Pre-planning an Adventure

Photopin - Transiberian

Research shows that folks take anywhere from 5 hours to 30 hours planning their next vacation.  According to a travel conference in Singapore, it's 40+ hours (looks like there's some propaganda at play).

I spend approximately 0 hours planning, much to my boyfriend's dismay.  

I like "winging it" 

Note: This might explain the time I slept 3 days on the deck of a boat using my Eurorail pass from Italy to Greece (did not read the small print), or the time I was turned away at the airport 3 weeks ago on my way to the Philippines (apparently, you need to renew your passport 6 months in advance ... news to me).

I find my every day existence overly routine; therefore, I like making my vacations impromptu.  I won't even get a SIM card because it reminds me of backpacking in college, pre-smartphone.  

Regardless, I'm starting to consider the benefits of pre-planning
(besides being better organized and not sleeping on ship decks).

If you've read my blog before, you know I'm basically a disciple of Alain de Botton, reading everything he publishes.  

Here's two points he made about travel that resonated with me:

Point 1:

“A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.”  - Art of Travel

Takeaway: 
You need to prepare your mind beforehand so you're able to fully experience your travels.

Point 2:

"If the rich are fortunate in being able to travel to Dresden as soon as the desire to do so arises, or to buy a dress just after they have seen it in a catalog, they are cursed because of the speed with which their wealth fulfills their desires [...]  They therefore have no opportunity to suffer the interval between desire and gratification which the less privileged endure and which, for all its apparent unpleasantness, has the incalculable benefit of allowing people to know and fall deeply in love with paintings in Dresden, hats, dressing gowns, and someone who isn't free this evening." - How Proust Can Change Your Life 

Takeaway: 
Although not rich, I'm able to quickly fulfill my desires with a mix of online shopping and super accessible travel from Singapore.  To really appreciate the art of travel, it's important to dwell on it beforehand -- experiencing the longing of being in a new place.

This being said... I'm starting to anticipate my next BIG trip in January.

We're going on the Trans-Siberian.

The trip goes a bit like this:

Singapore --> Helsinki: Two days solo in the design district
Helsinki --> St. Petersburg: Meet up with Alan.  Really excited for the Hermitage Museum
St. Petersburg --> Moscow: Board the Trans-Siberian
Moscow --> Ulan Bator --> Beijing: Cross the frozen tundra, spending 7 days on a train 
Beijing --> Harbin: Go to the largest ice festival in the world

And, here's some eye candy that's increasing the desire:

Helsinki photopin

St. Petersburg photopin

Trans-Siberian tracks

Harbin photopin

Advertising Technique: Social Commentary

I love how this commercial by Goldieblox doesn't tiptoe around the issue at hand.  

Girls toys suck.

Let's make them better (to the beat of the Beastie Boys).

[Mental Health Break] Dynamic Shape Display

Pretty trippy, no?

30 Days of Awareness

Source: My Modern Met

I downloaded an app this week -- the Gratitude Journal -- with a goal of recording things I'm grateful for every day for 30 days.  Maybe it will turn into a habit, but at the very least, it's a good personal experiment.

I've known for awhile that the practice can reduce depression, improve health and strengthen relationships; I just haven't been very disciplined about doing anything with that knowledge.

As human beings, we are subject to hedonic adaption, which means that humans quickly return to a stable level of happiness despite major negative or positive life events.  The thrill of positive events -- whether it's a new job, the beginnings of a romantic relationship or getting a puppy -- all wear off.  Thankfully, the same goes for the stress and sadness from life's more unfortunate events.

Because of this tendency, humans don't stay satisfied or grateful for very long.  Therefore, it's important to develop habits to see the world from a new perspective.

I finished the book, How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton this weekend about life lessons we can learn from the (very eccentric) French writer, Marcel Proust.

I found this excerpt about societies' flippant attitude on the telephone quite applicable:

By 1900, there were 30,000 phones in France.  Proust rapidly acquired one [...] He might have appreciated his phone, but he noted how quickly everyone else began taking theirs for granted.  As early as 1907, he wrote that the machine was:

"a supernatural instrument before whose miracle we used to stand amazed,and which we now employ without giving it a thought, to summon our tailor or to order an ice cream."

Moreover, if the confiserie had a busy line or the connection to the tailor a hum, instead of admiring the technological advances that had frustrated our sophisticated desires, we tended to react with childish ingratitude.

"Since we are children who play with divine forces without shuddering before their mystery, we only find the telephone "convenient," or rather, as we are spoilt children, we find that "it isn't convenient," we fill Le Figaro with our complaints."

I complain about the weather being too hot, air travel taking to long or the internet being too slow on my phone -- but, in reality, it's a miracle that I'm able to work half-way across the world in Singapore, take flights to places like Bali on the weekend and carry a mini-computer in my pocket that can access all of the information in the world.

The world we live in and our every day experiences can be pretty mind-blowing -- it just requires us to be aware in order to appreciate it.

Silicon Valley Needs Some Grown-ups

Caution: This post is about to get pretty hypocritical

I don't use Snapchat.  
I don't need to send photos that disappear after 10 seconds to my friends & boyfriend.
My life just isn't that interesting or risque to need a service like that.

I'm okay with everyone viewing my Instagram photos and tweets
I've even befriended my managers on Facebook before I quit the social network (maybe that was career-limiting, who knows)

Regardless of my preferences, I understand why Snapchat is useful.  

There is a need to interact with people without it being archived -- whether that is sharing a mundane detail of your life that your entire social graph doesn't need to know (i.e., I just ate a banana!) or more intimate online behaviors, like sexting.

As this investor states, our online trails can follow us:

On Tuesday, Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley, whose firm currently invests in Snapchat, tweeted that people still confused about Snapchat should look at a tweet from the account of the FCC noting that “30% of college admissions officers look at applicants online… They loved your GPA, then they saw your tweets…”

What I don't understand is the valuation.

Today, Snapchat founders, Evan Spiegel & Bobby Murphy, age 23 and 25, respectively turned down a $3 billion dollar offer from Facebook.  They think they are worth more.

It's been in operation for 2 years, makes $0 in revenue and has ~25M users (as a reference point: Instagram had 100M users in 2012 when it sold to Facebook for $1 billion).  

On a positive note, it has 300M "daily snaps," which is very close to the 350M photos uploaded on Facebook per day, coming from a user base that's 2% the size.  It's sticky.  I guess there is some truth in the assumption that people will share more if it's immediately erased.


Since 2003, there's been 39 other tech companies that have been valued at $1B or more.  These companies have been nicknamed "the unicorn club"

It includes the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Groupon, Square, Twitter, Linkedin etc (note: Google's actually a "double decade unicorn", so not included on the list) 

All household names.  Mostly consumer-facing tech, not B2B.  I like a lot of the products.



Now, here's my rant.  Get ready for it.

Is Snapchat really one of the top 40 things we've invented in the last 10 year?  

I f*ing hope not.  It's a toy.  It lets people erase embarrassing or trivial behavior.  

Shouldn't we be aiming to improve our collective self-control and online etiquette, rather than finding ways to make it disappear?

We have lots of talented and creative young people out there solving problems that don't really matter in the scheme of the world and history.  They are lured by the promises of quick fame and quick money -- praying at the alter of VC money and nerdy celebrityhood.

That's why we need more grown-ups in tech.

By grown-ups, I mean men and women with a vision.  It has nothing to do with age.

We have a lot of challenges: "A billion people want electricity, millions are without clean water, the climate is changing, manufacturing is inefficient, traffic snarls cities, education is a luxury, and dementia or cancer will strike almost all of us if we live long enough."  

We need more "John F Kennedys" of tech to guide us on the right path -- someone that inspires and funds people to do big things, like go to the moon.

Here's an except from Kennedy's speech at Rice University in 1962:

“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? . . . Why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? . . . We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills . . .”

Don't get me wrong -- we have some of these folks in tech -- the Elon Musks, Larry Pages and Bill Gates of the world.  They are awesome and visionary, challenging the status quo.

We just need more of them.  We especially need them on the investor side.

It's too easy to get overshadowed by the noise and hype of Silicon Valley.

And, here's where my hypocrisy comes in (as promised).

I know that there are big problems to solve.  I wish start-ups stopped trying to solve trivial problems.  

But, in reality... 
... I wish I could make something like Snapchat and become rich overnight
... I'm not currently solving any "big problems."  I go to work, do some tasks and go home.  In order to ease my internal monologue, I remind myself that there are people at Google solving big, life-changing problems.  It's just not me.  I'm fueling the money engine that allows those things to happen.

Maybe it's not just Silicon Valley that needs a grown-up.  It's me too.

Learning to Breathe

Mindfulness is close to becoming a buzzword.  A quick scroll through the Google Play store shows that there are 100+ Android apps available on meditation.  And, some are even using it to get ahead

Regardless, it's a good practice.   It's linked to lower stress and greater happiness -- a pretty sweet deal, right?

Mindfulness actually has several definitions (according to wikipedia):

According to various prominent psychological definitions, Mindfulness refers to a psychological quality that involves one of these: 

• bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis,  

•  paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally,  

• a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is

As previously posted, I went on a 2-day silent meditation retreat in Thailand to practice mindfulness and learned one thing -- it's really f*ing hard.

That's why I like SCUBA diving.  

You're forced to be mindful.  The only way to control your body in the water is by breathing.

Want to go further down?  Breathe out more
Want to go up?  Breathe in more 
Want to stop freaking out that some gear is the only thing keeping you alive?  Breathe slower

I say forget the phone app.  Go diving instead.

PS - Here's some photos from my most recent diving trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines.

Advertising Technique: Visual Pun II

I've blogged about visual puns before, but I thought this Pepsi ad from Belgium was especially clever.  

I love when a brand doesn't take itself too seriously.  I like my people the same way ;)

[Mental Health Break] Let your inner child out

Thank god I was born in the 1980s...

On growing up

Source: Photopin

My twenties are coming to a close in a few months.  I'm okay with that.  In fact, I've enjoyed telling people lately that I'm almost 30. 

I feel older.  I feel a bit more wise.  For lack of better words, I feel more adult.

But, ironically, the older I get, the less I want "adult" things.  As a newly minted college graduate, I had goals -- specific "deadlines" in mind for earning an MBA, getting married, having kids and buying a house.  I had visions of being a successful businesswoman with picture perfect kids in the picture perfect prep school.

Who knows if I could have ever achieved those goals.  Likely not.

But, now that I'm almost 30, I don't want any of that.  At all.   

They say that my generation suffers from "delayed development".  Sociologists have traditionally marked adulthood by completing 5 milestones:

1. Completing school
2. Leaving home
3. Becoming financially independent
4. Marrying
5. Having children

(Note: I assume buying your first house is somewhere in the mix)

In 1960, 77% of women and 65% of men had checked off all 5 milestones by the age of 30.  As of 2000, only 50% of women and 33% of men had done so.

I'm 3 out of 5 for milestones, and I'm not sure I ever want to complete the list.  

I originally thought I just had "Peter Pan" syndrome (i.e., never wanting to grow up), which heightened during my time in San Francisco.  The Bold Italic sums up life there perfectly:

People talk a lot of shit about this city's Peter Pan Syndrome, but the truth is, many of us live here because San Francisco fully embraces a unique breed of youthfulness, ridiculousness, and willingness to experiment like no other urban center we know. We're a city of ageless dreamers and costume collectors, a place where folks will back a Kickstarter campaign to bronze Jeremy Fish's Silly Pink Bunny just because. We're the home of Bay to Breakers and the start of Burning Man, and the city where Halloween is on par with national holidays.

It's true.  I have some Peter Pan in me, but it's more than that.  

I now think my changing goals and frame of mind are actually signs of maturity.

I used to want what everyone else wanted, which Hunter S. Thompson aptly describes in a note penned to a friend, Hume Logan, captured in the book, Letters of Note:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…” 

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

Now, my goals are more short-term based on the most recent version of myself.  As Thompson describes below, it's the most rational thing to do since we change as people with every new experience:

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

 So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis? 

I may not have the most "adult" life based on assets or dependents on my insurance plan, but I've gained something more than that -- the ability to want different things for myself than my peers and the realization that the person I am today will not be the same person I am a year from now.

So, hear hear, to new experiences and a new version of myself in my 30s.

My Modern Met

[Mental Health Break] Things you ONLY do online

Buzzfeed proves that there is quite a gap between our online & offline lives.

The Power of Images

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

I usually think that just sounds cliche, but after seeing this photo project by Angelo Merendino, I've changed my mind.

Angelo's project starts with a beautiful love story:  

"The first time I saw Jennifer I knew. I knew she was the one. I knew, just like my dad when he sang to his sisters in the winter of 1951 after meeting my mom for the first time, “I found her.” "

It was a whirl-wind romance that culminated in a wedding in Central Park.

Jennifer was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 months later.

"Five months later Jen was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember the exact moment…Jen’s voice and the numb feeling that enveloped me. That feeling has never left. I’ll also never forget how we looked into each other’s eyes and held each other’s hands. “We are together, we’ll be ok.”

Angelo did the one thing he knew how to do -- take photos.  

He chronicled the journey and brought a face and a name to the illness that affects 1 out of 8 women.

It's definitely worth checking out the photos and learning more about their story 

Advertising Technique: Elicit Empathy

Source: Design Taxi

"The distress we see someone experiencing — the compassion we feel for them — isn’t determined by the objective facts on the ground; it’s determined by who’s looking. … It’s not the severity or the objective facts of a disaster that motivate us to feel compassion and to help — it’s whether or not we see ourselves in the victims." - David DeSteno

If facts alone were convincing, the world would look very different.

We'd take global warming seriously.
Hunger would be a thing of the past.
And, cigarettes would not be on the shelf.

Instead, we need stories to be convinced.  We need to feel a connection.

That's why I really like this Equal Pay campaign by Publicis & the International Women's Media Foundation.  

"According to statistics, women’s earnings in the US “were 77% of men’s in 2011”, while in Switzerland, women earned “roughly 20% less than equally skilled men in comparable positions”. 

If this fact really resonated with us, we'd be a lot more vocal.  In reality, progress has stalled.

To bring the stat to life, they launched an "Equal Pay Day" where men received 20% less money when they took out money from an ATM.  They got to actually walk in someone else's shoes for the day. 

See the video below.

Wanderlust on a Friday

Would you take Heineken up on this offer?

I sure would.  After watching this video this morning, I have intense wanderlust.

Luckily, I'm off to a weekend of diving in the Philippines next weekend :)

PS - You can check out the adventurous people on the road here

Advertising Technique: Shocking Truth

Source: Design Taxi

Most people have an unconscious bias against women in the workplace.  Fact.

Even cultural nuances like selecting your sex on an immigration form (M comes before F), referring to a mixed group as "guys" or calling a group of grown women "girls" hint at sexism.

The Ad Agency, Ogilvy & Mather, highlighted rampant sexism in its new ad campaign for UN Women.  They used real Google searches and showed the "auto complete" results.

Here's how autocomplete works:

"As you type, autocomplete predicts and displays queries to choose from. The search queries that you see as part of autocomplete are a reflection of the search activity of all web users and the content of web pages indexed by Google."  

It's a good proxy for the most popular queries using the start of the sentence as a reference.

After seeing this ad, I assumed it was only applicable to more restrictive societies.  I'm in the US this week and tried it out myself.  Here's some of my results:

Those are some pretty telling results.

We shouldn't work, vote or go to college.
We should stay home.
We can't have it all.

If you really want to know someone, look at their Google search history.
If you really want to know public opinion, look at Google autocomplete.

There's still a long way to go in the women's rights movement.

Advertising Technique: The Witty Response

Last week, we held a Brand Workshop at Google Singapore.  This is one of my favorite advertising examples from the 2 days...

Bodyform sells "lady products" (i.e., sanitary napkins).  It's not the sexiest product on the market.  Traditionally, they've advertised with ladies bike riding, ladies riding roller coasters, ladies swimming in ocean -- all during that "special" time of the month.

Well, Richard realized it was all a hoax.  It's really not all that special.  He even posted it on Bodyform's Facebook page, and 78K people "liked it."

Rather than write a generic response, Bodyform produced the video below in 8 days (which is incredibly fast in the advertising world).

It's really funny.  And, increased sales by 260% during the 3 months after the video (yes, this needs to be fact checked -- I'm using my memory) and has 5.3M YouTube views to date.

Check out the video...

Poem for a Weekend: I Carry Your Heart with Me

http://www.sparrek.org/

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings

Beauty and the Beasts

On Saturday, I went to Bistecca -- a European steakhouse in Singapore.

The food was incredible.  

Based on their media page, I think a lot of others agree.  It might just be my favorite restaurant in Singapore (yes, I went that far).

In addition to the delicious things that went into my belly, I loved the artwork inside the restaurant.  Check out the photos below by photographer, Scott Woodward, along with a few quotes from him on the project (it was a tough, but rewarding one!)

"As a broad concept, Megan wanted me to integrate wild European animals and beautiful, fashionable women into each of five photographs to be used as advertisements to promote Bistecca and as art to hang on the walls of her restaurant"

"Of course, once we determined and agreed on our concepts, the next puzzle that needed to be solved was how we would bring these animals -- some giant, others ferocious -- to life inside Bistecca.  It was crucial to me that every wild animal look completely lifelike.  I therefore quickly determined that compositing existing stock photographs of these animals into the scenes would not yield the faithful outcome I was seeking.  Additionally, bringing the animals to Bistecca and shooting giant Tuscan bulls or a raging wild boar inside the restaurant was clearly going to be impossible. "

 "It took more than six long weeks of illustration and digital post-production, but this past Monday we finally completed the job.  It was the most challenging creative assignment I have ever undertaken; hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and (quite literally) tears were shed by the illustrator, digital imaging team and my entire production staff -- a true labour of love, resulting in finished artwork of which we are all very proud."

Success from the Eyes of a Kid

Logan, a 13 year-old boy in Nevada, gave this TedX talk on hacking his own education.  At such an early age, he's already sick of the question: "what do you want to be when you grow up."

Grown-ups want to hear kids say "neurosurgeon" or "rocket scientist," but in reality, they want to be pro skaters or video game makers.  They want to do things that make them happy.

Adults give them a recipe for happiness: "go to school, go to college, get a job, get married. then, boom, you'll be happy." 

But, Logan doesn't believe it.  Therefore, he's hacked his homeschool education around 8 pillar of happiness:

• Exercise
• Diet & nutrition
• Time in nature
• Contribution & service
• Relationships
• Recreation
• Relaxation & stress management
• Religious & spiritual

Makes sense, right?

His formula seems more likely to induce happiness than the adult formula. 

Then, why do we still teach children that money leads to happiness?

Check out the popular children's games below with their Amazon descriptions.  Take a close look at the symbols and wording.  

Success is money
Success is a flashy car
Success is a big house
Success is accumulating property
Success is following the "right" path

While I agree these are legit status symbols, I'm not sure if it's a good use of children's time to play out these adult scenarios.  They are incredibly impressionable and moldable.  

Shouldn't we encourage them to strive for bigger and better things?

No wonder 35M Americans are depressed when society sets them up with these expectations of happiness...

"Practice makes perfect in the game of Life. Try marriage, kids, and more. Will you go to college and take out student loans? Or join the working force and collect on payday? Will you go bankrupt, or earn millions in stock and real estate? Anything's possible with a spin of the Life wheel! A classic family game that can be a reality check--or just a fun time." 

 Margaret Quinn, Game of Life 

"In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, an unemployed heating engineer from Pennsylvania created the game of Monopoly. Realizing that his get-rich theme might appeal to other Americans, he had the game printed and distributed in a Philadelphia department store. When he couldn't keep up with the overwhelming requests for more sets, he arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game. And the rest, as they say, is history. But Monopoly is far from a quaint historical relic. To this day, it remains a riveting game of luck, chance, and savvy wheeling and dealing--all of which can make some lucky dog rich, rich, rich! Based on the purchase of Atlantic City real estate (a city currently renowned for its get-rich gambling opportunities), Monopoly is now printed in 26 languages with more than 200 million sets sold worldwide. Players still scoot the same beloved board pieces: the old shoe, the terrier, and the hot rod. This set also includes rules for a shortened version of the game and a new token, winner of Monopoly's recent "design a token" contest. This is capitalism at its most fun and ruthless, a must-have edition in the family game closet."

- Gail Hudson, Monopoly 

 "The freedom of The Sims 3 will inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief. Create millions of unique Sims and control their lives. Customize their appearances and personalities. Build their homes - design everything from exquisitely furnished dream homes to quaint cottages. Then, send your Sims out to explore their ever-changing neighborhood and to meet other Sims in the town center. With all-new quick challenges and rewarding game play, The Sims 3 gives you the freedom to choose whether (or not) to fulfill your Sims' destinies and make their wishes come true....Your Sims can pursue random opportunities to get fast cash, get ahead, get even, and more.  Choose whether, or not, to fulfill your Sims’ destinies by making their wishes come true. Will your Sims be thieves, rock stars, world leaders? The choice is yours."

 - SIMs description, Amazon

A prayer for adventure

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky 

A prayer from 1577 by Sir Francis Drake. 

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

May we all get disturbed when life becomes too comfortable and routine.

Not your typical Craigslist Ad

I'd say take a bet that 75%+ of jobs posted on Craigslist are escorts or "booth girls".  

And, then there is Aaron Belz.  He sells his poetic service.

Would you take him up on the offer?

(here's one of his poems)

Worms

Cyclists, as a rule, think bikers are cheating,

because they have engines. Pedestrians, in turn,

think cyclists are cheating; they use wheels.

People in wheelchairs think pedestrians

have a leg up, for obvious reasons,

but pedestrians think the same thing

about people in wheelchairs; they use wheels.

What makes people in wheelchairs unique

is that they also think cyclists and bikers

are cheating. Their disdain is uniform.

The wheelchairists' hypocrisy lies,

however, in their use of automobiles.

Everyone uses automobiles except worms.

Worms think they're better than everyone.

Worms think they're more authentic than everyone.

This is why people say worms are self-righteous.

To worms' credit, however, they aren't hypocritical,

except the ones that glide down the sidewalk

on hundreds of tiny legs, blithely ignoring

their wilted, sun-blackened comrades.

Those worms are called millipedes.

Those worms are really bad apples.