18.09.09: No promises. It’s after 2 am. Just got back from a short run in the rain. It was bear-free. Now it’s 8:47 pm, same day. Sitting at the bar at Earls. Just had a steak. And about to order the cheesecake. Like it’s 1960. Deep breath, here we go. What I want to get into tonight is the topic of decision-making. Choices. So for example a 39 year old guy is hungry. He knows what he wants; there is no question about it: steak. But steak is not what he should have. He should have a salad, health-wise. I mean, Earls actually has decent salads. Lots of stuff in them; so it’s not that the salad choice would be a complete sacrifice—it would still be satisfying. But no, steak is the thing. That’s what it will be. And the hungrier he is, the stronger resolve in the steak solution. An hour or two previously, the set of solutions to could have included other options: sushi, plank salmon, and hey salad? Sure why not. But like constricting tunnel-vision, after some certain point, the sushi solution is cut out of the field of view. No longer an option. It’s got to be the steak. Good sense hasn’t a shot in hell against imminent gratification. Satisfaction. Increasing desperation exponentially cuts out cortex based decision-making. 19.09.09: Let’s say, hypothetically, that instead of going all day without food, our hungry 39  year old had been munching on smaller meals throughout the day—if so, he’d never arrive at this extreme point where only a steak would satisfy the need. Instead, it could be, “Sure steak would be good. But you know, I’ll have that new beet salad with the pears on top. Pretty good.” He could get there. He could still arrive at that reasonable choice. This is another recurring theme: the benefits of regular maintenance. In this case, the maintenance being eating regularly so that you don’t go eventually mental out of starvation and in that desperate mind state, choose foods that are bad for your heart. Regular maintenance. Regular maintenance. You’re asking, “Why is this a theme? What makes it a “theme”? What theme? What is this theme? 30.09.09: Regular maintenance and having the guts to make large initial investments in those things that you want to thrive despite the resistance. Themes people. The last few weeks have kept hitting these two concepts home over and over. They’re tough though. 13.10.09: A couple days after the fact, the inclusion of my picture in a local style blog is not sitting well with me. Allow me to explain. We all know that we are living in a highly consumptive culture. Frankly I think this is the go-to reason for the downward spiral our culture is flying through, but I won’t give a boring lecture about that. But the philosophy that we approach our over consumption of stuff, food, clothes, YouTube clips, we also apply to people. It’s about volume. We eat them up. More more more. Example: Get them on stage for ten seconds, and ask, “Are you hot?” or “Do you have talent?” and we pull them off. Go the next person. Are they hot? Do they have some talent that can serve my immediate need for mild stimulation? We take celebs that are hot and ride the hell out of them while they last. Squeeze everything we can out of them and then toss them aside, because there’s no shortage of other wannabe’s who’ll gladly take their place for their 15 minutes. And we’ll drain THEm dry of their entertainment value. Some Ph.D writes a hot book? Get them to write a follow-up and then another. Get them on the TV circuit. Get them an infomercial, and if they’re good, get them a show. Some celeb chef with a catch-phrase pulls ratings on the Food Network? Cool, get them a second show. While we’re at it, get him to pump out a few books, then give them three new shows, and completely over-expose him until we’re all so fricken sick of him. Then we move to the next act. Are they hot? No? Ok, next. Other examples: in need of some attention from the opposite sex? Need some feel-good vibes? A little affirmation perhaps? No problem, put on that hot little number, go out at night and soak up all those looks. Consume their attention to give you that little ego boost. Then move on. That’s how we do. Porn, booze, lattés, handbags, celebrity gossip, whatever. We consume for the immediate bump. It is what it is. So you see, as flattering as it is to have someone catch a glimpse of you and think that you’re cool enough looking to be on their style blog, it’s really just another example of the same consumption thing. “Are you stylish?” You put pics of people on a site and we scroll through them, consume, consume. Check out this girl’s shoes. Oh, that guy’s scarf. Nice dress, nice Benz. But what about anything about these people beyond the superficial details? For instance, what’s their name? What do they do? What’s their background? What do they believe? What are they doing with their lives? What do they love? What do they hate? Apparently, the answer to these is, “Who fucking cares.” As long as they look cool and somehow provide 3 seconds of amusement, that’s all that seems matter. 27.10.09: I love the tune on the soundtrack to Michael Clayton called “25 Dollars Worth.” In the film, the piece is played over the final scene and into the credits as the Clooney’s character gets into a cab at the conclusion to a hell of an ordeal. Cabbie says, “So what are we doin’?” Clayton says, “Give me 50 dollars worth. Just drive. Fifty. Not twenty-five. (Huh, just looked this up: according to IMDB, the cabbie’s voice is that of the film’s writer/director, Tony Gilroy.) I like the scene quite a bit. It’s about a two and a half minute long shot from the passenger seat of the cab looking back at Clayton’s unemotional face as the cab moves through a grey Manhattan day. The music is perfect.

Hugh Hefner, 1960’s. (HO/AFP/Getty Images)