Hello Everybody. I know it has been a long long while since I posted. Let me tell you, repainting a house and working part time is exhausting. I mean, I have spent the last several years without this much activity in my life. I don't know what to do with myself. I am so busy all day. Also, for a moment of complaining (something new and different, I know), retail is hard work. To everybody who makes a living like this, I am impressed because I couldn't handle it. My legs and feet hurt from not sitting, my brain hurts from staring at a computer and trying to shelve everything in the right place, my face hurts from constantly smiling. Sheesh!!
But enough about me. Here's my face punch. It is to Lululemon. There are many many reasons to punch this "Canadian" company who outsources all their labour to China. But my biggest one is their new ad campaign. It is causing a rukus from all those new-age hippy, yoga loving, skinny, rich people because they have referenced Ayn Rand on their bags with the "Who is John Galt?" saying. Please, see here to get a little more perspective.
If you have not read Atlas Shrugged, I need you to also go read that. It should take you about 3 days if you have nothing to do but read full time, and are willing to experience this amazing book. It is one of my all time favourite books. It is beautiful. I cannot possibly even begin to analyze or get into the ideologies of this book. But I will try to briefly tell you what it means to me. Please understand this is a very long book and I am going to summarize it in 3 sentences. If you can do it better, by all means add it to the comments.
For me, this book is about a group of elite people who are willing to work very hard and do whatever it takes to rise to the top. Once they have done this they dominate the economy and support the rest of the world through their brains, hard work, time, energy and effort. Then, they go on strike. They leave the world to fend for itself and it falls apart into shambles without them. My biggest dream, after reading this book, was that I might somehow be included in this group. They didn't discriminate, you didn't have to be the best in business, it was also people who excelled in art, or music, or even mothering. You just had to pour your heart and soul and passion into whatever you did. The idea being that not everybody is equal, and not every body is willing to work hard enough to make it.
This is not a popular idea. We have become a lazy generation/world. We would rather blame someone else, or not bother to do the extra work, or pretend we can't make changes. What infuriates me about Lulu using my beautiful Atlas Shrugged is that the idea of snobby people not understanding what and who John Galt is, have somehow gotten upset about it for the opposite reason. I actually feel like the situation could have happened in the novel, if Rand had thought of something so rediculous. The general public is upset that Ayn Rand is polluting their Lulu, but the real problem is that Lulu has polluted John Galt with its senitmental uninspiring take on what is very important to me.
I have another example - the Occupy movement. At first I supported it because I thought it was an interested way to make a point. Then I started to lose interest because if I wanted to make a real statement about capitalism I would have camped out in Queens Park not taken up the only green space in a student/poor neighbourhood. But, my real problem, was when I was following the twitter feed and they thanked someone for bringing pizza, then it was tweeted that Pizza Hut is the official sponser of Occupy TO. Yes, that is right. The Occupy movement had corporate sponsers. Hmmmm what is wrong with this picture?
I have obviously lost all track of where I was going with this. Mostly I guess what I want to say is, stop Occupying, because I imagine it is hard to conduct a job search and get ready for interviews from a yurt, and Chip Wilson get Atlas off your damn bags!! The people who understand that the point of your business is to make money already know it, and you are upsetting the rest of them.
But enough about me. Here's my face punch. It is to Lululemon. There are many many reasons to punch this "Canadian" company who outsources all their labour to China. But my biggest one is their new ad campaign. It is causing a rukus from all those new-age hippy, yoga loving, skinny, rich people because they have referenced Ayn Rand on their bags with the "Who is John Galt?" saying. Please, see here to get a little more perspective.
If you have not read Atlas Shrugged, I need you to also go read that. It should take you about 3 days if you have nothing to do but read full time, and are willing to experience this amazing book. It is one of my all time favourite books. It is beautiful. I cannot possibly even begin to analyze or get into the ideologies of this book. But I will try to briefly tell you what it means to me. Please understand this is a very long book and I am going to summarize it in 3 sentences. If you can do it better, by all means add it to the comments.
For me, this book is about a group of elite people who are willing to work very hard and do whatever it takes to rise to the top. Once they have done this they dominate the economy and support the rest of the world through their brains, hard work, time, energy and effort. Then, they go on strike. They leave the world to fend for itself and it falls apart into shambles without them. My biggest dream, after reading this book, was that I might somehow be included in this group. They didn't discriminate, you didn't have to be the best in business, it was also people who excelled in art, or music, or even mothering. You just had to pour your heart and soul and passion into whatever you did. The idea being that not everybody is equal, and not every body is willing to work hard enough to make it.
This is not a popular idea. We have become a lazy generation/world. We would rather blame someone else, or not bother to do the extra work, or pretend we can't make changes. What infuriates me about Lulu using my beautiful Atlas Shrugged is that the idea of snobby people not understanding what and who John Galt is, have somehow gotten upset about it for the opposite reason. I actually feel like the situation could have happened in the novel, if Rand had thought of something so rediculous. The general public is upset that Ayn Rand is polluting their Lulu, but the real problem is that Lulu has polluted John Galt with its senitmental uninspiring take on what is very important to me.
I have another example - the Occupy movement. At first I supported it because I thought it was an interested way to make a point. Then I started to lose interest because if I wanted to make a real statement about capitalism I would have camped out in Queens Park not taken up the only green space in a student/poor neighbourhood. But, my real problem, was when I was following the twitter feed and they thanked someone for bringing pizza, then it was tweeted that Pizza Hut is the official sponser of Occupy TO. Yes, that is right. The Occupy movement had corporate sponsers. Hmmmm what is wrong with this picture?
I have obviously lost all track of where I was going with this. Mostly I guess what I want to say is, stop Occupying, because I imagine it is hard to conduct a job search and get ready for interviews from a yurt, and Chip Wilson get Atlas off your damn bags!! The people who understand that the point of your business is to make money already know it, and you are upsetting the rest of them.
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