"...being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing..."

I started out creating this blog with the purpose of stressing out some ideas that I find worth thinking on in terms of marketing. However, these days, marketing shares its position in my lists of interests with trying to learn Italian. Today, I found out a wonderful poem by Pablo Neruda that I liked a lot (as all his poems I've read so far) and here I want to share it with you both in Italian and in English; mind Neruda!


Lentamente muore

Lentamente muore chi diventa schiavo dell'abitudine, ripetendo ogni
giorno gli stessi percorsi, chi non cambia la marca, chi non
rischia e cambia colore dei vestiti, chi non parla a chi non conosce.

Muore lentamente chi evita una passione, chi preferisce il nero su
bianco e i puntini sulle "i" piuttosto che un insieme di emozioni,
proprio quelle che fanno brillare gli occhi, quelle che fanno di uno
sbadiglio un sorriso, quelle che fanno battere il cuore davanti
all'errore e ai sentimenti.

Lentamente muore chi non capovolge il tavolo, chi è infelice sul
lavoro, chi non rischia la certezza per l'incertezza, per inseguire un
sogno, chi non si permette almeno una volta nella vita di fuggire ai
consigli sensati. Lentamente muore chi non viaggia, chi non legge, chi
non ascolta musica, chi non trova grazia in se stesso. Muore lentamente
chi distrugge l'amor proprio, chi non si lascia aiutare; chi passa i
giorni a lamentarsi della propria sfortuna o della pioggia incessante.

Lentamente muore chi abbandona un progetto prima di iniziarlo, chi non
fa domande sugli argomenti che non conosce, chi non risponde quando gli
chiedono qualcosa che conosce.

Evitiamo la morte a piccole dosi, ricordando sempre che essere vivo
richiede uno sforzo di gran lunga maggiore del semplice fatto di
respirare.
Soltanto l'ardente pazienza porterà al raggiungimento di una splendida
felicità.

Pablo Neruda

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Die Slowly

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "it’s" rather than a bundle of emotions, the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives,
die slowly.

He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops,
dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn't know, he or she who don't reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.

Let's try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead
to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

Pablo Neruda

Earning money from your heartache ?!?!?!

I think the creators of the site http://www.exboyfriendjewelry.com/ are simply courageous. They’ve created a site dedicated to “helping” individuals who still have jewelry from their “ex” but don't want to give it back to them. So here on this website, people can sell or put into auction items left from their “ex”s without revealing neither their own nor their ex partners’ identities.

Maybe some of you have thought about this ideabut had tried to repress it or were just not “transparent” enough to give it a voice? Well, finally some people have done this! And in their own words, they “want to keep things fun and cathartic”. The website is designed around this theme in many ways. First of all, the pre-requisite to post any item for sale is to share the personal story about it. This way, the site is able to differentiate itself from other auction sites by being a gathering place of the broken hearted ones who are after a little touch of humor in life as well as looking to share their experiences mutually with others. A sub-section of the site is a blog where users can post about their ideas about anything (although mainly about “women stuff” like balancing work and relationships, kids, etc). So, they are at the same time trying to create a social community, which obviously is invaluable, also backing this up with their presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well.

No matter how you might feel about your ended relationship, you may not come to accept the idea of making fun about it. For this reason, having an emotional appeal is not sufficient to attract the whole target group. You should also take into account those people who are always more rational in their relationships and also in the “post period” and in my opinion, this website does this in a perfect way by directly referring to rationality in their slogan of “You don’t want it. He can’t have it back”.

It seems like the biggest limitation of the website is its address. Even though any user of any gender can sell the items of his/her “ex”, still the active users as well as the other visitors of the site are likely to be women. In my opinion, the way to overcome this problem may be through viral marketing of the site, emcompassing both genders where the main motive should be about “rational survivors”.

PS. The timing of this blog entry and more importantly the motive of my writing it has nothing to do with what I think about my ex-boyfriends! The only explanation is my marketing-wise interest in the idea :-)