iPromise

How’s your iLife going?

I’m asking because I’m curious. I’m curious about whether or not your iLife is what you’d imagined – what you’ve been promised.

Mine isn’t, but I’m not surprised. Consumer advertising, after all, promises us far more in regards to products and services than what any product or service is capable of delivering. Deep spiritual satisfaction from a walkman? Social fulfillment and a permagrin from a hard drive full of jpgs? Become the toast of your friends (which of course, number in the scores and consist of supermodel geniuses and dapper playboys) thanks to your German engineered car? I learned fairly well to look through the veneer of consumer advertising when I was a freshman in college and read Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. But consumer advertising is an adaptive beast, relentless and ever more persuasive.

In a world where massive, empty promises are routinely made, what are the consequences for our expectations of the world – most specifically and critically of the other people in our lives? After all, people make and keep (or don’t keep) promises. Implicit, explicit, marriage, work, etc. If any number of 1,000’s of things in the world can be promoted as panaceas for a yearning in us (a yearning I’d say has been amplified and manipulated to respond to the promises of advertising), what kind of fulfillment expectations arise? Am I likely to work through a difficult stretch in a relationship when I’m pretty well conditioned to believe there’s a newer, better one out there that will require less work and will provide greater – if not complete – fulfillment?

iWonder, if we stripped our world of the context of accepted empty promises of fulfillment, would we re-adapt and learn to nurture our relationships better? Would we still have a 50% divorce rate? Consider this passage from an article on Askmen.com, wherein the author plainly argues that women and men change after marriage (for the worse) and that doing so is fundamentally unfair:

Why shouldn’t one have a say if their wife or husband puts on too much weight from sitting on the couch and eating nachos all day? When you buy a car, a BMW for instance, you expect it to remain a BMW. The car won’t become a GoodYear blimp with time, it will inevitably get old but will always remain a BMW.

This, from an article categorized under “marriage advice.” Complete article on Askmen.com. Would anyone else read this and wonder why, oh why, anyone would compare a person to a product and expect a human being to behave like a car? Yet, I find this way of “philosophy” prevalent. And seeing its prevalence turns me away from marriage. It’s not the changing spouse I’m afraid of – it’s the likely expectation in her that I’ll be like that car. It’s the shameful recognition that, in me, there’s the same expectation of her.

It’s the knowledge that we all judge one another against the expectations made by impossible promises – iPromises, if you will.

constant entertainment

Speakers in every room. iPod in a pocket. Cell phones browse the internet. Television may no longer be on 24/7 – replaced by the computer.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went out of town to a cabin on a lake in Maine – to get away from civilization and relax for a few days – and getting there requires a plane trip to Boston, followed by a bus ride to Portland, followed finally by automotive extraction from the bus terminal by family members who brave winding back roads to take me to the undisclosed location. That final leg of the trip – 35 miles – takes an hour and a half. It is nearly as long as the ride from Boston to Portland, and almost double the plane trip. It is also the best part of the journey, crawling along the Maine back roads, looking for moose, gazing out at glistening lakes through dense forestation, and zoning out.

For the first leg of the journey, I flew Jet Blue. It was my first time on Jet Blue. I had taken Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death to read on my trip. Published in 1984, it is supposedly more relevant now than ever, and I’d long been looking forward to reading it. As I sat down in my comfortable leather airplane seat, cracked the spine, and started in on the introduction, I noticed a flickering light in my periphery. I glanced up to see what it was, and noticed (for the first time) that every single seat-back on the plane had its own little 9″ TV screen, and every single one was turned on. Wow, I thought, that explains the flickering. Apparently, among Jet Blue’s claims to fame is the fact that it graces passengers with 34 channels of Direct TV programming and 100+ XM Satellite Radio channels. Never a dull moment on Jet Blue. Nor, however, a moment to unplug. I tried to go back to my book, but the flashing lights of the televisions was relentless and distracting. I figured out how to turn my TV off, but the other 315 passengers were intently watching ET, The Sopranos, Who’s The Boss?, and a multiplying array of other junk food TV equivalents. I was physiologically overpowered by the lights. And after 20 minutes of vain struggle to read, I had to throw in the towel. Satellite Radio or Direct TV? That was my choice – simple and uncompromising. Yeah, yeah, I had options regarding what program to passively consume, but the option of unplugging was simply unavailable to me – and to all of us on that flight considering the enraptured stares on fellow passengers’ faces.

I didn’t even get far enough into the book, but the irony struck me like a cast iron skillet over the head. From Boston to Portland, the bus was nearly as bad. Multiple TVs playing a DVD to fill the minutes prevented dreaded lack of distraction. Why look out the windows when you can look into the flickering box of constant entertainment? I am deeply worried about us. And I’m saying so on a web log. Relentless.