You probably didn’t know that most of the “experts” quoted in news stories are connected to the reporter through a PR firm which they pay thousands of dollars to every month. The PR firms subscribe to services where reporters basically troll for perfectly tailored quotes in exchange for a few generous superlatives after the person’s name. It’s where a lot of book blurbs come from, or the part in someone’s bio where it says “James has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal and the Washington Post.”
You probably forget that someone with even mediocre credit could lease a Jaguar for $349 dollars a month and a couple hundred down at signing.
You probably never stopped to consider that the average Digg user looks like this.
Remember: Women in porn take Xanax between scenes to numb the pain. Celebrities rent the cars the day before the taping of an episode of Cribs. A commentator barely skims the material he’s debating on television and thousands of people write and yell and simmer over remarks he pulled out of his ass. Or somebody has five-figures of credit card debt and a soul-crushing job, but people hear his big title or where he went to college and they feel jealous, inadequate and awful.
Think about the things people are sincerely outraged over – how regularly, if you truly examined the root of the issue, would you see that it was only shadows? Shadows of half-truths, lies, exaggerations, flippant responses or rationalizations.
You want to be respected, be in the papers, have a nice car, have an avalanche of traffic, wonder why your life isn’t like a porno or a tv show. Well, the funny thing is that “reality” seems to require the suspension of disbelief as much as fiction does.
I’m just saying that when you really look at it – and I mean really look at it, as in the facts and figures and averages – the things we think are important are comical. Intellectually, it’s time you admit to yourself that it’s all a big fucking farce. Only after you’ve done that you can start to understand that spiritually.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
You just about said it. 110% of the time we are only exposed to a hyper-reality, what is thought to be the distilled essence of some real life situation. (After all, most narratives are based in reality, making them hyper-realities). But when one does that distilling to something as general as sexual fantasy, they leave a whole lot of people who don’t subscribe to that particular fantasy out in the dark. And so you are left with a sexual fantasy which is an un-applicable hyper-reality to many. We forget, that that distillation can only be done internally for it to be truly applicable. Thanks for the reminder.
Blargh I don’t know, need some breakfast.
Maybe it’s cynical, but this is part of the reason there are times when I can’t stand watching television. I find myself feeling like I’m being lied to by someone very simple.
As a sidenote, this is one of your first entries that seemed to be on the model of Aurelius’ Meditations. There didn’t seem to be any call out of your audience; I felt it was almost incidental that I had a chance to read it – like it belonged in a private journal. I liked that.
I would be curious to see if most people agree with that. Normally I think I use “I” and “you” interchangeably – as in they both can apply to me.
I agree with Matt, you’re definitely hitting on the right tone.
As for the rest, well.. as a native of L.A. I’m used to mentally positioning people by how far from bankruptcy they appear. New car, nice clothes, shitty one-bedroom in the valley? 60 days max, pal.
Older car, Seiko wristwatch, and a house on the hill in Palos Verdes? You’re probably sleeping on a mattress stuffed with $100 bills (and soundly at that).
What you see here is never what it seems, and that which is furthest from what you’d expect is who you want to be around.
The trick is learning to look the other way.
I agree, the post was awesome and totally spot on. Thanks for a great dose of perspective.
It strikes as like a sort of reverse of the narrative fallacy. Instead seeing our own life as the star of a movie, we are bombarded by a media which creates a fake movie-like reality around us. The subversive thing is that we are hit from so often from many sides on such an every day level, that we start forgetting that this is not reality either.
I can’t see any way around it with distancing yourself from both your ego, and keeping a critical state of mind when viewing others/media. Meta cognition or bust.
Great post – along with http://www.ryanholiday.net/archives/the_narrative_fallacy.phtml I am slowly starting to understand. Thank you very much.
This is one of your better posts but I wouldn’t say it’s significantly different from the rest of your content. As far as being on model with Meditations, or having a different tone, maybe just because it deals with such a broad universal aspect of life compared to where sometimes content here gets so specific that it only applies to certain people.
Excuse me, but what is wrong with that “ideal digg user” guy looking like he does? Perhaps he’s a not a good role model for health and fitness, but that’s not the point of your post, is it? How many assumptions are you making based on his appearance alone – and passing judgment over it? Isn’t that part of what you’re speaking against in this post? Hard to take it seriously when it’s tainted with such a shallow “example”.
PS: And no, I look nothing like him.
Hahahaha ok. Everybody’s the same and nobody should ever judge anyone else.
Joey,
This is no different a judgment call you made when you were a teenager about the guy on public access at 2am. You knew he was a wacko even before you heard his conspiracy theories. And then you crank called him.
You start to get a sense of how these people look when you’ve met enough of them, even without actually seeing them; they’re not experts, they have a lot of time on their hands, and their spiritual vehicle (their body) is in horrible shape. You adjust how much stock you take in their advice. Perhaps this was his point about the average digg user.
Skyler,
I think you will find, taking a closer look, that commenter’s names appear below the actual comments, not above. Also: don’t judge a book by it’s cover. And finally; always carry trash bags in your car, I think over time it’s easy to neglect the neatness of a car, it’s just in our nature.
Take care brush your hair,
Joey
Re: porn stars taking Xanax-
The physical pain or the emotional pain? Both?
Wait, so you’re saying that there’s a good chance that Donald Trump may only be worth $150 million, and his claim to be worth $6 billion may be total bullshit? Say it ain’t so.
Thanks for the post. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve been trying to tell my friends that Hollywood, and most media. is a total lie for a couple of years now.
Brilliant post Ryan, Matt’s comparison with Marcus Aurelius was spot on: it reads like a like a 21st century meditation
Agree 100% – but if you think about, the poison fairy-tales go back to our childhoods. We were practically raised to believe that everything can be solved in 30-min sitcoms, everything will be alright. Then, when life doesn’t work out that way, we feel slighted and sulk. It takes most of our lives to figure out that, ultimately, nobody cares about anyone but themselves (most of the time) and this ‘ego’ is what distance’s people. We are all alot more alike then we believe, the collective unconscious – says Jung. I tend to gravitate to people who are just honest, no matter what they have ‘achieved’ in life, i feel less dirty.
Well, the funny thing is that “reality” seems to require the suspension of disbelief as much as fiction does.
… is my favourite line in this post.