Aristotle somewhere put it: luck is when the guy next to you gets hit with the arrow. Twenty-five hundred years of history have not changed man’s basic narcissism; most of the time, for most of us, this is still a workable definition of luck. It is one of the meaner aspects of narcissism that we feel that practically everyone is expendable except ourselves. We should feel prepared, as Emerson once put it, to recreate the whole world out of ourselves even if no one else existed. The thought frightens us; we don’t know how we could do it without others—yet at bottom the basic resource is there: we could suffice alone if need be, if we could trust ourselves as Emerson wanted. And if we don’t feel this trust emotionally, still most of us would struggle to survive with all our powers, no matter how many around us died. Our organism is ready to fill the world all alone, even if our mind shrinks at the thought.

• time
• thought
• trust
• history
• emerson
• struggle
• definition
• resource
• aristotle
• matter

Emotional brands are the charismatic brands that people can’t live without. Take a brand away and people will find a replacement. Take an emotional brand away and people protest its absence. These super-evolved brands make deep emotional connections with consumers in new ways. Through mystery, sensuality and intimacy they inspire love. Emotion is the new frontier of marketing. Science has proved we think with our hearts as the more emotional part of the human brain is the right lobe which is more dominant than the rational left one (WEB_4 2006). Emotion is an unlimited resource.

• love
• emotion
• will
• science
• resource
• marketing

I found Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness, a free publication put out by FEMA in 2004, to be an excellent resource, and I would urge everyone to order a copy. See the Ready web site of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for more information.

• reference point
• survival
• resource

Following the birth of Aphrodite, the other gods were having a feast, including Resource, the son of Invention. When they'd had dinner, Poverty came to beg, as people do at feasts, and so she was by the gate. Resource was drunk with nectar (this was before wine was discovered), went into the garden of Zeus, and fell into drunken sleep. Poverty formed the plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by resource; she slept with him and became pregnant with love.\n\n 'Because he is the son of Resource and Poverty, Love's situation is like this. First of all, he's always poor; far from being sensitive and beautiful, as is commonly supposed, he's tough, with hardened skin, without shoes or home. He always sleeps rough, on the ground, with no bed, lying in doorways and by roads in the open air; sharing his mother's nature, he always lives in a state of need. On the other hand, taking after his father, he schemes to get hold of beautiful and good things. He's brave, impetuous and intense; a formidable hunter, always weaving tricks; he desires knowledge and is resourceful in getting it; a lifelong lover of wisdom; clever at using magic, drugs, and sophistry.\n\n 'By nature he is neither immortal nor mortal. Sometimes on a single day he shoots into life, when he's successful, and then dies, and then (taking after his father) comes back to life again. The resources he obtains keep on draining away, so that Love is neither wholly without resources nor rich. He is also in between wisdom and ignorance. The position is this. None of the gods loves wisdom or has the desire to become wise - because they already are; nor does anyone else who is already wise love wisdom. Nor do the ignorant love wisdom or have the desire to become wise. The problem with the ignorant person is precisely that, despite not being good or intelligent, he regards himself as satisfactory. If someone doesn't thing he's in need of something, he can't desire what he doesn't think he needs.

• love
• poverty
• resource
• wisdom
• desire
• life
• nature
• drugs
• knowledge
• sleep
• lying
• poor
• birth
• gods
• other
• situation