“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.
But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.— ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ —Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
”
A few pictures of the table my dad and I built for my wife.
Tosh.
The Braniff Building downtown is starting to look awesome again (they are revealing the old brick.)
The bombing memorial on a blue sky day.
Time for new meters @cityofokc (ones that do 2 hours pretty please!).
“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
The Warby Parker Effect, Pt. 2
The Warby Parker Effect
About three years ago, I walked out of an eyewear shop across town. I didn’t have enough money to buy any of the frames I thought to be stylish, so I opted instead to replace the lenses on an old set of frames I found in my sock drawer. This was the “cheap” option, and it was still almost $250. Not to mention, I looked like a smurf.
So, you can imagine my surprise and delight at discovering Warby Parker about a year ago. WP is an eyewear company in New York that sells frames complete with UV coated lenses for $95. And for every pair they sell, they give a pair away.
I was chatting with a sales rep one evening at Shop Good here in OKC, and I asked her how in the world this was possible since, as we all know, glasses are expensive. She replied by saying out loud what we’ve all been thinking for years, “Quality eyewear just isn’t that expensive to make. We decided to make a quality product and pass the savings along to the consumer.”
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As the world becomes more connected, this kind of thing is happening everywhere. Let’s call it the Warby Parker Effect. All kinds of commodities and services that have been egregiously overpriced for years are becoming more affordable because it simply does not cost much to manufacture them, and perhaps everyone in the supply chain has been a bit, well, greedy.
In my world, which is media production, our company’s first step is to charge about 50% less than our competitors are charging, while still delivering the same high quality product. Why? Because a well written, well shot video simply does not cost $20,000 to make.
Now, if you want an opening shot that cranes down from the top of a 28 story building, then follows a guy flying with a jetpack, you’ll need to be ready to spend a lot of money, and probably with someone else.
If, however, you want an interview based narrative video that looks fantastic and makes sense, we’ll make one for you for around half of what anyone else is charging.
We’re getting great feedback from clients who are happy about the fact that they can now afford high quality video elements that they couldn’t afford before. If that excites you, let’s work together. Please visit my website for more information.
The Warby Parker Effect, Pt. 1
Prepidemic Magazine: How are you able to provide these high quality frames at such a competitive price?
Warby Parker: The key is really cutting out the middleman. The industry is basically an oligopoly with these large companies, and what they own is manufacturing. The glasses aren’t actually made by Chanel. They’re not designed by Chanel. What they do is sell these factories’ product and stamp their name on the exterior of the frame. So these places design them, they manufacture them, and they sell them through Lens Crafters and Pearl Vision. So they own the entire production process from start to finish, and they can basically sell these glasses for whatever they want, so it’s a giant rip off.
So we cut out the middleman and do all of our sales from the internet, which certainly reduces a lot of the cost for us. But mostly we choose not to charge an astronomical price.
