urges us to buy the coolest gadgets, the trendiest clothes, bigger and better things, but research shows that possessions and purchases don’t buy us happiness. According to an article on CNN, "by and large, money buys happiness only for those who lack the basic needs. Once you pass an income of $50,000, more money doesn’t buy much more happiness [according to happiness studies]." So while we are being pushed towards materialism, it’s for monetary gain by corporations, not for our own happiness.

All around us, there are messages telling us to buy stuff. On the internet, we see continuous advertising trying to get us to purchase a product or service. It’s the main reason for television, and movies are continually made with products placed throughout, so that we aren’t always sure what is advertising and what was put in there by the director. Flip on the radio or open up a newspaper or magazine, and you’re bombarded by more advertising. Go to a shopping center/mall, and the urge to buy comes from every direction. This message to continually buy, buy, buy and that it will somehow make us happier is drilled into our heads from the days of Happy Meals and cartoons until the day we die. It’s inescapable. Well, almost. You could go and live in a cabin in the woods (and that actually sounds nice), or you could still live in our modern society, but find ways to escape materialism.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to escape the trap of materialism, and find happiness in ways other than buying stuff online or finding joy in the mall. But it’s possible. Here’s a guide to finding a materialism-free life and discovering true happiness.

Steps

1. Limit television. Do you really enjoy watching TV for hours? Think about which shows you really, really love, and only watch during that time. When the commercials come on, go do something else. Or use Tivo to watch TV. You can even give up cable TV entirely, if you’re brave — you may just discover it’s one of the best things you’ve ever done.
2. Eschew the news. Journalists will never tell you this, but if they’re completely honest, they’ll confess that the most important part of any news company, from TV or radio news to internet or print news, is the advertising division. It’s the division that provides the paychecks for the rest of the company. The news is important in driving traffic to the advertising. So when you’re watching or reading news, you’re really being sucked in to advertising. Try this instead: boycott the news for a week. It won't hurt you; it will help you a lot in finding reliable and worthy news sources minus advertisements; it'll also decrease your exposure to negative stories 99% of the time.
3. Limit Internet reading. This isn't asking you to cancel your cable internet subscription or anything. Just check out the sites that you truly love reading, that give you the most value, and limit your reading to those. And just do it once a day, for 30 minutes or so. If you can do that, you’ve gone a long way towards tearing yourself away from advertising. And support sites that do not advertise with your devoted readership.
4. Give up magazines for books. Magazines are also designed with advertising in mind. And they rarely give you much value. Try reading an ad-free book instead. It’s a much better use of your time.
5. Don’t go to the mall or Walmart. The only purpose of these places is for you to spend money. If you just want a place to spend your Saturday afternoon, find a place where you don’t need to spend money to have fun — a park, the library or a beach, for example. If you need to buy something, go to a single store (not the mall) and go in and get what you need. Don’t browse and walk around looking at stuff. You’ll get sucked in.
6. Monitor your urges. When you’re online, or watching TV, or at a store, keep track of the number of times you want to buy something. Keep a little notebook or index card, and just put tally marks. Once you become more aware of your urges to buy things, you can start to control them. If you could control them, limiting your consumption of media (see above tips) isn’t really necessary — although arguably doing so still gives you a better quality of life.
7. Use a 30-day list. If you still really want to buy something, put it on a list, and write down the date you added the item to the list. Now tell yourself you cannot buy that item for 30 days. It might be difficult, but you can do it. When the 30 days have passed, if you still want it, then buy it. But you can’t buy anything (besides essentials like groceries) without putting it on the list for 30 days first. Many times, our urges to buy something will pass during this waiting period.
8. Declutter. You will find it pretty amazing to see all the rubbish you buy over a period of years, when you go through closets and other possessions and start getting rid of stuff you don’t use or want any more. It’s a gratifying process, and at the same time, it makes you realize how useless all our consumer shopping is. You don’t need any of the stuff! When you do this, you may be less likely to buy more stuff. Especially if you enjoy the decluttered look of your house - most people do!
9. Find other forms of entertainment. There are other things to do besides watching TV or movies or reading magazines, newspapers or the internet. Try playing sports or exercising, or playing board games, creating art, writing or reading a book. Try doing fun things with your kids or visiting relatives and other loved ones. Try volunteering with a charity. Come up with 100 free or cheap things to do and do them!
10. Buy used. When you get the urge to buy something, and you’re convinced that it’s needed, try finding it used instead of new. Look in thrift shops, recycling depots, second-hand dealers or garage sales, flea markets or similar places. Provided it works, it'll do the same job as a new one and cost you much less and you spare the Earth a little longer from additional junk being thrown away or produced.
11. Find the true Path to Happiness. So, if you’re able to escape materialism, how can you find true happiness? There are many ways, and each of us is different, but here are some things to try:

     

    • Grateful list. Make a list of things about which you’re grateful in your life. Give thanks for them daily.
    • Think positive. Try eliminating negative thinking from your life, and think positive instead.
    • Small pleasures. Make a list of small things that give you great pleasure. Sprinkle them throughout your day. Notice other small pleasures as you go through your day.
    • Kindness. Practice random acts of kindness and compassion. Do it anonymously. Help those in need. Volunteer. Make someone smile.
    • Love. Make an intimate connection with your loved ones. Develop your friendships. Spend time with them, converse, understand them, make them happy.
    • Health. Exercise and eat healthy — it sounds trite, but it can bring great happiness to your life.
    • Meaning. It’s often useful to find meaning, either through a church or spiritual way, or through those we love in life or through the things we’re passionate about. Give yourself a purpose.
    • Flow. Eliminate distractions, and really pour yourself into whatever you’re doing, until you forget the outside world.
    • Know yourself. Become attuned to what brings you happiness. Study yourself. Learn about what you love, and about your ability to love. Increase your capacity for compassion.

 

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pen for list
• Yellow Pages to find used dealers
• Less of everthing
• Free options

Sources and Citations

• Original source of article from the very generous Zen Habits. Please feel free to visit and support copyright free information providers.

Great article. I love StumbleUpon

Audio only of BB Gabor's - Soviet Jewelry (Nyet Nyet Soviet) from July 1980. It was one of my favorite tunes on the Canadian LP version of K-Tel's "Rock 80", the only other place I have ever heard it.

This is a short film (a fast paced preview of a larger effort) by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age. For more information please visit: maya.com/practices/research Really interested in the implications of a trillion-node world? Read Dr. Peter Lucas's seminal white paper that not only predicted this sort of scaling and complexity but outlined some of the resilient patterns that we need to follow to get there from here. maya.com/portfolio/the-trillion-node-network

DEVO's "DON'T SHOOT"
Live Concert visuals piece
Produced by DEVO
Dir. Gerald Casale & Davy Force!
Design/Post: Force!Extreme Anti-Mation
Live Shoot: Thumb War

Posted by creator DAVY FORCE!
(Official DEVO Upload)

** Glad they're still kicking. **

Contests

Official Movember Cuff Links Contest 2009 – OPEN

** Entries accepted November 13, 2009 until Midnight on Friday, November 27, 2009 **

Thanks to Arbitrage Clothing in New York one lucky person will be sporting a pair of official Movember Cuff Links designed by Movember founder, Adam Garone (on twitter), and Arbitrage Clothing founder and designer, Alan Chan (on twitter and who I will be interviewing here on this blog within the next week or so). There are four beautiful designs to choose from on the Arbitrage web store each costing $65 USD, $20 of which goes directly to the Movember charity. Shipping and returns are free. Yes, they do ship internationally to Australia, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Ireland, etc.

Here’s what a pair of these bad boys looks like:

And they look pretty smart when performing their intended function as well:

Nice huh? You know you want ‘em.

If you really do want these links send an email to movember@mikebrowne.com with the subject line ‘Movember Cuff Links’ with your name, email and full mailing address (I promise not to spam you) and send me a picture of you with a mo’ along with your permission to post it with your first name, last initial, town/city and state/province. If you have a web site, send me the link to that too, but is not required. I will post the most creative mo’ pictures I get. ONE (1) entry per person.

I don’t care if you Photoshop a mo’ on your face because the ladies are going to have to as this contest is open to them too. At least I would hope they would have to. Yeesh.

All entries must be received by midnight of Friday, November 27, 2009 and I will draw and make the announcement on this blog on Saturday, November 28th, 2009. I will ship these anywhere in the world, just make sure you give me your proper address so you can be sure to get them.

Good luck!

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In case you had forgotten this Canadian made gem from days of yore I thought perhaps you would enjoy a reminder.

Bet you cannot get that jaunty little tune out of your head now. You're welcome.