Letters To An
Overseas Friend.

Just finished some work on my bike. I tightened and capped a frayed cable that had never been capped. Reset a star nut that never did bite in. It bites in now. I’ll clean it soon. Non of these tasks are what you might call in need of immediate attention. That’s why it’s noteworthy. You know how I only maintain to the bare minimum standards for safety and function.

Dick Proenneke said, “Learn to use an axe, and respect it and you can’t help but love it.” You know I’m suspicious of quotes like these. Respect for an inanimate object just seems oddly misplaced when compared to respect for a human being. The latter seems so much more meaningful, that to call feelings of admiration for an inanimate object “respect” short changes the word. But maybe I’m being a little hard edged and confusing the sentiment, because when you take in the second part of the Proenneke quote, “…But abuse one and it will wear your hands raw and open your foot like an overcooked sausage,” the first part makes more sense.

I’m coming around to this way of thinking: See an inanimate object that you rely on as an object WORTHY of your care and attention and it will be maintained. Or to put it real short: garbage in, garbage out. Neglect in, malfunction out. Blatantly obvious, but warm and fuzzy quotes like, “Learn to use an axe, and respect it and you can’t help but love it,” as wise and true as they might be, obfuscate.

Not being able to fix your brakes on the road because you let the cables fray so badly is a rough situation indeed. This will not happen now.

I suppose this will be a recurring theme for us till the end of time.

This one is about business, but stick with me here.

A mostly forgettable advert stuck in my head today. It would have been entirely forgotten, except for the tagline at the end. “We put members first, because we don’t have shareholders.” It was for Nationwide Insurance. So I did some research. Turns out there are two (or maybe more?) basic kinds of insurance companies, at least in the States, public and mutual.

Conventional wisdom, at least my wisdom, says insurance companies want to maximize payment from its members while minimizing the payouts to members. Do that well, and you gain shareholders and investment. But this model only applies to public companies. I did not know that. In principle, mutual companies basically try to break even. There’s no incentive to maximize intake (premiums and deductibles) and minimize payouts. Of course, it’s not that simple. Both models offer pros and cons to the consumer. No need to get into that here.

If you made it through the dissertation on insurance company models, here’s the interesting part. At least interesting to me. You’re in the business, so I request your opinion. This Nationwide tagline, is it a stroke of elegance? I mean elegant in that the marketer presents a fact, one that sounds like a simple fact, and lets the audience come to the conclusion that the marketer wants to convey. Isn’t there an industry name for this technique? The tagline is making a claim without making a claim and it lets the listener feel like the conclusion is a given, when the conclusion is actually debatable. In this case, mutual companies don’t necessarily and wholly put the interest of an individual member first. If you were like me and didn’t know how insurance companies work, it makes sense and sounds about right.

I was once told about a scene in Madmen. Something about a line for a cigarette company. “The one that’s cut.” (in reference to the tobacco preparation) Every company cuts the tobacco. It doesn’t matter.

Take the usual suspects at Joe’s, The Professor for example, and a fantastical observation emerges: none of them age. Yup, I know that’s absurd. Even if it does appear that way, it is probably for the same reason as not noticing yourself age. Even so, I’ll say it’s magic and not one of them has aged. I think that place would be an apt setting for a pretty wack fairy tale.