March, 2017 - Ina Disguise

The Gamebia Project Update

March 20, 2017 8 Comments

I wish that this post was going to contain good news, but the project is not going well at this point.

Scuppered by limited funds, I am scratching together the funds to continue as I was sold a bad batch of computers, at this point if I am successful I will bring the project to break-even at this end.

My protege in the Gambia, who told me that he knew what he was doing, seems to not know what he is doing at all and is now only in communication once every twenty four hours to ask when the next computers are coming rather than getting on with his end of the project.

Despite my own lack of funds I have sent the following items to The Gambia:

Two PC tablet computers, which were intact when they left here, well packed with chargers. One arrived broken, and has been sold to provide 3000 dalasi (£60) to provide immediate assistance to the recipient.
A digital camera, capable of producing video plus cables, batteries, charger and SD card
A condenser microphone for recording interviews and connector cable
A multi adapter to enable several different items to be used with the tablet
An SD reader, in case any of the cables get lost or sold
Three memory sticks, to assist with transferring information should mobile broadband be too expensive
A speaker, to enable testing of the material before sending to me for editing
A mini to usb cable for tethering, but this is now free because the recipient figured out how to get the tablet online despite the expense
An SD card, unspecified

The speaker was taken by the recipient’s brother on the first night, and the SD card went to the recipient’s boss as he had provided loans to the recipient. He has failed to update me on the other items, and so I am unable to report how many of the others he has lost or sold. I included two tablet computers, since I was aware the recipient has constant financial difficulties as this is why he started talking to me in the first place. This should leave sufficient equipment for him to start a channel on youtube, a blog and procure work from fiverr which would easily provide him with an additional income.

I suggested that as the recipient is very shy, that his somewhat more go-getting brother be the face of the project, and sharpen his presentation skills in addition to making better use of the equipment than selling it. The recipient tells me that in Africa, people expect money before success, which tells you rather a lot about why some areas of Africa are in a constant state of economic failure.

The recipient has not said thank you yet, nor is he staying in communication. Before the parcel arrived he was constantly talking online, he now appears once every twenty four hours and either complains, or asks when his next parcel is arriving. I have told him that unless I see some evidence of the project at his end, no further parcels will be forthcoming, which he has responded to with more complaints and excuses. I set up two email addresses, a youtube channel, a separate account for linkedin, a facebook page with likes and recommended a specific twitter account be created for the project. He appears to have struggled with all of this, and now seems not to have understood any of the conversations we had prior to my sending out the equipment.

I have also given instructions for handling the project, and no attempt seems to be being made to actually carry them out. Instead I read messages indicating that he does not know what he is doing at all, and is not really trying to make the thing work.

As you can see, things are not going well so far. From what appeared to be an intelligent and serious person who wanted to self-develop and fund his enormous family, we have a whinging creep who is now trying to say just enough to get more equipment without doing any actual work. I am not at all happy with this so far.

Still, I did this with the full knowledge that it was possible that he would just sell all of it, in which case I need not bother with this silly dude again, so the situation is not beyond saving if the recipient pulls his finger out.

I have been told a story from Germany, which indicated that African workers in Germany managed to work like Germans, and when that project moved to Africa, suddenly forgot how to do it. Perhaps sunshine is to blame, or perhaps the problem is blaming other people when what you really need is a work ethic.

creativity, motivation

Self Limiting Mantras

March 11, 2017 No Comments

Continuing my series on motivational topics, here are a few more backwards-ass suggestions for people delivering motivational material, often written off as smug/pompous/dishonest ‘idiots’ by an increasingly cynical and downtrodden public:

I’m not good enough

Yeah, that is a great excuse. Nice, vague, covers all angles. Of course you are, and if you are not, then you need to break your goal into manageable chunks and take it one step at a time. There are times when you can only spend ten minutes a day on your goal, whatever that happens to be, You owe it to yourself to have no regrets later.

I’m too fat

From experience, you probably got fat because you neglected yourself in favour of other people, or some imaginary idea that being a good citizen involved tasting every product that was advertised to you. How often have you watched an advert and wondered how the very slim model possibly gets away with eating pizza/chocolate/take out food etc? Every item you eat and every choice that you make is causing the problem. I am more aware than most that speaking up for yourself, sleeping sufficiently, taking time for your health, relaxing is considerably more difficult and seems like less of a priority than whatever else you are doing, whether that is work or other people. Although it seems easier to shut up and eat something before rushing headlong towards your next appointment, you really need to get selfish to solve that issue. Some people need to be rejected, some tasks need to be postponed and you need to stop hearing the insults that are preventing you from getting your romantic/professional/alternative goals fulfilled. It is too easy to assume that you will lose weight and your life will change. It won’t, so you might as well get on with it before you are sitting in a chair wondering where your life went and why you didn’t do whatever it is that you wanted to do. Most people would rather deal with a fat, considerate and thoughtful person than a selfish, thoughtless go-ahead bore. If they can’t manage it, they aren’t worth your time anyway.

I’m too old

This situation is unlikely to change so either you disregard this thought, or take up dominoes instead of whatever you were planning to do.

I don’t have enough money

As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is a question of using your imagination to rethink your plans. I have not come across an idea yet that could not have been off the ground cheaper and faster.

I don’t have time

Either your aim is not important to you, in which case why are you even thinking about it, or it is, and you will make time. This is the most lame excuse of the lot. Again it is a question of breaking down your plan into manageable chunks.

People like me don’t get to do that

Inadequacy is a boring excuse. You are adequate. Start from there.

They won’t listen to me anyway

Yeah, people are often assholes. It is time you stopped listening to them. Get rid of them and do your own thing.

It’s too big a risk

Compared with finding yourself in a care home with no visitors? If you rethink your plans, you will come up with a way of reducing your risk to a manageable level. If your priority is reducing risk, you need to take this into account and change your plans accordingly.

What if?

Yeah, you will be saying this a lot if you don’t do something about developing your life the way you want it.

It’s alright for him/her – He/she is better/more handsome/more intelligent/has contacts/more education than I do

They started out earlier than you. So what?

That stuff only applies to America

While I concur that they are obsessed with money, self-development is not really about money. I don’t plan to charge for anything I do until I have a sufficiently solid core from which to radiate. This takes time. There are many ways to build your little castle in the air. It is really up to you how you go about marketing and developing your particular product. You do not have to turn into a brainwashed clone to engage in personal growth.

He/she is a scammer

Yeah this is another good non-specific excuse. It is unclear why it is used so often, when speakers do relatively innocuous things (like selling health food or courses) This is really not a good reason to stop you from doing anything to help yourself.

Hope that helps.

economics, motivation

The Danger of Seeking Approval

March 9, 2017 54 Comments

As a devil-may-care type of chick, both in appearance and in attitude, I have, inevitably, attracted many desperate seekers of approval in the course of my life. Some men seek approval as a habit, some it takes the form of a horrific psychosis. Either way, it doesn’t tend to cut a whole lot of ice, since I am a rebellious responsibility freak who doesn’t really care what anybody thinks to a great extent.

Prior to falling stupidly in love with Wolfe, I was a very serious, very shy version who had been severely bullied for years and who wanted to make a genuine contribution to progressive thought. I felt so stupid after this episode, that I am now an artist and fiction writer working on some instructional but fairly pointless computer games. What a waste of a great education and work ethic.

My mother has a kind of cold war going on with her approval seeking children, and a red hot war with me, in which she kindly accepts my endless care and then complains about it. This has led to a wider war of nuclear proportions, in which my allegedly very nice sister feels quite free to phone me the night after my mother’s stroke to advise me that the stroke, which she sat and watched before going shopping, was in fact my fault and that she was entitled to her mother’s property. When she told my brother that I had refused to listen to this, he backed her up on it. It is the family property unless it comes to doing any actual work, that of course is mine all mine.

Since my brother has no hope of ever getting my approval due to this lazy greed, he naturally has to turn to her to get this, and so he and my drunken sister kow tow to a psychopathic narcissist who has pursued her obsession with superiority based on bank account alone for more than twenty years. She is also potentially violent, and so I now live with double doors locked and when they choose to visit my mother, they do so locked in an annex which means that I am safe from their unwanted and very negative attention. The only good thing about my brother is that he is interested only in money, whereas the sisters are incredibly spiteful and try to get more complaints from my mother in order to discredit me, the most educated person out of all four of us.

Desperation for approval may look benign, but it can take extremely vicious forms. Compared with a tiny bit of approval from somebody else, you do not matter at all, and you should identify this trait in the people around you and AVOID IT. There is nothing more depressing than a friend you have had for years turning around and telling you that you do not matter in comparison with them getting some fleeting approval from your aging parent. Desperation for approval, therefore, involves quite a deep level of dishonesty and lack of initiative that is really not worth having in your life. Similar to the recent studies of people who habitually swear, showing them to be more honest and hardworking, approval seekers will happily smile at you and stab you in the back if they think they will get some brownie points from some imaginary authority.

In a working context, whistleblowers are the enemies of the approval seekers, who have kept the economy in a wasteful mess for generations. There was a golden time of growth during which change was desirable and new ideas were welcome. This golden time has been over for nearly forty years, replaced with the desire of fat cats to maintain a level of incompetence in others which is not at all useful or pleasant.

So, to conclude, if you agree to be an approval seeker to pay your mortgage, you are spawning the next generation of useless, facile, greedy backstabbers who will continue to rape the economy until one of the African nations finally grabs the bull by the horns and takes it all away from you. A motivated, honest and non-wasteful workforce will destroy your dreams of your third car, your triple glazing and your bullshit holiday to Cuba so that you can snigger at the poor people you spit on every day.

creativity, economics, games, motivation

The Gamebia doing very well

March 4, 2017 9 Comments

The Gamebia Everipedia Page

So far, this project has cost a lot of time and money, but I believe that my efforts have not gone in vain, since I have about £600 quids worth of equipment almost ready to head out to the Gambia and another £600 quidsworth awaiting my attention. All for as little money as possible, since I do not actually have any.

The Gamebia facebook Page

At this point, the project is in profit, and has made about £100. This is subject to change as the capital equipment gathering can be quite costly, although my salvage skills have proved extremely useful. So basically I have saved money by learning how to fix a few brands of computer and encountering standard problems that other people do not apparently bother to learn how to fix. You would be extremely alarmed to know how easy it is to break into your computer, for example. You might want to look at that.

The Gamebia google plus Page

Trying to explain social media to somebody who has only seen it on a mobile phone is also odd, especially as I decided fairly early on that social media was of limited use for Ina. I have amassed a bit of knowledge along the way though, although losing the old blog was a tremendous blow as I was storing a lot of information on it. Even if you are paying someone to manage your material, you still have to back it up because people are stupid.

The Gamebia linkedin Page

Also, trying to explain to the future owner of The Gamebia that this stuff is not actually mine, is quite interesting since I have set it up so far. There are things I cannot do, but what I have done I have put into his name, since I will be letting go of the project once it is into a good and hopefully profitable routine.

In conclusion, the project is thus far going well and attracting some enthusiasm, although we cannot get started on the actual work until the first package arrives in the Gambia. There are a few more things I can do, such as putting a cat video on the Gamebia youtube page to get the partnership sorted out, but mainly I seem to have taken up computer salvage so far.

Catching up with artwork for World of Interiors is high on the priority list right now – I will be in April’s edition, which will be out this month.