Passionate Living

SUCCESS is an achievement every person desires in his life. To be handsome and rich, intelligent and articulate, healthy and happy; these are the preoccupations that become the foundation on which we choose our professions, our friends, our activities, and even the people we love. To achieve any degree of success in the above aspects, hard work and commitment is needed, since we are working towards an artificial state of being [1].

Midnight in a supermarket by Cyril Caton

ADVERTISEMENT is mostly about pushing the emotions of people by using the powerful lure of the above achievements. The products that are marketed in every part of our community and physical surroundings, all offer a better, faster, cheaper way to become the things we desire. It’s the business of the businesses, to attach values – whether they be true or only an over-exaggerated claim – to their products in order to persuade people to purchase them.

QUALITY is a result of focus, dedication, faith, and integrity; to reach the best results we need to invest a great number of resources. Quality is the artificial state, since it takes full intention and deliberate actions to reach this condition. Quality does not come cheap or widely available to the masses; it is highly specific and niche, and is inherently integral to principles and values.

The constitution of beauty

Two weeks ago as I was waiting for my friend to pick me up, I walked into a supermarket and bought some of the children snacks whose company often come to the studio where I work and request for music to be made for them. The clients of the studio are mostly children snacks companies, such as biscuits and wafers; and the added value they advertise is mostly great taste and good nutrition. As a person, I feel it’s necessary to understand what the product is, since it is part of my business.

I discovered my digestive system wasn’t too fond of children snacks that day; the moment I ate them my stomach solicited an unusual reaction. This made me think whether the snacks contain any harmful ingredients for my sensitive stomach, and therefore may also harm the sensitive stomachs of children who are exposed to the advertisements of these products. As a company, are they aware of the possibility that their products – priced low in order to achieve mass market; consequently not with high quality – may inflict some harm on the very target market they pursue?

One of the products advertise vitamin B as one of their selling points. Uneducated people would think this is good nutrition and therefore a good snack. They also hope they can achieve quality, if possible at the lowest price.

However, this made me think the validity of generic products to help us reach what we want to become. Besides children snacks, there are countless other products that promise easy access to becoming the best of society: skin-whitening products to make us become beautiful, body shaping milk that will give us the lean waist or six pack we’ve always dreamed of, and low budget cellphones prepacked with Web 2.0 media apps that promise we will never have a moment of boredom.

The truth is, generic products rarely become the products we believe in to help us achieve success in life. I am sure the models in the advertisements spend a large sum to purchase specialist products – ones that are not mass marketed, since they are expensive – to help them achieve the quality they need to. The celebrities who endorse skin-whitening lotions, use better skin-care products, register with an expert skincare physician, limit their movement outside in the sun to protect their skin, sign up onto high-end fitness facilities and dedicate time periodically to work out, and various other premium beauty products that combine to make up the constitution of their beauty.

The same goes with the models who model for six-pack inducing protein shakes. They have six packs because they work out – very hard – and they also choose a highly nutritious menu; where the protein necessary to build muscles does not come at a cheap price. The supplements they use, are imported and sold at 20 times the price of the product they endorse.

Believe the necessity of specialist products

Would you say that you have a generic life? No, of course not – you have a highly specific life with a highly targeted purpose that needs specific (or unique [2]) treatment. You need to work out the formula for yourself, and search for which products that are effective for you and which are not – and sometimes you find the cheap products work, other times you need to invest in the expensive ones.

Believing in success means believing in the necessity of specialist products. Quality is not accessible through the proxies of low priced, mass market items. Beauty is always on the high pedestal of persistent pursuit; we need to work hard and spend large if we want to achieve it.

Therefore, it’s OK if you need to spend a large amount of money to achieve the success you want; that’s how successful people do it. You don’t need to feel like you don’t have the right to spend out that much, and reserve your money for something that may never happen, and therefore of lower functional value. Because the success we achieve allow us greater strength to create the change we envision.

Isn’t that what beauty is all about?

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[1] Artificial not in the sense of superficial, but something that is man-made and needs to be done intentionally, since it doesn’t occur naturally
[2] Though my belief says there is nothing unique; everything original has been done before, and everything we consider original today is not exempt from the principles and frameworks in which it is based upon
[3] Photograph by Cyril Caton

*I should’ve wrote this at the end of last month, but I forgot. So here is the periodic book review of this month’s best-seller:

I don’t know about you, but I feel that in today’s world success is determined largely by your marketing skills. Based on personal development books I’ve read, it seems the techniques written in these books are to help you better sell and promote your products. Either that, or most you learn about growing as a person and achieving happiness is heavily correlated to your success in business and your marketing.

It’s a shame, but I think that’s what our world is currently focused on: success as measured by material wealth. Personal development books are actually business books, only in a watered down and motivational language (even the spiritual ones aim to help you be better at business). So it becomes inevitable that in order to learn about self development, we need to read a business book or two.

Enter Six Pixels of Separation, a best-selling book on digital marketing by Mitch Joel [1]. Mitch is a leading marketing blogger, and you can read the daily version of the book in his blog by the same name. Now you might think “Why buy the book, when I can get the ideas for free in the blog?”, and I’ve thought about this also but I’ve found out the advantage of reading the book: it gives you context for the ideas, not just a semi-random sequence of them.

New media

Mitch talks about the current trends in digital marketing. We’ve heard the term Web 2.0, social media, and other marketing jargons often said, but do we truly know what they mean, what they function, and how we can use these new gadgets to achieve our success (again, measured by material wealth)? The underlying premise in Six Pixels of Separation is that everybody is connected, now that we are active citizens of the online world; therefore we should use the channels to get and stay connected.

The idea that intrigues me the most from all the ideas in his book is about mobile content or marketing. As a musician, I can’t abandon the trends of how the market consumes content, mainly entertainment content. Mitch’s chapter about mobile marketing states that this is still nascent, still a very early stage, and there’s much room for progress and innovation to be made.

Interesting, because in Indonesia, mobile content is a big if not the biggest content business. For music, the sale and purchase of CD’s is not the bread and butter of musicians; instead it’s the sale and purchase of Ring Back Tones (or RBT’s) that are the main meat for musicians seeking a living through their music (and a highly regarded musician friend of mine says that the Indonesian market for RBT’s is the biggest in the world). So, the trend in mobile marketing and mobile content usage is very important for those who plan to make a living being a creative person (one who creates digitize-able content).

Not-so-new media

There are a few ideas that I challenge in the book. One is when Mitch says that things are changing faster than ever before (I’m sure he says this somewhere, but I’m not sure which page – but I remember thinking about it when I was reading it). Why do I challenge the idea? Because, as according to the one universe theory, I believe that the challenges we face are not more difficult or sophisticated or complex than what the communities and societies faced before us. Change has always happened, and it’s always happening fast; it’s always abrupt, yet always needed as part of the natural growth of society. Saying that we have it tougher than they did is an overestimation of our culture and an underestimation of previous cultures.

The market place has always been there since the dawn of man kind. Humans are not stupid, and if we say that the generation before us are stupid for, say, saying the earth is flat or not acknowledging the rights of women, then the generation after us will also say we’re stupid for, say, introducing global warming and the interest-based economy. Yet we think we are part of such a sophisticated people (more on this in next book’s review).

Six Pixels of Separation merely brings again a principle that has always been with us (and as according to the theory of reincarnation, every generation needs to be re-introduced to these same principles): success is helped by being an active member of the community. It is in the community we make a living, and since the community today is a vibrant online mash-up of various cultures and historical backgrounds, having an open mind, big heart, and great sense of humor to explore these waters is a huge huge must if we expect to survive and succeed. Six Pixels of Separation helps us to navigate through these relatively uncharted waters.

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*Today’s featured music: ethereal female vocals meets steel acoustic rock guitar meets drum and bass beats with a dash of goth: (via @dubber)

[1] Learn more about Mitch Joel and his business, blog, and book in the official SPOS site

Storm in a water glass by Matt and Kim Rudge

There’s been an air of illness around lately. I don’t know whether it’s true for you too, but in my circle there have been enough people falling ill it makes me wonder. From my colleagues in the studio, to my friends, to my baby nephew who’s having difficulty handling polluted air.

My baby nephew is a cheerful and playful boy by nature: he’s usually up and running and playing with his sister in the morning. But lately he’s been affected by dirty air since a recent visit to the fireman station last Friday. Everybody in the house is thinking how to get him back to his normal health.

It made me think also, and I suggested that he be brought to this physician that treated my illness six years ago. The good think about this physician is he doesn’t only heal my condition, he also teaches me how to maintain my health by keeping a healthy diet and exercise routine. And he is an advocate of natural medicine: there’s something about pharmaceutical drugs that go against his conscience.

I suggested my baby nephew to be brought to this physician, because even though he’s been to the doctor he only seems to be getting worse. I worry it’s actually because of the pharmaceutical medicine and antibiotics that’s prescribed to him. Maybe it’s making him more ill, instead of healing him.

I haven’t taken any drugs myself since six years ago, and I’ve been the healthiest in my life – the most that can happen is a flu which usually heals in a day. It leads me to believe that relying on pharmacy drugs may actually be harmful to our immune system. In it’s place, now I drink supplements made from organic substances to maintain a healthy respiratory and digestive system (since I’ve found out my health problems are sourced in these two).

Drinking enough water has also been vital in keeping good health for me. I used to catch a flu easily, but since drinking enough water, the frequency has decreased drastically. It turns out regulating my body temperature helps me to avoid a lot of the sickness I used to have.

I think pharmaceutical medicines are only good when you have an external wound, like a burn or a cut. It isn’t good when you have an internal illness though. These things take a different approach to healing.

As I said before, there are many professions in our society that suffer from a conflict of interest, and our medical system is one major one. Their motto is to save lives and regain health but they make their profit from people who are ill. If everybody stays healthy most of the time, do you think the pharmaceutical industry would still be a large and lucrative industry?

That’s why we should take our health into our own responsibility. Relying on pharmacy doctors and health insurances is practically out of our circle of influence. But maintaining a healthy mind and lifestyle is something we can do consistently everyday.

Cheers to good health.

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*In the first post this year, I mentioned my resolution to write and release 26 songs in 52 weeks. Well, here’s the first song! Tell me what you think:

It’s True by Endy Daniyanto

[1] Photograph by Matt Rudge. Because you need to be properly hydrated