“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’

–But it’s nicer here…

So you were born to feel “nice?” Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

–But we have to sleep sometime…

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash and eat.”

– Marcus Aurelius

Every morning I have that dialog with myself, and so long as I come away siding with Aurelius, I feel like I’ve won. It’s not fun and surely it’s not easy. In some cases it borders on insanity and OCD. Little, meaningless things take on monumental importance–because I cannot NOT do them because it means appeasement. And I know that it is indeed a slippery slope, that once you begin the practice of capitulation to the Resistance, it never ends. There’s that Russell Banks book–The Sweet Hereafter–where the bus driver mentions that in 50/50 situations she always “errs on the side of the angels,” meaning she always gives God the benefit of the doubt. That’s the policy I’d like to base my life on, erring on the side of dedication, of hard work, of commitment.

And that’s the crucial question that Aurelius’ passage poses: You’ve had plenty of sleep…but have you had enough work?

….and fully aware of the irony, I’m enjoying my mini-vacation in Santa Barbara.

–Subject to Change: Tips for Good Email Subject Lines

(Getting your email read is the most important part. Learn how to catch the eye)

–Seth Godin on how to virally market your book

(You have to give content away before it can spread via word of mouth)

-Charteo.us

(It’s a cool way to track the sales of books on Amazon. But their registration process sucks. I’m not sure why.)

–Popuri.us

(Check the stats of sites, Alexa rank, technorati ran, google page rank, del.icio.us, rss, etc. Great tool. Hat tip to TechCrunch for the last two.

–Wikipedia: Ultimatum Game

(The ultimatum game is an experimental economics game in which two parties interact anonymously and only once, so reciprocation is not an issue. The first player proposes how to divide a sum of money with the second party. If the second player rejects this division, neither gets anything. If the second accepts, the first gets his demand and the second gets the rest. Proof that humans don’t always act rational, and that game theory can’t always be used to explain projected action)

There was a big thread on the Rudius board last week, and now it made the front page of Digg.

And I think the crux of the debate comes down to how you answer this question: Does the media influence culture or does culture influence media? Arguably, in the past, I think it’s been more of the latter, but in the case of celebrity coverage, I think it’s clearly the former. The idea that “the media only reports on this gossip is because people buy it” is a cop out. And I don’t think it takes into account basic groupthink or psychology.

There is this thing called an information cascade–that essentially means people can be forced to go against their personal beliefs if a majority of their peers do the same. Or, if enough people observe the sky is red, you’ll throw aside the fact that it is clearly blue. And I think honestly, that is the most plausible explanation for this fascination with worthless celebrity gossip. Don’t get me wrong, people do care about the lives of famous people. It’s actually biological–and all societies (civilized or uncivilized) gossip about the sex lives of their alpha-people. But there is a difference between that and a solid month of hearing about the Anna Nicole Smith overdose.The latter is the media forcing a story down the public’s throat; hoping that if they do it long enough, it’ll go down easy. The logic of it is proven, look at payola. Record labels by spins on radio stations because they know they can trick people into enjoying bands they wouldn’t otherwise hate. The media hammers in stories so they’ll always have something to fall back on. There’s always a police chase, a murder, a heinous rape, a gossip piece they can use a filler–but first they have to force us to care about it. Which is what we have with ANS.

And the media covers these stories because they’re lazy. It’s cheaper to drag something on than it is to find something new. That’s why Lindsey Lohan and Spears are still in the press, even though they haven’t created new art in years. It’s all about potential costs and risks. They know for sure that some people care about those celebrities, and they can’t say that for certain about some unknown up-and-comer, or some investigative report on an important issue. Which is why we see the same tired stories about the same tired people.

So the whole idea of “they wouldn’t report on it if people didn’t buy it” is bullshit. They report on it because reporters are inherently lazy, stupid and greedy. I understand the outrage and the scorn that Jon Stewart has for the MSM. And he’s exactly right, bias (liberal and conservative) is important, but the priority here, should be the sensationalism, and the greed, and the race to the bottom. And until we put the blame where it really lies–directly on the media–we can’t hope for a higher level of discourse.