Dude Where's my Karma?

The Symbol for Dudeist Thinking - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
This week, I’ve been confronted with my inherent lack of inspired goal-setting. Some might even call it laziness... A recently retired coworker in his late 40’s is working on two venture capital investment projects, even being paid in stock for his contributions. Another coworker in his early 30’s is going to night school, studying genetic engineering. Night school might be a challenge to me if I were studying basket weaving -- my mind could not grasp anything approaching genes or nucleic acids. I’m impressed by the mojo of my friends and equally impressed by my own apparent indolence.

My leisure time activities are somewhat epicurean … I like good healthy food, music and entertainment, aromatherapy, long naps, shopping, and movies. I actually shouldn’t limit my list to hedonistic indulgences -- I also like to read nonfiction, tinker with gadgets, and work out four times a week. If you drive near White Rock Lake, you might see me taking one of my 3-mile trail hikes.

As far as advancing my finances -- I’ve tackled it with the ferocity of a slug. I log on to look at my 401K account maybe twice a year; I’m a financial couch potato with a couch potato fund mixture. My investments are conservative and boring (a lot of bonds, CD’s, and index funds). I’d rather have a low maintenance mix with less of the roller coaster effect. My 50-something heart can no longer take the excitement of a financial thrill ride. Slow and steady works just fine for me.

I’ve actually thought about going back to school, but not to make a million or start a second career. I’d like to take some Fun Ed type courses: Spanish 101, Creative Writing, Radio-TV-Film and Architectural History. I’d enjoy taking a lot of the Liberal Arts fluff that seemed so terribly impractical in college -- when my course load was determined by an all-consuming lust for a rocket-to-the-moon techie career. For all that I now move slowly, I’d like to take a giant chill pill and slow down even more. To borrow from the cliche line, I’d like to stop and smell the roses.

DUDEISM

This leads me to declare my allegiance to Dudeism, a 21st century, American reinterpretation of the ancient Chinese Taoist philosophy. Founded in 2005 by journalist Oliver Benjamin, Dudeism borrows from Taoism and bases much of its overriding attitude on Dude, the laid back, hippie character in 1997’s “The Big Lebowski” (played by Jeff Bridges). A couple of the major premises of Dudeism is that we bring out the very worst in ourselves when we overemphasize career ambition and material excess. According to Dudeism, every day pleasures like bathing, bowling and hanging out with friends are far better tickets to spiritual fulfillment.

Dudeism started out as something of a gag, but now has thousands of followers -- in fact several thousand Dudeist priests have been ordained. Oliver Benjamin is a latter day Buddha, writing a series of Tao books to advance his Dude philosophy.

Is there anything likely to shake me loose from my Dudeist leanings? It’s highly doubtful in this 4th quarter of my life. Like the proverbial dog who catches the car, I’m not sure what I’d do with it if I caught it. I’m pretty sure I could use some conversational Spanish and I could express myself with some bad poetry. If you get the chance, watch “The Big Lebowski” and see why it has a cult following. And if life’s pressures are giving you ulcers and resentments it might be time to consider a Dudeist adjustment to your own routine.

© 2013 blogSpotter

An IKEA State of Mind

The Swedish-inspired shopping paradise - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today I drove 25 miles to Frisco, TX to indulge one of my shopping habits -- I shopped at IKEA. Most people are familiar with the home furnishing megastore in blue and yellow (the national colors of Sweden). Like the lemming shoppers around me, I followed the arrows which guided me through an upstairs showroom and then through a downstairs market section. I love contemporary furnishings and bargain prices -- this store is a double jackpot for me. I’m not too crazy about the arrows since I might get stalled behind a baby carriage or slow people. In those moments I take the store’s shortcuts to get my my next destination.

If you watch late night TV, you’ve heard jokes about the difficulty of IKEA assembly instructions. They usually are printed in 7 languages, in faint, tiny font. Then, the diagrams might challenge a mechanical engineer from MIT -- that’s if you can get past the tiny print. I bought a plastic milk crate that required assembly and somehow managed to muck it up. I pressed tab “A” into hole “C”... unfortunately the pressing was irrevocable! The crate still functions, but looks like someone’s learning disabled teen put it together. Lesson learned -- only buy things that are small, modular and pretty much ready to use.

The first IKEA store as we know them opened way back in 1958 in Sweden. The stores gained popularity across the decades, but didn’t reach the “explosive” pace until the 2000’s. As of 2011, IKEA had 332 stores in 38 countries, and sold $23.1 billion in goods. IKEA is the world’s third largest consumer of wood after Lowe’s and Home Depot. I thought the store in Frisco was large, but apparently there are some much larger -- I can only figure you’d need hiking shorts and a walkie talkies to tackle one of those.

The name IKEA is an acronym of its founder (name and home town: Ingvar Kamprad of Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd). The chain was long since sold to a Dutch company, but the Dutch have maintained IKEA’s Scandinavian mystique, not wishing to disturb their Swedish-inspired cash cow. Things you might not know about IKEA:

o They once were protested for selling items with things like PVC and formaldehyde (many years ago). They’ve now gone the other extreme of supporting Green Technology and building stores that run completely off renewable energy.
o They give to charities worldwide, including UNICEF, American Forests, and Save the Children.
o They’ve attempted small stores, boutique stores and other formats -- nothing has worked as well as the blue/yellow megastores with arrows that we all know and love.
o In Europe, they’ve branched out into IKEA hotels and IKEA modular homes.

Americans are fairly chauvinistic; we figure that we’ve conquered the world with KFC, McDonald’s, Apple and Starbucks. We certainly have done that, and there’s no need to diminish those super-Capitalistic achievements. BUT let it be known -- a blue/yellow leviathan has been unleashed from the Northern reaches of Europe. It doesn’t stop with a food court or a cup of coffee -- it seeks to furnish all our dorm rooms and apartments. And I myself need to go back to IKEA just to get the multicolor LED lights I saw today. My only complaint is a minor one -- IKEA please build a store in Dallas proper. Save me that 25 mile round trip on the tollway. That probably won’t happen because part of IKEA’s strategy is to develop suburban sites where the land is cheap. So be it -- I’ll drive the drive to get my Swedish shopping fix.

© 2013 blogSpotter