The Magical Power of Products on Personality

By: Stephen Ainsah-Mensah

a. The corrupting influence of engineered products has come to stay on the disquieted psyche of man/woman as if to say: “I want to be parasitic on your psyche and, actually, I am.” This goes to show how there is now no need to talk about human uprightness in relation to luring products. Such products have invaded the psyche and brought it to the level of surrender - to the inanimate power and will of products. One may call this state of affairs the productizing of the psyche. The reality - as one can see - is weird and unacceptable; for it should be asserted: why would the human being, endowed with so special and powerful an attribute as the mind, be directed, in compound conduct, by an external entity, a product that has petty attributes, attributes that have no movement in life, no power of cognition? In fact, the life of a product is lifeless except for the unmoving charm that its external beauty, mechanical characteristics and specific functions draws to the human eye. If the human psyche loses its integrity in relation to the question of the product, then one can understand why engineered products and their affiliates - including, of course, money, stocks, technologically draped patterns of money reproduction and mutation - tend to have a firm grip on the character of a person, the manner of reasoning, the structure and execution of emotions, and, of course, the general doing of things in the society.

b. It is the productizing of the psyche that has pushed man/woman into production and consumption patterns that refuse to yield to the principle of moderation. Amazing engineering and reengineering inspire high-tech products that are produced on a superabundant scale. It is to be expected that production would far exceed consumption. That is why the productized psyche has to be further worked on by leading thinkers, so that it goes on a consumption spree. Man/woman then has to set the emotions in particular on an unrestrained path so as to do impulsive buying. Now, we can see that a certain premise produces the roots that in turn grow the tree of the economic system. It is this: the people's individual psyches are productized. Important architects of this economic design, of this productization, are the thinkers who are prone to say: consuming as much as you want is crucial to sustain and grow the system. Here, the magic of money, the irresistible power of profit mutate a system that bears the visible structure of a free market, of which its dominant practitioners want the hand of government to stay away from.

c. If production must continue unrestrained in order to satisfy, from the producers' side, the glory of profit, there ought to be assurances that excesses do not go unconsumed; so sales and marketing experts, and other people versed on how to influence the productized psyche need to use all the relevant gimmicks and wrinkles to lure consumers to consume more. But how do you, with insufficient income or money, manage to get all these charming products? Well, viable financial institutions are available for you to access their credit facilities. You go in for their credits, but you set for yourself a cycle of borrowing that could surely jeopardize your ability to pay back and buy things according to the money you have for yourself (not borrowed money). The question is: for how long can this practice of borrowing continue? Can this product-money-consumption chain go on indefinitely? Surely not! But, then, it cannot cease either. The problem is that there comes a time that borrowing proliferates so much that it fails to correspond to lending in the sense that borrowed money fails to fit into lent money - borrowing, that is to say, creates a gap in lending, outstrips lending.

d. *Now, from the economic standpoint, who is the productized person?
He/She is the one whose structure of life is built on the pursuit of products as directed by the psyche.
*How does the productized person acquire the products that the psyche prompts the destabilized passion to acquire? By means of a cycle of borrowed money.
*How is the producer stimulated to produce more? By virtue of more consumption that comes from more borrowing of money by the consumer.
*How does the lender increase profits? By lending more to borrowers at high interests.
*Why is this cycle of lending, borrowing, more borrowing, more consumption, and more productivity likely to hit the wall? Because at some point borrowers may be unable to pay back to lenders what they borrowed as stipulated by the mutually agreed plan. Thus, borrowers will lose much, lenders will lose much too, and producers will be prompted to curtail production and, as well, lose much. The economy thereafter shrinks to the discomfort of all of us.

e. The above cycle - beginning with lending and ending with more production - is the structure that has enabled, in the first place, production, consumption, money to multiply and generate so much of all sorts of things for the system to develop. What is risky is that the reproducing and mutating effect of money, forms of money and consumption tend to be so much that they overwhelm direct physical production and may cause the latter's chronic shortfall. You have so much money; you still want much more. You speculate on how to get much more by placing interest on the money you loan to people. Your other fellows speculate on how to get much more money too by buying and selling stocks from allegedly reputable companies and individuals. The spread of money keeps growing and stupendous pressure is put on the money in-use, which can bring the economy to its knees unless this money proliferation and borrowing are expertly put under control. How can this colourful but unsustainable economic system, one may ask, be fixed? Surely, the fix cannot occur without applying a workable alternative other than the dominant elements of the present one.

f. It may be held that you ought to curb your excesses. Why do you, on and on, indulge in computations, peruse the strength of stocks, the trend of money and the present or future strength of producing companies as the basis to cash in on foreseeable advantages? Why not engage in direct physical production, which is far more realistic and secure so as to sustain and grow the roots and branches of the economic system? But now we can understand! Such jobs are just not there. But we comprehend even more that the government has to step in and create jobs. Here, the government's functions should be far more ambitious and momentous than it previously was. We need to, first, comprehend that there is the crucial need to restructure business in a fashion that curtails the preeminence of stocks, the stock market, the incidence of the proliferation of stocks and money, among others, in determining the fate of the system. To be sure, a sustainable stimulus to wealth creation ought to come from the humanized usage of science and technology in producing goods that are vital for human health and life's development, for sanitizing the environment as well as erecting social structures and services that generate employment and life-sustaining activities for all. This is where the government comes in. In fact, the government ought to do more. It has to be part of the dominant economic systems. It's directing hand is crucial in forestalling individual malpractices.

g. You have been listening too much to the voice of your productized psyche. You often do not pay heed to your humanized psyche. Your productized psyche has come to shape the economic requisites of your life. You do not comprehend that excesses in consumption unmatched by worked-for money have a destabilizing influence on the system. We can also see that productized psyche commits us to practise the accursed philosophy of wastes. More is produced, production mutates; more is consumed, consumption mutates; and much more money is lent out, lending mutates. Since the humanized psyche is not the one directing these rather freehand mutations, wastes torment the environment by way of pollutants; engineered products, despite their sophistication - whether consumed as food or used as external products - are so massively produced without the desired risk-free caution.

h. So we come to this point - perhaps again: the charm of technological products, the magic of profits, via the route of money, rule, for the most part, the psyche of the technologicalized man/woman. Moderation has been eclipsed by excesses. Calmness of the environment has been supplanted by turbulence. The long-held optimism that the natural character of the environment could be retained to sustain - and enhance - the health of man/woman is giving way to a despairing stand.

Matters of the Family and Love

By Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

1. If one could live well without fear of outward hardships that is a guarantee provided by money. Thus, monetary power has come to settle, in large measure, the issue as to whether a man can win the love of a woman one wants and wants to sustain; so love in modern times has lost much of its natural charm outside the sphere of money.

2. Take the case of a man who was brought up by a single parent. Suppose this parent was a woman full of courage and evidently successful, it is likely that the man would acquire the attributes of her mother – and more so. The man’s comparative advantage is that he is able to make up more than usual for the missing father in his life with a great personality.

3. Many parents, especially in traditional societies, tend to give much more care to sons than daughters. This prevents females from developing adventurous personalities. Thus, daughters may end up being unnecessarily placid and docile while they suffer from chronic suppressed talents. The source of gender discrimination is largely from this needless familial construction.

4. A liberated woman is the one whose mental and emotional refinement provides vital solutions to pressing problems while proving innovative in many respects. Besides, she sees a man, not as a natural competitor but as a creature with like aptitudes.

5. Man’s pride is damaged more by woman than by a fellow man when woman expresses the moral, mental or emotional weaknesses of man, usually in public. Opposites detest exposing each other’s terrible flaws.

6. When woman is able to win the committed interest and care of man, it could come largely from the woman’s artistic flair.

7. Man’s mental weakness grows, not from inadequate schooling or book knowledge; it comes mostly from a narrow perception of life, from what we properly term ignorance and arrogance. These defects are the result of a strained mind bearing a crooked window to the outside world. The clever woman takes advantage of these weaknesses granted she is the wife of such a man. Her benefits come largely from the material support of the man. The man showers gifts and all sorts of things on his wife in order to reinforce his ignorance and arrogance.  What this man does not understand is that the woman takes him to be not her match;  she is not willing to arrange or take her husband to important public places for fear that he may talk himself out or present a public show that could belittle or shame her.

8. Modesty, which, perhaps, used to be a significant trait of a good family, is no more so in the present acquisitive world. Presently, pride and majesty rule.

9. Suppose a man does not understand his wife or a woman does not understand her husband and that this is a frequent phenomenon, the problem must have arisen from a big deficit in the use of body language and verbalisms.

10. Today’s good family was built on the principles of yesterday’s family; but what is a good family? It is a family that shows success in the raising of kids and bears marks of adequate moral standards, proves through its members to be industrious, and retains the essential attributes of good leadership. Such a family is aware of the importance of dignity and indiscriminate love and expresses it about itself and to or for others.

11. Consider a very shy man who is made to enter a room full of very attractive women. He pays off for the lack of social skills, for the lack of outgoing attributes, with an exquisite physical appearance. This is not modesty but unannounced pride. It appears clear that woman is hardly pleased with such a man unless he strives to back his presence with some manly show, whichever way it may go.

12. It turns out to be true that a woman who refuses to please her husband because he is financially unlikeable has brought the curse of artificial love unto herself. Love tends not to work under such circumstances and, in fact, is doomed to fail.

13. A woman pesters her husband that her repetitive stay at home is making life monotonous, thus eroding the charm previously experienced about their marriage. The wife presses upon the husband that they should be going out together to exciting places despite the fact that the husband’s busy work schedule does not favour this outing. There is a zone of intolerance here. Suppose the man is compelled to give in to her wife’s passionate scheme, thus impairing his health and work, it may be that the woman has a problem with self-esteem of the form: “the unusually long stay of my husband outside may ruin the vitality of my marriage, so I must strive to bring him back to the initial level to which our marriage was strengthened through our long stay together.” The woman does not, at this point, appreciate the increase in the household income, which has come about as a result of the husband’s longer working hours. But this is an example of an unusual kind of egotism, which has to be purged sooner than later. It is also true to say that the woman has to do a serious evaluation of her mental, emotional and social skills either with her husband or with well-meaning people – or both. But, then, the flaw of the man is also evident from the fact that he does not seem to understand that the repeated isolation of the woman – even though the husband is bringing home much money – is not playing well on the emotions and frame of mind of the woman. A balance in each couple’s preferences needs to be sought and put in place.

14 Consider a male child from a well-to-do family. He is provided all the necessary benefits to enable him be happy. Suppose the child shows very little intelligence but much more naughtiness in school and in general life, what must have gone wrong? It seems clear that there is a big lack of parental communication and constructive guidance here. The child grows in terrible pomposity; he proves to be absent-minded many a time. The parents have failed in their duty to take care of the child in a manner that conforms to acceptable standards, the rules for child development. In exceptional cases, the child is naturally incorrigible.

14. Patient, amiable and giving men face wives who see such attributes as sources for manipulation. There comes about one-sided expectations and demands that the man eventually sees as a scourge on his integrity and personal progress. The man’s repeated attempts to restructure his personality fails; the marriage gets watered down.

15. Monotony in life and work is something man dislikes and woman dislikes too; but a habitual pattern in a marital relationship is proof of monotony. The outgoing man sees monotony as an impediment to a colourful marriage, and the outgoing woman sees it in like manner. Both adults want monotony expunged. But, then, expunging monotony requires both the man and the woman to undertake regular outings together. If only the man does so or only the woman does so, there surely would take place an awful insecurity in the marriage structure. The man decides to go alone by arranging a transfer to work at a place far away from the wife. This could breed suspicion from the wife, or the wife may just get fed up in the course of time. One can be sure of the staining of the marriage despite many attempts to save it for the sake of the couple’s child or children.

16. Every overambitious man has to be careful not to marry a home-based wife full of the docile and unusually caring character. It is clear that the woman would feel very insecure and would do everything in her power to win her husband’s unfailing love. But this is not good for the overambitious man to achieve his goals as constraints are put on his creative skills. His most appropriate wife ought to be the woman with like thoughts. Even so, the marriage may be more workable if the couple live together more like “partners” than as husband and wife.

17. Good-mannered women raise their children with the principles of dignity, courtesy, relevant cooperation, social skills and circumspection; good-mannered men nurture in their children creative pride, principles of leadership, personal and professional advancement. However, the principles of the woman and man may overlap. For these reasons, children need both parents to put together the attributes necessary for developing exemplary children.

18. There is a time that the squabbles of a married couple diminish or tend to end. That is the time they choose to live together as very good friends, not as husband and wife.

19. Marriage from the onset may not function naturally if the marriage process was forced upon the couple by the parents. By and large, the new couple may lack conversational and other life skills necessary for enlivening the marriage. Yet, the parents’ superfluous selfishness becomes manifest from their insistence that the marriage was crucial to bear a child in order to reinforce the family tree.

20. Woman’s calculating tendencies coupled with her intellectual prudence generally outweigh that of man’s. She compensates for her comparative physical weakness – though not in many other cases - with mental and emotional toughness. If these two categories of toughness are fully unearthed, they overwhelm the influential man when he least expects. Understand that the said woman strives to own the influential man as if he is a personal property and exploit him to be with her at important public places in order for her to be also influential. But there is a limit to this, failing which the man may turn against the ego gratification of her woman.

21. Typically, a successful couple may get their targeted goals satisfied to their mutual joy when the woman fully supports the goals of the man and the man fully supports the goals of the woman. In fact, this follows the principle of reciprocity.

22. The terribly egotistic man abandons his love for his wife when the latter bears a new child. He then sees the wife as lacking the previous attributes of physical beauty though the initial process that led to the wife’s present physical appearance was generated by the husband: impregnating the woman. This man is a spoiled child of his parents; for he has been made to feel through his upbringing that the falsely earned domineering character of a man enables the man to decide whatever pleases him irrespective of the situation.

23. In general, man tends to lend financial support to woman more than woman does so for man. Why? Now, try to analyze the meekness of man in relation to his wife. What you may see is the point that woman is an expert in coordinating her colourful, romantic talk with emotional and physical charm such that her husband caves in to her constant requests for sustenance even as she has more than enough money or things to support her. She further gratifies her husband with caressing skills. And this zone of life proves how woman is cleverer than man. Man is usually unable to do a similar thing, at least not as well as the wife. His inner drives guide him towards other pursuits that are outside the ambit of his relationship. There is a point man's destabilized mental and emotional character compels him to seek comfort and mildness in life from the stated woman-ness of his wife.

24. Now, I come in to offer my conclusion. Let the battle or the race begin between husband and wife in the field of personal interests. Ask yourself: who is likely to win? Well, go back to point 23, and judge for yourself. The woman wins! It is a sweet win, and the husband admits his loss with a glad heart. Man keeps underestimating the coordinated intelligence of woman!