When I worked as a photographer, way back in the dark(room) ages of film and processing, I spent lots of time at my friendly neighborhood camera store.
Behind the counter, there was a black-and-white cartoon. It showed lots of people laughing hysterically. The caption said, “You want it when?”
A few years later, a sign appeared next to the cartoon. It said, “The lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part.”
Only it does.
Because the advent of faxes and Fed Ex and e-mail and instant messaging and blogs and Twitter and social networking and text messaging and all the other “conveniences” too often raises expectations that we’ll all do everything instantly, spontaneously, sans thought or planning or consideration of alternatives.
I work in a world of billable hours, 30-second spots, 10-second tags, six-second-sound bites, read-on-the-fly texts, glance-and-go billboards, give-me-the-facts headlines, instant-ID logos and more.
And I regret that in such a fast-paced world, too many of us take too little time to discover and contemplate, absorb and ponder, deeply understand and simply think.
My New Year’s resolution is to think more and ad lib less.
What’s yours?
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Damn! And I’ve just been getting better at picking up and going on a moment’s notice.
You know, two years ago I left an agency for this exact reason. No one stopped to think, everyone just continued “working for the client.”
Great idea. I’m sending this to my former boss…
‘I contemplate whether Klaatu or the scientist is right.’
well, at this point in my 50 years on the planet I’d say Klaatu is right…Faulkner sure sounds noble, and I’m sure he was, but the vasy majority of the human beings I’ve encountered or observed are far too ignorant/ greedy/ fearful/ angry/ unconscious/ clueless to understand what’s needed to turn things around or make significant changes, let alone have the will and desire to choose the correct path.
When the supposed ‘leader of the free world’ causes the needless death of over 1 million people because of his lies and deception told to the ignorant masses, and NO ONE will even ATTEMPT to stop the lunatic from his killing, then you know we are doomed as a species…instead the moron-in-chief tells his sheeple to ‘just keep shopping’ and buying crap you don’t need for McMansions in the suburbs, while driving gas-guzzling monstrosity SUVs 100 miles a day to work and back so his buddies can make gazillions of dollars and live lavishly in gracious, gated, guarded communities.
Meanwhile the rest of the world starves to death in front of our eyes, except that we’re too busy watching 1000 channels of effing ‘Un-reality TV’ or stupid grown men beating the crap out of each other every Saturday/ Sunday afternoon in gladiator-like fashion while the drunken coliseum crowds roar!
…yeah I’d say it’s pretty much too fucked up and we deserve to die…some lessons just need to be learned the hard way…goddam america!!!