Category: Lifestyle

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Welcome.

Thank you for visiting ZENECIST.com

A Zenecist™ (my word) is someone who is “a light in the moment.” It’s also a soon-to-be retail and lifestyle hub, now in a soft opening as we ideate and source products.

My ‘second career’ after running a brand marketing and design agency the last 34 years, during the warmer months I’m a gardener locally on a part-time basis. I enjoy the work and offer essential gardening services from planning to planting to weeding, soil make-up/pH, and maintenance. I will have an exciting new offering in the kitchen-to-table table gardening space coming in early Fall. This system features a fully self-contained kitchen- or pantry-ready growing cabinet, now the rage in Europe.

Currently ZENECIST has two year-round components.

ZENECIST™ | High-Level. Laid-Back. Lifestyle.™ is an online retail business now under construction. Initially we’ll be testing products and different categories on an eBay store. As I learn, I’ll be building out the e-Comm module of this site, with a planned Grand Opening of ZENECIST™ online shopping scheduled for late 2024.

DEFLECTOR™ | Everything Happens All The Time™ is a Medium.com publication randomly ranting on the art of style & well-being and living our best lives.

My goal with ZENECIST is to do some good, live an active lifestyle, and have some fun. Your insight, comments, and help are welcome as ZENECIST builds out. Add a comment to a blog post or go here.

Cheers! T –

PS: I also run my current Apple Music playlists in the sidebar: Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter (not an affiliate) for your perusal and amusement, and mine too.

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New Logo Design Created for ZENECIST™

As the primary brand stakeholder the Zenecist™ logo reflects my sensibilities based upon my contention at a brand’s core The Difference is You.™

(V2 Feb 2024) We’re pleased to present the revised Logo Mark Design for ZENECIST, Tom Lanen’s new e-commerce adventure in lifestyle products.

The first element of a new design system, it uses Tom’s Zen Sailboat™ logomark design, which had also been a part of his erstwhile brand marketing firm’s logo, but which he has long considered central to his personal karmic brand. In fact, for his 70th birthday he had the Zen Sailboat made into first body art on his arm (3cm diameter), explaining he’s “either a Christian-Buddhist, a Buddhist-Christian or none/all of the above.”

Tom Lanen's "zen sailboat" body art
A tattoo on others, but get one and it’s ‘body art’–this is mine.

The design mark features Futura, a legacy font Tom loves because of its crisp and unfettered letterform, and a complementary purple and gray palette reminiscent of the first logo he created for Thomas Marketing Services 34 years ago.

The mark is being used on all ZENECIST online properties, products and merchandising. The design can also incorporate the revised ZENECIST tag line: High-Level. Laid-Back. Lifestyle.™

Stay tuned!

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On Holiday: Celebrating The Best Day(s) of My Life

Hello & welcome to this week’s (week of 10.17.22) issue of Deflector™, the Art of Style & Well-Being for Men of Age™, a TMSC publication. This past 6 weeks I’ve posted On Style or On Being, each with thoughts and insights on how as active older humans we can lead a more satisfying lifestyle and mitigate some of the irrational aspects of aging. If you missed last week’s edition, On Being: Aging & Self-Doubt, you can read it here

My son first-born son John (left), celebrating his 30 birthday in NYC with his friend Kori, who’s in for vacation from Prague.

1 Reason This Will Be My Shortest Post Ever

Vol 2, №5

It’s been one of those weeks. You see, along with rethinking goals and content in Deflector and how I present it going forward (such as trying a video series), I’m celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first greatest day of my life.

The day my oldest son, John Thomas, was born.

Every year since, I always get this overwhelming feeling of near-euphoria, of extreme well-being when the sun is at this October declination and playoff major league baseball is on the TV. You see, we had a game on in the birthing suite, but damned if I saw I pitch; I only have some white noise audio of the announcers in the back of my memory.

Because front and center, well, a miracle. And at age 40, it filled me with awe. And to experience awe is to experience wonder. Absolutely breathtaking.

And easily the best day of my life, only to be matched by the second best day of my life, 5 years later, when my twins were born.

So, feeling these deep-seated emotions again, and not having to answer to a time clock, I’ve basked in the joy of it all, and didn’t try to fill my dance card too full. In fact, it’s been a holiday week for all intents and purposes. It’s been wonderful.

Read More on Deflector, the Art of Style & Well-Being for Men of Age, A TMSC publication hosted at Medium.com/Deflector (this is a Free Read friend link)

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On Aging Happily: A Matter of Priorities

Pitbull at the Xfiity Center Mansfield, MA 2022

How My 70th Summer Came To Be My Second Summer of Love

Vol 2, №2 – Deflector™ is a business unit of Thomas Marketing Services Corporation

I would never have believed it. I mean, when you hit age 70 the expectation is your life gets VERY boring, you eat your supper at 4, and you become intimate friends with Pat & Vanna, yelling at the TV when one of the contestants makes a bone-head guess at an obvious puzzle solution.

No, I would have never guessed the notoriety and off-the-hook love and acceptance I got from concert goers and staff this past summer as I made full use of the season pass to the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA my three 20-something sons gave me for my 70th birthday to go to over 30 shows.

My pals at the Grab N’ Go at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA

Though I’ll did have a plan and a rough premise, my Deflector Postulate, to actively research. Because the last thing I wanted was to be treated my age. You see, all my life being a fully responsible adult, provider and parent has been my goal. But to make an obtuse reference to a The Byrds tune I heard them sing it at the old Boston Tea Party venue, with my sons out on their own, I’m younger than that now.

And as the musician John Mayer once suggested, we make things happen for ourselves. It starts with deciding what’s important to you.

Read more

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On Being: The Cornerstone of Happiness

ZENECIST Page image

A Simple Truth That Helps Me Live My Best Life

Vol 2, №1 – Deflector™ is a business unit of Thomas Marketing Services Corporation

Hello and welcome to the 2022 pilot edition of Deflector™ on The Art of Style & Well-Being for Men of Age.™

When I first conceived of Deflector, in my mind’s eye style was to be its focus, primarily as a strategy to mitigate the overt agism so prevalent in today’s society. And, as you’ll soon read in coming issues, I’ve proven the Deflector Postulate time and again this past summer during the 30+ outdoor concerts I attended on the season’s pass my 20-something sons gave ol’ dad for his 70th birthday.

But as I would come to understand, style without well-being just isn’t much fun. And I’ve observed both style and well-being start with being mindful. With being present, in the present.

“On no, another fucking Buddhist,” you say? Maybe. I had some body art done of my ‘Zen sailboat logo’ for my birthday and when explaining it I always say “I’m a Buddhist-Christian or a Christian-Buddhist, or none of the above.”

I’m surely not a monk or minister. And I was forced to quit the church of my youth when I could no longer live with its intolerance. I’m just a cosmic traveler and man of faith (just don’t know which one) who’s discovered a few basic truths that have helped me live my best life this past few years.

My new pal Dave (left) and me at the Xfinity Center awaiting Steve Nicks, my 36th concert of the 2022 summer season (my kids gave ol’ dad a season pass for my 70th birthday – and I had the time of my life!

And it’s the very simplicity of it all that makes me a ridiculously happy person. Maybe for the first time in my life. I’m still surprised just how much.

So part of my simple mission with Deflector has become to put my life insights and cosmic surmising out there for anyone to adopt or ignore as they will.

Because I’ve also proven happiness is a choice. And so it begins.

Read the entire article

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