I don’t understand people who aren’t motivated the same way. 

If I truly need something, it is in my best interests to know how it works, 

because I will know better how not to abuse it and thus shorten its lifespan. 

And when I know how it works, I better know its limits and to what degree it can help me. 

And when I know how it works, I can trust it more, because I make fewer ignorant mistakes, which means a happier life for me. 

So why is this article titled ‘Lipstick’? 

Because a lipstick tube is an ideal example of user-ignorance. 

How many women use lipstick, yet how few women can can accurately explain how a tube of lipstick extends and retracts?

'Extend’ and ‘retract’ are terms that apply to lipstick tubes.  

Did you know that the working mechanism of a lipstick tube is ‘an inclined plane wrapped around an axis’? 

Look at the drawing above. A lipstick tube if fairly simple, yet marvelous means of accomplishing a difficult task; 

protecting the contents of a woman's purse from a rogue lipstick, 

and protecting the lipstick from the rogue contents of a woman's purse.

The same ‘inclined plane wrapped around an axis’, is what makes many car jacks work. 

Why all this engineering gibberish? 

Because people need to know how things work, that they rely on. 

Otherwise, when something goes wrong, they become instantly incompetent. 

If something is necessary, you should have options, for if-and-when, it quits working. 

This is what successful people do; they compensate. 

People who don’t know how to compensate, fail. 

Now to the ultimate point; this principle applies to marriage. 

Successful marriagators* understand things about the opposite sex, 

beyond money, lingerie and which side d we visit at Christmas.. 

Seek to understand the opposite sex in general, wthout assigning generalizations to your spouse.

Seek to understand your spouse, and seek to understand what makes them unique amongst their gender.

*marital navigators 

Eric J. Rose