What is my purpose on this planet?  What am I passionate about?  Why am I here?

None of those questions matter.  In fact, they are absolute bullshit.

Life is simply cause and effect.  Some dude shot a big load of jizz into your mom’s vajayjay and nine months later she squirted you out.  That’s how you arrived on this planet, and someday you will check out and be dead forever.  If you want to dig deeper and learn why this happened….

Why do gazelles exist?  Apart from following the same formula that created you, they are here for two reasons.  One, to keep the vegetation in their habitat in check.  Two, they are food for cheetahs.  The overarching reason for all existence is to further existence, to procreate, multiply, and die.  That’s how the world works.

But why are you here?  You’re not food, in most cases, for other animals.  Our true purpose on this planet has been lost.  We’ve erased all attachments to our natural being, although we still retain the instincts (to fuck, to eat, to fear, etc).  The only thing we still know is that we have an unending drive to fuck and reproduce (and you could argue to consume every last natural resource available).  And since we don’t know the reason for our existence, how we’re supposed to live in harmony with Mother Nature, we have to make shit up to fill that void.

And the system has just such a package: passion, purpose, and meaning, and it’s all for sale to every willing sucker.  They want to sell you on finding your purpose and passion, which inevitably leads to the ever fleeting “happiness.”  They, meaning the rubes who claim to have already achieved it.  The truth is, selling the dream is the source funding their dreams.

Now I’m not saying that purpose and passion and meaning are evil.  But see them for what they really are, which is nothing more than things you really like to do that fill the time between eating, fucking, shitting, and sleeping.  They are things you created or adopted as a function of the environment you live in (i.e. the world you occupy).

Always be wary of those “selling the dream.”  (If I actually could live my dreams, I would be terrified most of the time, or horribly confused.)  You already own everything you need to survive and thrive on this planet.  Being lost, feeling uninspired, depressed, or sad, or not having much to be passionate about is OK.  There’s no need to force anything.

Just keep moving and ignore the bullshit.

I hate the sound of clicking keyboards and mouses in the office. It makes me wonder who is in control, the computer or the person?  The answer is the computer, since we’re the ones who submit to its location and temperament, or carry it around in front our faces as if we’re a dog on a leash (although we keep dogs on a leash to keep them, and/or others, from harm, not as an act of dominance).

I envy the grunts digging and building a new parking lot outside the window. From the perspective of most, they serve me. I’m in a nice, comfortable, air conditioned office and they’re out in the hot sun, sweating and working with their hands while I work with my brain (or some facsimile thereof).  But the truth is, they serve no one and are simply supplicating to my fat ass, in exchange for a reward. I want to be one of them instead of the catered-to. Making things easier only sinks me further into the comforting bosom of the system, and more like a slave who is plugged in and checked out.

Empires crumble when the collective bottom feeders rebel, refusing to do the shit work that serves the elite few.  All it takes is one swift motion and united action and the self proclaimed royalty will fold, no longer able to support themselves on the backs of their servants.

I wrote this while taking a shit break at my fucking job.

Careers are for pawns who knowingly or unknowingly work on the vision and dream of someone else, all for the scraps.  All while the people at the top of the pyramid rake in the riches.  The exchange is voluntary, somewhat, and a key element of the system.

People work hard to build little mini “empires” for themselves that’s mostly smoke and mirrors, and more about reputation than actual rewards.  It’s sad really, because that’s the vision that’s taught to us our whole lives.  We’re not taught how to be leaders, or visionaries, or risk takers, or kings of the world.  We’re taught how to be good, docile, obedient servants of those who refuse to be such.  Most people don’t figure it out and eventually get funneled into the system with just barely enough to eek a decent, comfortable life for themselves.  Stay on the rail and don’t deviate.

A handful do figure this out and become discontent, but never do anything other than complain.  In fact, I’d say most people recognize the chasm between the haves and the have nots, but are too weak to do anything about it.

Which camp do you fall in?

Steer the ship aground and see what happens.

Those Dr. Pepper ads where young, attractive, fit people are walking and running through the streets with cute little slogans on their T-Shirts should be more accurate.  They should really be something along these lines (i.e. closer to the truth):

In fact, all advertising that depicts an ingest-able product should be held to standards that force them to show the actual results of consuming their product.  In most cases, this would mean hiring obese, out of shape, disgusting people.  Why not market to who’s really you’re number one customer instead of trying to addict youthful, attractive, fit people and turn them into disgustingly repulsive fat blobs who shouldn’t be given the means to reproduce?

Think of this as a white paper of sorts, outlining a new model for online dating.  A simpler, more “natural” way to approach the online dating black hole.

How do people date in the real world?  To be clinical, what is the workflow?  Boy meets girl, either through mutual friends or within some activity or just by chance at the grocery store.  They talk for a bit, then one of them asks for contact info so they can make plans to see each other again.  In most instances, I would imagine boy contacts girl and asks her if she would like to go out sometime.  Girl either accepts, rejects, or ignores.  That’s how people start dating.

So what if there was a site that made those steps a little bit easier?  That introduced you to new people who are interested in being introduced to potential dating partners, then facilitated them actually meeting in real life (instead of encouraging endless online interactions).

The current dating site model promises the world, that you will find your soul mate and live happily ever after.  That’s a croc of shit.  Matching heuristics don’t mean shit until you come face to face.  The most important element of attraction is 90% to 95% non verbal, meaning the other person has to be in your presence before an attraction can be triggered.  Why then, do the big dating sites make this difficult?  Probably because it’s more profitable to keep people playing tidily winks online.

So my proposition for a new way of thinking about online dating is as follows:

• Eliminate search and matching “algorithms.”  Answering endless questions and filing out worthless forms about your likes, dislikes, interests, occupations, etc is a colosal waste of time.  Attraction happens in person, not by answering the same question similarly.
• Make it easy to get to rejection quickly.  Instead of forcing guys to think of clever messages to send to women they are interested in meeting and to save women from having to wade through mountains of lame messages from douche-bags, get rid of the messaging paradigm altogether.  And while you’re at it, eliminate winks, flirts, bumps, etc.  Create an easy way for a guy or girl to say “hello, would you like to meet for coffee?”  And while you’re at it, make it easy to arrange the date at a locale conducive to both parties.
• Make it easy to quit.  I have a feeling if you build an effective avenue for guys to meet girls, the guys will keep coming back, and so will the girls.  Instead of forcing people to pay up front for 3, 6, 12 months, make it month to month with zero commitment.
• Limit the number of users.  The number of men on dating sites far outweigh the number of women.  Re-arrange this ratio, where women slightly outweigh the number of men, somewhere close to the natural ratio of the world (about 52% women to 48% men).
• Throttle who I can see.  Don’t show me the world.  Show me a handful of people at a time and let me decide if I want to take action on them.  And when I’ve “batted around,” don’t make me keep paying.  I’ll come back later when I think the pot might be fresh, or maybe you can tell me when there’s some new people I might be interested in seeing.
• Let me report users who are flakes or weirdos, and ban those users.  This is self explanatory.  Also, it would probably be a good idea to offer background checks, just to keep out potential psychos.
• Make it easy for me to find locations to meet.  Show me a map of where I’m at and where my potential date is at, then suggest points somewhere in between.  You can easily use Google maps to show the locations of Starbucks in the area.
• Purge users who aren’t active.  If someone isn’t actively participating, for whatever reason, delete their profile to make room for others who will be active. To go further, figure out a way to weed out people who are only in it for validation; those folks who never intend to meet anyone, who are just there to soak up attention.

Solving the Chicken & Egg Problem

You need a relatively large pool of single people already using the site before you can attract  singles to use the site.  I think a good rule of thumb to follow is get the girls and the guys will follow.  It’s a simple principle that has been used successfully by bars and clubs all across America (ladies get in free, half priced drinks, etc.)

Start local and expand slowly.  It will be much easier to reach critical mass locally rather than struggling to get people all at once.  Start local, think global.

Easier said than done, but if you can prove the model on a local crowd first, then expansion is just a matter of logistics.  And don’t give it away for free, because that only proves that people are willing to pay nothing for something.  Although, to solve the chicken and egg problem, the earliest adopters might have to be let in free, until you reach some maxim where there’s value in paying.

However great this all sounds, the million dollar question remains.  Is this what people really want?  Do they really want to meet other people in person?  Or are they content fiddling around online under the guise of actually dating?  This is an area that will have to be validated through testing.