Dear Direct Marketing Representative,
First, I’d like to thank you for thinking so kindly about my future prospects and informing me that I could earn so much money by just signing up with the marketing network you are part of.
Thank you for wanting to be my mentor in the noble business of moneymaking and showing me how to butter my bread lavishly without having to spend much on butter. In fact, simply by sitting at home and bullying my friends to sign up with the network.
There’s only one small problem. I would love to earn money but I get tongue-tied when I have to convince other people to help me do that. Blame it on me being an ex-print journalist. Money is an alien concept to us, asking for it more so.
And there’s one more thing. You see, I do love having friends and I’m very scared that once I start calling people in my ‘friend and confidant’ tone and telling them that I want to discuss a business idea which is the next best thing after Maggi Noodles, I’ll have no friends left. Yes, even if I said I was horribly broke because I can’t hide the husband and they all know he is still working and we still own a car.
You’ve given me a booklet and a lecture which says I must not ‘prejudge anyone.’ Now the problem is that being the extremely stuck up variety, (I’m very honest about my faults, as you’ll see) I’m likely to. I’ll look at Friend No. 1 and say, ‘Nah, they’re both doctors. What do they need extra money for?’ and I’ll dismiss Friend No. 2 on the grounds that she has twins and asking her to do anything else is being cruel to her. I know, I know, this is just the kind of mindset that your booklet warns me against but what to do? I simply don’t have the ‘think out of the box’ brain.
A suicide threat is perhaps the only way I can convince my friends to part with their hard earned cash (Pls. note the perhaps), sign a contract, become part of the world’s foremost ‘multi-level-marketing system’ (to quote you respectfully) and hand in hand proceed towards becoming millionaires.
Ok, maybe millionaire is a long shot but you did say that just by signing up (and continuing the chain) I could earn at least Rs 8,000 a month first, then Rs 50,000 and then more than a lakh!
Yes my pupils did dilate and my eyes did pop and you thought I was finally coming to my senses and getting hooked. But let me be honest. That was on account of the numbers. You see, having been a lifestyle journalist for the larger part of my working life, I go a bit blank when the talk is about anything else but clothes and lipsticks. Also blame it on me being Bong. Bissness is not in awaar blaad. I’m also not very good with household work and fear I’ll horribly muck up when I show them the advantages of your cleaning concentrate as opposed to Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, etc.
So with due respect and profound thanks, I shall ask you to stop wasting your precious time as I simply won’t sign up. I know by doing this I’m losing out on the chance to display my inherent leadership skills (as spotted by you) and retire by the age of 35 with enough time to spend with my children and enough money to ski at St. Moritz every year. But what to do? You’ve got the wrong girl here. She’s lazy, tongue-tied and simply doesn’t have vision. And she’s also stupidly stubborn.
So goodbye. Don’t ring my bell again or I’ll display more character faults.
Warm Regards,
Rash
13 comments:
Hah, sounds so familiar. I was a victim of this 'brainwash' attempt too. I didn't succumb, no sirree, I didn't. I know my weaknesses too, from experience.
Many summers ago, I took up the 'challenge' of selling World Book encyclopaedias. My parents felt so sorry for me that my mum wanted to buy the set. My dad sensibly refused. Since then I've taken refuge in selling through print, television and more - NEVER direct.
Good thing you turned this down, you may have got a customer like me!
(Recently) Me to pushy credit card person: Take your card and SHOVE it(*censored*)
PS: I love it that you're so prolific these days. Next please.
PS: I love it that you're so prolific these days. Next please.
Hey Rash. Just caught on your recent posts. Good luck with the baby! :)
UN
lol, great post rash!
Haha Lee. have nothing against people who do it well. My problem is when they stick to you like leech and try to convince you to join.
Kahini: Person still chasing me. Don't think I'll stay polite anymore. And prolific? Look who's talking!
Hey UN! Long time. And thank you :)
xxx: thank you :)
Ew, This sounds like Amway out here. They will spot you, pester you, eat your brains and then spit out the remains, so other Amway-spotters can start on what's left.
May they all die!
PS: I know, a bit excessive. Blame it on the hormones!
hehe Gabby, spot on! It is Amway. Very enthu couple we met, of all the places, at the antenatal class. I suspect that's why they went there. To spot bakras.
Hi rash,
The most hilarious post in a long time.. i came here to spam ur blog but ended reading and even commenting.. I will paste my spam at the end. Please excuse that.. u see i also can't help it :-)... But I also have an intersting amway story to tell.. in fact if my full name is typed in google, it will connect me to Amway..not that I am a member or ever sold it..yeah i go use their glitter toothpaste.. anyway.. nice blog.. will blogroll you.. for the spam..
sorry but its a copy paste.. common for all blogger who I linked from Gandalfwhite. Yes gandalfwhite..
It goes like this
Hi rash,
My name is Anthony, I have been around the blogoshere since the gandalfwhite days, Hope you remember him. I was also a frequent reader of gandalfwhite.rediffblogs, and when i found u on the blgoroll today, I thought here is another old timer. I just want to know if you are i contact with gandalf the blogger. His mailbox also bounces any mails. Just wanted to know if he still blogs.. and i you have any idea.. I am spamming all the bloggers who visited gandalfwhite. Please don't mind. I would appreciate if u would leave an answer here or on my blog.
so u also have no idea where gandalf is .... and I am suddenly Liking LOTR all over again..
It's a cult full of scary people. I ran into this extra-friendly guy at a local store.
"Are you Indian?" he's practically bouncing off the walls.
"Yes," I say, looking past him, hoping he'll think I am really rude. Maybe I can pretend I can't speak English.
He launches into his spiel, something about that damned video.
"Errr...I can't watch videos. It's against my religion."
He stood there, with his mouth kinda open, watching me walk away.
Amway folks are only slightly less obnoxious than the Jehovah's Witnesses who show up at my front door on a Saturday morning to save the brown folks from hell.
I peer out from my bedroom window, see two too-well dressed (but in a comical way. which women wears derby sized hats these days? especially in puke-green?).
We hunker down and pretend no-one's home. Later I come down to see a Jesus Loves You pamphlet tucked into my door.
Can I go to her house and tell them Satan thinks she's hot and the perfect mother for His son?
*Needed to vent*
KEY OF SEE WWW.FREEWEBS.COM/KEYOFSEE/
ORIGIN OF WORDS
The first way our solar system was looked upon was by the appearance of things, as the sun did appear to be going around the earth.
The sun center of things, the real and true, could not be seen until the beliefs of the earth center of things had run it's course.
The same will be said someday about all the ancient writings that has come down to mankind.
The first way we looked upon the great works of words, was also by the appearance of things. The second way will also reveal the real and the true, but this also can not be seen until the first way has run it's course. This will be when we reach a great height in the material knowledge that starts going against our planet and the demoralizing of human behavior, like a swing that reaches a great height in one direction and must come back in the opposite direction to create a true balance.
This second way will point the mind in the direction to the real and the true, which is the missing link that stands between the world living together under one universal law. For it is the judgement of things the world holds as true which are not true that makes the world wretched.
The question is, what other way can we look upon the great works of words?
First, it is a mystery how all the foundations of our beliefs and knowledge in the world, stem from the first writings of the newly invention of words.
Secondly, how can we truly account for all that knowledge and insight in the great works of words in the first place, when the mind must first get the idea's from outside the mind by reading or hearing, because the mind can not form any knowledge on it's own for the same reason the blind can not form idea's of colors.
Thirdly, Words had to follow thought, so if there were no words at one time to follow thought, only the appetites of the body and their needs for survival could their thoughts follow. For there is no exception to the rules in nature, where one of nature's creation's steps out of character to have his thoughts follow something he invented to live by. Besides, it was already written, "that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word..." because nature has not over looked anything for the existence of all life in it's care for them.
If we believe man is the cause of words existing, then according to the ways man imagines the beginning of man, the human race started out with a confused bewilderment, because nature had ignored him completely. By that I mean, all other life nature had clothed according to their needs, with a built in natural aptitude to perform any action necessary for it's existence, and to take care of it's own offspring with no need of any outside learning to fullfill it's purpose. Not so with man, for words are his only guide that enables him to clothe himself accordingly to his every need. But to think that nature has overlooked anything in it's care, is in discord with nature on the whole, and a revolt against order as expressed in the power that orders the world. For the nature of the existent, and all things existent are intimately related to each other, and at no time could anything exist without natures care. But for thousands of years according to mans imagination of mans beginning, the human race drifted aimlessly and hopelessly with no purpose, existing in a state of bewilderment because man had not invented the words yet to guide the human race, seeing nature had overlooked this important fact.
It is written, "In the beginning was the word". Shall we just ignore that statement and assume it means something else? But suppose the word was in the beginning and we refuse to look upon the great works of words in this light. Then we would be turning our backs on the real and the true. For to look upon them in this light, the same word now reveals the hidden meaning that has been there all the time from the same word.
Consider this quote from the great works of words and replace the word "instrument" to mean "word". Surely there is no doubt that "word" is not only an instrument, but a great instrument.
"Then this instrument (word) must have it's own art, for the circumturning or conversion, to show how the turn can be most easily and successfully made; not an art of putting sight into an eye, which we say has it already, but since the instrument (word) has not been turned aright and does not look where it ought to look--that's what must be managed. For if the instrument (word) had been turned round towards what is real and true, that same instrument (word) of those same men would have seen those higher things most clearly; just as now it see's those towards which it is turned".
By the same word from the great works of words, that first taught us our beliefs and knowledge of things, will now teach us a greater knowledge from it's real foundation when the words have been turned round towards what is real and true.
The scriptures say, "The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire (truth) against the day of judgement".
Words are the first power to cause motion, yet they themselves are incapable of motion, for words can not move, it takes man to act upon them that does the moving. You will find that the concepts of the true come in the first place from words, and the evidence the words produce can not be overthrown. To do so you must find some other standard of greater authority, able of itself to convict falsehood by asserting truth. How can this be accomplished without words?
Words are a mighty power and the eldest of powers which is an honor to them; and a proof of this claim to this honor is, that of their parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor prose-writer has ever affirmed that they had any. Therefore words can not be claimed as property, they manifest themselves in form and disappear again in fathomless and inexhaustible source of all knowledge. Here is our guide to turn things around, where all created things can be viewed as constituting one whole.
The great works of words insist we must assert that it is necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance. For substances are the first of existing things and must be without matter, for they are eternal, and seeing words exist without matter, they are eternal, if anything is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality. If the words from the great works of words would speak out they would tell you how to look upon them and say "you should not ask questions, but understand, keeping silence as I keep silence; for I am not in the habit of talking. What ought you to understand? In the first place, that which is produced is the work of my silent contemplation, a contemplation produced by my nature".
No other books in the world has counseled man to think more deeply then the great works of words. Down through the ages man has been influenced by the path of thoughts from these books on mans foundation of the words. These thoughts are not only responsible for all our beliefs and knowledge, but also for the conditions that exist in the world. Man knows no other way for freedom and peace but by wars. To destroy the enemy which he thinks is man. This means the slaughtering of women and children in the consequences. Surely this is madness to believe in this slaughtering of human life---for peace! But true progress is by means of intelligence and not brute force. But the mind is the ruling power and is persuaded by necessity to bring these terrible things upon mankind. Yet when the influence of reason gets the better of necessity, wisdom will begin to show herself. "For that which we seek to behold is the light which gives us light, even as we can see the sun by the light of the sun". So until the world can grasp the full significance of this enlightenment, and progress in this direction, we remain in the parable of the cave, that only see's the shadows of puppets and not their true nature. This is the home of the illusion and error, and no hope of bringing order into a distracted world.
The eternal foundation of the word, a pattern intelligible and always the same, will guide us by the wisdom of nature, where all created things can be viewed as constituting one whole. The thoughts from this foundation will determine your future where there is hope.
It may well be that the true origin of words can be proved by the rules of mathematics. For a word of the exact relations existing between many words, are so related to another word, that any change in the value of one, is associated with a corresponding change in the other, thereby fulfilling it's function to generate by producing other words. By producing, they have life, and life if the quality distinguishing an animal or plant from inanimate substance, such as rocks, earth, or water and especially manifested in the power of growth of reproducing itself. It is time for the controversy of Darwin to be put aside and apply the theory of evolution to words. Reading the great works of words with the thought man invented them, they are dead objects used for expression, communicating and teaching. This is the dead that shall rise when it is discovered that words have spirit and life, and are the entities that enables man to know anything that can be known.
It is written in scriptures "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life".
Now that we live in this atomic age and scientists know, and can prove, that everything is made of atoms, it seems strange that words being the one thing that exist in the world that is not made of atoms, is the very thing that taught us to know that everything is made of atoms.
"Where can you go and find word not to exist? Where can you go and find that words can not be proved? Is there speech indeed, or is there not? Can we, or can we not, distinguish it from the chirping of young birds? Since I can say the word one, how can speech not exist". Does the chirping of young birds exist by nature, or does it exist because they invented the chirping?
The scriptures liken's words as seeds and seeds are of nature. Forever is in each seed is so by nature and no man put that nature in the seed, whether it be a grain of corn or wheat or whatever seed it may be. Words are just like that because words are in things and they can not be detached from things.
It is written in the great works of words "Who is calm and quiet becomes the guide for the universe". There is nothing more calm and quiet then the silence of these written words with freedom from motion. So all the words in the great works of words lay ever so silently, yet when they are looked upon you can hear every word. But whether you hear aright depends on the foundation you are listening from.
Where else could man look, where the whole realm of existence can be expressed in a higher system, then on nature's foundation of the words.
E-Mail-----top_two_bottom@yahoo.com
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