A few days ago, I had my second workout in what amounts to almost a year off due to my back pain. I recorded a short video after the workout, which you can see below. It feels great to be back in the gym, and even though I still have some recurring and minor back pain, I’m undergoing therapy to address it and cannot hold off on going to the gym any longer. Exercise is vital for me.
Videos
My use of the term “civilized countries” in my previous video on men’s personal hygiene sparked some confusion, so I thought I should clarify what I meant. In this video, I offer a basic definition of “civilization” and some examples to help illustrate my point. You can watch it on YouTube or below.
I held off on making this video for some time, because I’m not comfortable talking about these things in public (in private is another matter — I love to laugh at a good potty joke among friends), but I keep seeing (or rather smelling) people whose body odor and lack of bathroom etiquette leaves a lot to be desired, so I had to get these things off my chest.
Feel free to send this post to anyone whom you think might need to “get the message”. You can watch it on my YouTube channel or below.
I’ve been meaning to do a video about cursive handwriting for a while, and I’ve also been asked by a few of my viewers on YouTube to do it.
Before you watch the video, I want you to know some of the benefits of handwriting:
- It works the brain in ways that typing cannot achieve. Every little movement of the fingers and the pen as they form letters on the paper requires many neurons to fire, whereas typing requires much less effort once you learn where the keys are. This article explains it in more detail.
- You put more emotion, more feeling into handwriting, and this can be seen in the strokes, the thickness of the lines, the size of the letters and so on. When you type, none of that can be seen, unless you say it with words.
- All of this mental exercise that is required for regular handwriting helps to develop children’s brains and also staves off conditions such as dementia in the elderly.
- Beautiful handwriting and calligraphy can be admired as art, and they can also be read. A page typed on the computer and printed out is just that: a printed page.
- Studies suggest that taking notes by hand improves retention of the subject matter.
- There is a feeling of charm that occurs when one handwrites. I can’t put into words the satisfaction that I get when I put a fountain pen to paper and form beautiful letters. It’s almost hypnotic.
Here’s the video. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it’ll inspire you to write by hand more often!
Here’s a short video log I recorded yesterday as I got to thinking about how we as humans tend to separate into groups and sub-groups and identify with them. We form separate cultures and sub-cultures and nowadays, we want to stand apart from what we see as the commercialism and consumerism of modern society.
And yet, when we do that, we actually make it easier for advertisers to target us, because instead of making general ads for general products, they get to make very targeted ads for products specifically tailored to particular groups. So the effort to escape consumerism then becomes a moot point.
People think this is a bad thing for some reason. But I say it’s a good thing. I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of mankind when products tailored for specific uses could make it to market faster than nowadays. Sure, you have to sort through the crap, and there’s a lot of it, but there’s some really good stuff out there, made just for your needs.
I also touch on the idea of money as currency and the inherent benefit of being able to convert skills or objects into such a portable currency that you can take pretty much anywhere and exchange it for what you need. Some people say we don’t need money, that we can trade directly, service to service, product for product, etc., but I sa that only goes so far. It’s so much more limited than money, particularly when you hold a very portable currency like the dollar, the pound or the euro.
Yes, I’m still in bed, so please excuse my disheveled appearance.
Raoul Pop 