This is the third anniversary of LetsTakeACloserLook.com. Here is where I‘ve written and published more than 150 articles, usually on the topic of misinformation and often involving items in the news.
To those of you who have been loyal readers all along – thanks for your interest and your kind words. To those of you who have just begun – welcome aboard. The cost of an email subscription is the same as always – nothing. I write these articles because I enjoy the challenge of finding something interesting, writing about it, and explaining complex subject matter simply. Most rewarding is knowing people find what they learn from my essays useful in their business and personal lives; many readers have told me how they like to be able to present actual facts and insights to discussions when others are offering only misinformed opinions.
Unlike most, this site has no ads and does not harvest or monetize your data, which means we sell nothing of yours to anyone and never have.
For those who missed it, here is a reader favorite:
Shop ’til Somebody Drops
Thousands of years ago, we were all hunters of wild animals and gatherers of wild foods. Responsibilities were allocated according to our physical characteristics. Because they were mostly bigger and stronger, males were responsible for hunting wild animals and protecting the tribe against danger. Women birthed and raised the children, prepared and served the meals, and gathered readily-available foods.
Female gatherers learned how to tell edibles from poisons and how to determine the ripeness of fruits, nuts, and berries so they could select the best tasting and most easily digested. To find wild animals, male hunters learned to follow tracks and read signs. As they killed some animals and frightened away others, hunters had to roam ever farther from camp in search of their prey. Each time hunters went out and back, they improved their spatial skills. They learned to perceive and understand the relationships between objects. They learned how to orient themselves to the positions of the sun and stars. Learning to navigate meant the difference between getting hopelessly lost and finding their way back home.
Psychologists say our tens of thousands of years of practicing these skills continue to manifest themselves today in the ways we shop.
Men are on a mission; women are on a journey of discovery. Men go in and out of stores more quickly. They go directly to what they want and quit when they have captured it. Women shop in a more leisurely fashion. They take a more nuanced approach, using their greater sensitivity to assess subtle differences. Studies show that on average, men get bored after half an hour of shopping while women don’t get bored for two hours. Little wonder how when they shop together, women feel hurried and men feel it takes forever. Studies have also shown how men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on those maps. Women are more likely to remember their routes using landmarks.
When you hear someone say men’s greater ability to navigate is hooey, tell them male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolution for different tasks.
Take a Closer Look, Volume 2, is free to Kindle Unlimited customers. The best way to protect yourself against the manipulations, distortions and fabrications that are more and more prevalent these days is to learn how to see through them.
