A word on my grammar and spelling...

I make mistakes from time to time. Especially if I type what's directly in my heart/mind/soul. It's all a first draft of my thoughts, if you will. Just want to apologize beforehand.

The Bling Factor

There is an interesting phenomenon in pop culture these days. The phrase "bling bling" has permeated the masses. Enough so that my father asked me what it was about. Scary.

What is bling-bling? Well, to a majority of people, its a descriptive set of words that refers to the sound you think of when you see something thats, uh, bling. That run-on sentence illustrates exactly the difficulty I have grasping the bling factor. What is it? I guess I think of anything that's can be described as bling-bling as ostentatiously, overbearingly showy. Something that apparently is supposed to let the world know that you've got money and you've made it.

You made a rap record? Bling it up.
You got some money leftover from the parents? Bling it up.
You won the lottery? Bling it up.

The consequence of the bling factor is that people will expect you to have so much money (benjamins, lincolns, jacksons... whatever) that you should be able to make a home video, where you have strippers stripping and you're throwing money into the camera, as if its nothing to you.

What about if you're a good person, who saves judiciously to afford a nice car and you don't want to throw it in people's face? You don't bling it up. In fact, if you're normal and do not worry about what other people think of you - you don't bling it up. You already know that you've made it. No need to throw it in someone else's face.

I bring this all up because some people make their selections (cars, houses, rings, etc) based upon the Bling Factor. They actually worry if the car they end up purchasing will be showy enough to let people know that they have money. Its that important to them. They actually wonder if an Audi S4 will have enough Bling Factor. Because surely, the E55 has a lot. But if they buy the S4, no one will know that they have a money bin like Scrooge McDuck at home to swim around in!!! (super heavy on the sarcasm here)

Unlike them, I choose cars based on how I think it looks, drives, etc. Not on how other people think about it.

I apologize to the Bling Factor abusers, but having class and being confident in oneself means that you don't need the Bling Factor. Who cares if other people know you have money or not? Should people judge you based upon that? What happened to judging people for the good in their heart? For the generosity (no not monetary either)? I tend to think that this is all that is important. I don't care what car you drive. I don't care how big your ring is. I don't care the size of the house and the type of appliances you use. All I care about is if you are a good person at heart, who cares about others, does not make others feel inferior, and is concerned about the people around you and the ones you love.

Don't get me wrong, I happen to like the looks of a lot of things with a high Bling Factor. I just don't choose it because of the Bling Factor, I choose it because I actually like the looks of it myself.

In the end, 85% of people have little appreciation for understated class. Thye rely on teh Bling Factor to tell them what looks good or not - because they think that the more money it costs, the better it is. The other 15% understand that great art, great looks, etc have no correlation with the money spent. Thus they aren't lazy and don't rely on the Bling Factor to tell them. They just know because they have class.

Long story short, I can't stand the Bling Factor. Just do things because you like it and not how others will think of you because of it. It really is pretty simple.

What real problems are.... (inspired by the piaadoll)

I'm lucky. I'm not afraid to say it. I've been fortunate to get to this point where most of my worries are fairly ridiculous in comparison to other people's problems. While I may gripe here and there about stuff/people/work/career/music/society/philosphy/etc, I know that other people have problems that are greater in degree and severity.

However, that doesn't mean I can't still complain. Annoyances may not represent serious problems, but keeping them inside is a recipe for going postal. I know that 99% of the population has more serious problems. I witness it in what I do. I see the anger and sorrow that true problems create, and I am very grateful that I have experienced a small amount of this.

But I think a lot of people dislike me for my "complaints." The problem is partly to do with perception with assumptions. If I talk about a difficult decision between buying one expensive item and another expensive item, I'm not being a snob. I'm just saying it's a difficult decision. But do you know what I had to do to get to be able to make such a difficult decision? Parents that ran from communism, poor housing in small towns in Wisconsin, internal familial strife resulting in a divorce, giving up all social activities to study to get a medical degree, etc. Its not like I just happened to run into money and picked it up. I've gone through and overcome quite a bit, and I feel I've earned the right to complain about things. Most people wouldn't know that, and thus, assume I've lived a spoiled life. Their perceptions of me were tinted by the film of assumption they use on everything.

Let me be clear though that being able to complain about relatively minor problems doesn't give me license to shove it down a person's face and not be appreciative of where I reside. For example, someone I know told people that an Audi S4 is not on their list of choices of cars because it is too immature for them. That is just plain arrogant, conceited, and disrespectful. There are people who scrape and save every penny to get one. This person should have thought about that before making them feel bad for it. Of course, this person bought an S4 anyways. While I can see what point this person was trying to make, it could have been said in a less bone-jarringly arrogant way. It's like telling a homeless guy that McDonald's is crap. To them, its the answer to their hunger. To the arrogant, conceited, and self-centered person, its beneath them. I hate that.

Also, while I'm complaining, I do have issue with the flowery blogs and arrogance about how wonderful life is. Life is good, but sometimes these flowery blogs gloss over the real issue at hand: reality is frustrating. Louis Armstrong sang a song about the wonderful world we live in. Some intepret his intentions as an optimistic commentary on life as he saw it. I thought it more escapism. Don't get me wrong, I do love that song and the familiar but strange warmth that is Louis' voice, but clearly he was ignoring the selfish and negative reality we live in.

My good friend piaadoll's blog speaks to this issue also. I agree with her. Lets face up to the reality of the world and point out what we think is bad. Someone needs to say it. Ignoring happiness is wrong also, but lets make sure that homeostasis is achieved in our perception of good and bad. Don't sugar coat my lumps of coal. I need the lumps to remind me of the good things that come once in awhile. That's the way the world works anyways.

Expect more honest straightforward criticism in the coming blogs. I'm not holding back. And it's not like anybody but a handful of people read my blog anyways.