Navigating This World That's Long on Promises and Short on Follow-through
I had some trouble figuring out how to title this post, because I actually had some trouble trying to even turn this idea into words. Or, at least, turning it into words that made any kind of sense! I wonder whether I will even succeed at that...
Anyway, I found myself thinking about the idealistic dreams many of us have, and how there's often a disconnect between those dreams and the nitty gritty reality of existence where the rubber meets the road.
Of course, I'll be the first to admit that my perspective may be somewhat skewed by the fact that I've spent a lot of years on the periphery of - or directly involved in - various aspects of the self-improvement, psychology, metaphysics and New Age industries.
In many ways, however, I think the same principles can be applied to a lot of different fields in our world; perhaps even our own cryptosphere here. We run on hopium, more than on facts.
I look at a lot of things around me, and I read a lot of articles and I feel almost resigned when I look at the sheer volume of hyped up marketing surrounding everything. Which is a slightly wordy way of saying it sounds like we're all involved in ventures that we can only draw people's interest if we sell them tall tales and gloss over the reality that the actual outcome is unlikely to look anything like the tall tales we told!
Of course, many apologists just defend this by saying "oh yes, but buyer beware!"
I'm also well aware that we've had so called "snake oil salesmen" around for a very long time. And that's not really what I'm questioning. But I am questioning the fact that we seem to increasingly live in a place where the only way you can sell anything - whether it's ways to better yourself or how to invest - is by making snake oil promises. Nobody wants just the plain truth.
I remember having a conversation with one of my elderly uncles many years ago, and the dialogue gradually turned to this idea that there was a time - which, from his perspective, was pre-1920s - when the most important thing a person had was their character. And then came what we might call the new era of "the cult of personality," and how to win friends and influence people slowly became the de-facto way of the world.
In other words, there was a general shift away from assessing people according to their fundamental character towards instead looking primarily at what we might call "their song and dance routine."
You might wonder why I even care, and why I even care to bring this up and it's that bit that is kind of difficult to quantify. But even though I didn't live in that era my uncle talked about, it feels like something has been lost to us all, almost like the quality of all things has declined as we turned our focus from examining things from there root qualities to instead examining things from the perspective of their appearance.
In some ways, this permeates every aspect of our world. We look for shiny and glitzy. It even holds true for politics; we elect those who look good on TV and come across well rather than those who actually have the power to do a good job and change the direction of whatever policy and ideal they are behind.
Maybe it does work in some fashion, but it leaves me with an uncomfortable aftertaste.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great rest of the week!
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Created at 2023-11-22 00:36 PDT
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