Feeling vs. Thinking

This is and still continues to be a hot and mysterious topic for the psychologists....Being related to the fundemantal drives of human beings, it is the key assumption, and foundation for marketing...marketing needs to know / or at least assume how human beings work to drive their behavior....it is almost like pushing a button on the human mind for her/ him to act in favour of what you want her/ him to do...

So the question is what initiates our action??? The debate has been on whether we 'humans' are rational beings or not....many schools of thoughts...yet in 21st century, feeling (rightly so to me) has gained a more promiment place in how the marketers at least assume about their main inputs, i.e., the homo saphiens...

We have a tendency to 'want to believe' that we are very rational, and our brain is an analytical computer, taking the input in, computing the 'most' rational solution...A nice thinking/ hypothesis...'too good to be true' in my terms...hence a clear sign for not to believe in something (a major criteria indeed, since perfection is only a concept, it has never been and never will be concrete by definition. Perfection cannot exist in what human beings do...we can only infer it from the nature and try to emulate it....)

Rationality trying to have a 'perfectioned' human nature is also too good to be true...Human beings are not thinking robots, but feelings animals who are equipped with thinking to solve some problems they encounter/ create themselves or use it to communicate to their fellow group members...at best a tool for justification of irrational actions by rational underpinnings...trying to give a 'too good to be true' image to others.

As many researches have shown after one other (not to be deliberated here, feel free to look up on the net, available everywhere if you really want to see it), thinking makes us understand, feelings make us to take action...Hence understanding is NOT enough to take action. Simply it! Understanding is NOT enough....and potentially NOT necessary...to take action....Majority of our actions are nevertheless automatic, habitual actions to survive...and the rest are feeling based, justfied by rational tools....like 'logic'...hence what i claim is you do not need to think logically to act...you can act, and can be very illogical...this does not mean that the outcome will be unwanted either...logic only dictates whether an outcome is '1' or '0' like computer's operating system...yet it does not have any judgement or self direction mechanism. Hence logic is Moral neutral...what this means is acting logically would not even mean doing 'good' for the humanity and i even claim that it will ONLY ENDANGER our species...if feelings are not the main mechanism to direct us.

Feelings ,i.e., our hormones make us tick...That is simply it. So does it mean that some people do not feel and hence look very rational on the surface. Of course not...They only try to camuflage their feelings, either because they are not appropriate or because they simply are not aware of them...

What we should not forget is humans having born into a world with dinasours had to act quickly...hence feeling dominated...i.e., 'fight' or 'flight' depending on the hormonal level of the homo saphiens. Our ancestors did not think about for instance 'negotiate with the dinasour' as a plausible option...because it would not work out;) very simple reasoning...

So how do the feelings impact us? Feelings make us as the name suggests (thanks to the person who coined it) it makes us 'feel'....you know it either unconsciously, sub-consciously or through collective consciousness....Feeling means knowing without the awareness of knowing...just knowing that 'it is as is'....apperantly according to a latest brain research we become aware of our actions, once we act...THIS IS CRITICAL...We want to be IN CONTROL of our actions...Yet it is proven that there is a lag between when the body is aroused, hormones are released and prepared to act in a certain way and the time when human beings 'say' they 'decided to act'...actually what is happening is our feelings already prepared us to act in one way or another...we simply observe it...Thanks to our 'ego' we believe we made the decision...Imagine a world, in which we knew that we do not decide, but our body does...would be scary....and depressing...hence this knowledge has not been widely marketed, yet;)

So what is the link between feeling and thinking? Are they totally seperate?

Thinking to me serves for four functions in the civilization:
1) Observation of a feeling: Once the feeling is activated to act, the brain observes this and translates as its own 'decision making', hence 'i think, therefore i act'....since we do not want to believe 'i feel, therefore i act' [except for the artists, extraordinary people or women, who are left by men on their own...hence do not feel pressurized not to talk about their feelings]. Hence feelings become thinking due to ego of homo saphiens.

2) Mass communication of a feeling: We are very intricate animals, we only understand what we see...we canNOT understand what we do not see, i.e., in the brain, we are not exactly sure why it does work, the way it does...although we understand how it works...
A feeling by nature (even if you are aware of it) is an energy, which we have a difficulty to explain...what is energy??? this is the fuel of the force, i.e., action...so how do we explain it and make it understandable for every homo saphien, who have A UNIQUE combination of feelings and how to feel these feelings...so we use our language over a logical framework to communicate and coordinate with one other. It is like Ruby on Rails in Open source software development, i.e., the communication language amongst the programmers is Ruby and they use 'Rails' framework to organize and structure their communication

3) Self and mass justification of a feeling: Our feelings are the way they are...it is usually (unheard) of to change feelings...takes a LOOOOOOONG Time....it is easy to look at history and see how many fights have been as a result of long standing irrational grudges amongst groups of civilizations...The thinking helps us to RE-CODE the feeling information to justifyable logical system to try to convince our fellow citizens, ourselves that we made the right decision and we want to 'FEEL' good about it...so thinking is utilized to feel good:0 very interesting, isn't it?

4) Understanding of feelings: As human beings we are not so much aware of our feelings, we do not need to, since we act in any way (if you buy in to an earlier arguement). The job of thinking is linking individual pieces of information to create understanding...so that we become aware of what we felt...hardly we understand why we felt that way in a particular moment. But at least job of a thinker is to be able to compertmantilize, analyse and integrate feelings, so that we understand more and more how we act.

So all in all...feelings, feelings and feelings are the major starting point for a marketer, whether this is a feeling of one individual person or any interest group, including a nation...it is all about feeling...if you want to act now, want to understand yours or others actions, and try to see beyond what is visible, feel how you feel, feel how others would feel....Marketer's job is to IGNITE these feelings....nothing else...nothing more...but nothing less...This is IT!

Post ist Tot!

Today i learned that my insurance company 'tried' to contact me via direct mail for over one year and a half...yet since i was traveling due to work, i did not get my post or even if i did...amongst 500 posts that i receive, i failed to see their mail, notifying me that my bank did not accept to automatically transfer premiums from my account to the insurer's account...


The issue is now clarified thanks to a lady in the insurance company, who thought about sending me an email, warning that 'I need to pay NOW NOW...' Well...thank you email....I literally declare today that direct mail is dead...not sure why companies still try to intervene our lives by directly mailing....still..in a digital world....where even people meet online and get married...:)


My advice to the companies who want to transform themselves and adapt to the New Brave World with unimaginable number of interactive potential...is to use digital form of interactive communication as their mainstream communication channel....The old world companies still want to monologue with their customers...we tell the customer....many many times...if the customer does not respond...well what else could we do??? they need to understand that they should not keep killing trees....to send direct mails to the customers....Who wants to keep direct mail business is the National Post Companies...not the customers:)...
Customers want interaction and feel valued:)

Why do we Blog?

...It has been a while that blogs have been around. Now there are serious bloggers on the web, even microblogging was invented and in full circulation thanks to Tweeter:)Why to blog now in the blogocean?My answer would be 'If not NOW, WHEN?':I love comtemplating ideas and de-mystifying the 'Secret' in the world....beyond that i consider myself an I-generation ['I' stands for 'Internet' and 'Individualism']...two pillars put together...it was a natural outcome for me to try out blogging...

In this blog, i will deliberate upon philosophy behind marketing.. will explore answers to questions like 'Why does marketing exist?, Who are we, the 'Human beings'?, What makes us believe?, Why do we live?, What is the role of marketing in our civilization?, How can we market ideas, people, habits?, What are the marketing tools we have available?, What are the new tools being invented?'.

Here I am...Hopefully this blog will enable me to connect with many of you around the world and become a platform of mutual understanding, sharing and growth.