With no desire to spend the evening sitting on a couch eating junk food, some fellow contrarians and I loaded up our bikes and headed down to Tempe Town Lake. We were amply rewarded.
Posted in buildings, lakes and streams, Phoenix metro area, sunsets and tagged rainbow, sunset, Tempe Town Lake
My daughters and I are fans of the Arizona State University Lady Sun Devils basketball team (or maybe it’s the cotton candy and jalapeno nachos that keep us going back). At the last game we attended, I started thinking about why people root for their favorite teams. Robert Cialdini, in his insightful book, Influence, describes it this way:
We want our affiliated sports teams to win to prove our own superiority, but to whom…? Ourselves, certainly, but to everyone else, too. According to the association principle, if we can surround ourselves with success that we are connected with in even a superficial way…our public prestige will rise.
This explains those acquaintances that, lacking any justifiable connection, annoyingly claim a life-long allegiance to the New York Yankees, Miami Heat, Manchester United Red Devils or whatever other team is currently at the top of the heap.
Cialdini’s observations apply equally well to other “teams” we affiliate with, e.g., iPhone owners, Democratic Party members, Gangnam Style dancers, etc.).
And what does Cialdini say about hardcore fans who take their allegiances a bit too seriously?
Deep inside is a sense of low personal worth that directs them to seek prestige not from the generation or promotion of their own attainments but from the generation or promotion of their associations with others’ attainments.
So I say enjoy watching sports, root for your teams (and flaunt your image-boosting products and associations) and embrace the universality of it all. But if you’re a fanatic, look in the mirror and consider whether you should be tending to your own self instead.
Go Lady Sun Devils!
Posted in buildings, events, Phoenix metro area and tagged Arizona State University, Lady Sun Devils, Robert Cialdini, Tempe, Wells Fargo Arena
Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad’s creator, and I share the same rough age, born a mere six weeks apart. That is the reason why, I’m sure, his show’s themes – of mid-life, mortality, morality and the unintended consequences of one’s actions – resonate so harmonically with many in my cohort. They’re hard to get right (or fully appreciate) if you haven’t lived a good number of decades.
That and the characters’ depth – Walt’s awakened resolve, and yet at times, haplessness, Gale Boetticher’s indecisiveness and libertarian nerdiness, Gus Fring’s obsessive-compulsiveness and Saul Goodman’s charming “lawyers who advertise on TV” sleaze – are what keep me watching.
So when I found myself in Albuquerque with a free afternoon, I decided to seek out Heisenberg’s lair, and after some simple detective work, there it was – a real house, on a real street, populated by real people who are probably very sick and tired of people like me loitering around. Nevertheless, I completed my sojourn and went on my satisfied way.
Posted in buildings, New Mexico and tagged Albuquerque, Breaking Bad, New Mexico
Stuck in rush hour traffic on the northbound 110. At least downtown Los Angeles is fun to look at!
Posted in buildings, California and tagged California, downtown, Los Angeles, traffic