Five minute free write - Brand
The world no longer held any shape that would be recognizable to those of us alive today. The idea of free thought, free choice, a relic of the past. Our decisions, our lives, now plotted out in service of a single thing. The brand. The transition period had been rough. There were many intellectuals that fought bravely against the coming waves of ignorance. They screamed, they cried, they rallied, they petitioned, they voted. But, in the end, all of that was futile against the coming tides. The concept of profit had overtaken the minds of the powerful and the kindling that was mankind was gaily thrown upon the pyre to keep the flames burning. All that mattered was the money. A concept that made no sense to anyone who thought about it. Value given for value, prices put on things that by no means should have a price. A persons life marked down in a ledger, remanded to the world of numbers. The spark of who they were doused in the colors of what they were told to buy, how they were told to live, how they were told to think. The individual grouped, divided, subdivided, categorized, and instructed as to who they were. Things started slow, like a snowball at the top of a hill. But, with a small push by a few people everything came tumbling down.
My Five minute free write for @mariannewest's daily prompt.
I wanted to put some words together this morning since it had been a while.
When I saw the prompt BRAND there was pretty much only one thing that came to mind. The current situation and direction of our world. Maybe a little heavy for a Tuesday morning, but it's something that I couldn't not write about. I mean, you take a look at the world and how can you not see it?
Luxury, convenience, entertainment, all good things, but to the degree that they're deified is scary. We follow brands, people, products, religiously. Allowing their image to become out own, shape our own, warp it in whatever direction it happens to be heading. And, we justify our change in character in the most creative ways. 'Expressing ourselves' when we are really doing just the opposite.
The degree to which the science of manipulation has evolved is scary.
If you pay any attention to marketing and psychology you probably spend a lot of time in nature admiring it before it's bulldozed over to make way for 'progress.'
People, the way they think, how they will act under certain stimulus, what their hopes and desires are...easy calculable with the data freely available today.
And, the people who use this data aren't exactly doing it for the betterment of mankind... I mean, take the last elections in the US, and continuing discontent that's being sown broad and wide around the world though Facebook. Simple ads, fan pages, and posts...disrupting the way the entire world things, in pursuit of accumulating power and money. This stuff isn't conspiracy theory, it's literally in the news on a daily basis. Verifiable, provable, without a kind of doubt kind of shit.
But, our world turns on, ignoring the inevitable fate of some of the species that ride on it's back through it's interstellar journey. Unless we change something, man are we screwed...
Happy Tuesday!
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Well said cousin. My friends and the other fellas in the band speak about these illusions constantly. Too much sometimes. (Rolls take over.)
I remind myself in the showers quite often that with greater awareness comes a greater responsibility to maintain our own healthy perspective. The alternative creates a disposition of spite, for me... it can worsen if it goes unchecked. I read a book about mindfulness practices once. It taught me healthy practices. I trust you have your healthy practices. I know this post of yours is healthy for me. You too, right?
I think I kinda wrote a song about this stuff. I'll gift it to you if you think it's funny.
Sarcasm is one of my old techniques for survival. Still not sure if it's a good one yet. (That smells like a sales pitch, it's not.)
I look forward to seeing more from you as soon as I stop follow the bs accounts I mistakenly brought upon myself.
Yeah, that spiral of thought, especially if you're around those of a similar mindset can get really nasty really fast. Need more optimistic people in my life :) Humor...I think...is what helps us to survive. To laugh in the face of insanity... muwhahahahaha. Or was it LOL? Not sure what side of the laugh I'm on :)
Yes, what side... the manic side or the transcended side? lol I always think of Tyler Durden in the movie fight club. The scene where mobsters beats on Tyler Durden.
😜 or 😊
and
🤑 or ☺️
I saw the picture and I clicked from Marianne's post with the prompt. I like your take - and yes it's heavy and sad, but that's the reality I guess and that I like that you honestly wrote about what first came to mind.
As a reader there was a point in this article where I stopped and it was: "We follow brands, people, products, religiously." - and immediatly thought, well I don't... And later you changed the pronoun to "you pay any attention to marketing and psychology you probably", and one after that it was about "People, the way they think", and "the people who use this data aren't exactly" and a bit later "our world turns on, ignoring".
So it was a journey. I'm not saying it's wrong this way and I can perfectly understand your points. I'm just here to maybe have a thought, what if these pronouns were different? Would it change the meaning of the text? I'm not even sure how I would write it or anything and probably I'm being super-specific here, but just wanted to let you know that as a text I stopped there are it was a bit difficult for me to step into different positions as a reader while reading the text.
But again, it's a tiny technical thing, I can totally see through it :)
And I'm glad that you put this out there, it is thought provoking and can make one step back and look at the world a bit differently. Thank you!
Also: did you write the first part, the freewrite in 5 minutes? It is super-tight and amazing, it's like poetry. And I love the use of bold and italic, it visually makes it more interesting as well!
Hehe, yep, in five minutes. The bolding and such was an afterthought that I went back and did to put focus on certain things.
And, it's an interesting point you make about the pronouns. I didn't think about it too much as I wrote, mainly just let it flow, so, that's how my subconscious was working and wanted the flow to go. Changing them up could definitely change the meaning. Words have powerful meanings, especially when we change the direction of them.
As I was reading your freewrite, I thought that some of it could almost ring true in the world right now. Then you elaborated below your freewrite, and it felt exactly as I do. It's sad we let things like that run out lives sometimes!
It's like 2-for-1 free writes! lol :) The snowball was kicked off a long, long time ago. Today we are beginning to see the real affects of what was started before our time.
Really powerful story. Very well done.
I think we’re at last three quarter way to screwed. We cannot keep squandering finite resources the way we do and yet, the wild stampede for ever more stuff just accelerates.
It’s your promptest of prompt deliverers here with your challenge for today: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-153-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-speaker
It's going to be a rough time for humanity, coming up. We'll have to decide what really matters to us as a species. Greed, or community. I, for one, know which side I stand on :)