My Celery Has Water

I had one of those moments today where you wonder what am I doing with my life?

I was in a 90 minute webinar (that's a online seminar for those lucky enough not to have heard of/experienced one) about the best way for associations to make the most money from corporate relationships. It took me about 45 seconds to realize the next 89.25 minutes were going to suck, and I was already grumpy from having to scarf down my lunch in under 10 minutes, and tired from the food coma that is post-pesto pasta yumminess. But then my mind started wandering as to what I was achieving by being there? What impact on society would I make by learning the best way to bundle sponsorship opportunities to get the most money out a greedy pharmaceutical corporation? I'm going to go with...none.

Luckily I got a phone call that I didn't actually answer answer, but I still left the room for about 15 minutes and walked around the office doing nothing. Then I ran into someone I didn't want to talk to, so I went back.

At this point the guy was talking about how it was more important to focus energy on companies that can give you large sums of money, "because doesn't it sound easier to manage 5 companies that can donate $1 million that 50 companies that can donate $100,000?" And yeah it does. But I started thinking, what about all those companies that can only spend $100,000, but need the exposure corporate sponsorship affords more than the big boys?

Anyway, I then traveled down a path of thought that lead me to the homogenization of our society, and how we've relinquished control over our free will and our desire to chose what's best for us. I know, it's just more of my bitching about evil Starbucks, and how "big box" stores are killing the mom and pop stores and therefore the fabric of "good" society. But for once I caught myself, and thought back to an episode of Penn&Teller's Bullshit, a really good show on Showtime, yes with that magician guy that never speaks and the other one who never shuts up.

The show looks into things that are bullshit, like the war on drugs, the death penalty as a deterrent, or ESP. The show doesn't take itself too seriously, so I don't either, but taken with a grain of salt, it has some good info (I'm now ok using public toilets for #2 is they are clean) and you get make fun of some fanatical idiots.

Anyway, the last episode I watched was about Wal-Mart haters, and how they are usually full of shit when the say Wal-Mart is bad for communities or an evil corporation. Sometimes they are, but most of the time they bring jobs to areas that need them, and they offer affordable merchandise to people who need it. Sometimes they put the mom and pop shops out of business, but in a lot of places, they were out of business before Wal-Mart came to town. It seems like the natural progression of things lately that these large corporations are increasing their market share. I see that as a potentially bad thing because we become over-reliant and more homogeneous, which leads to a loss of individuality and then creativity and intelligence (a la Idiocracy.)



But I've come to be more optimistic lately...well at least slightly hopeful. My friend Pat mentioned one day that all of this is necessary and part of greater information access which will lead to a renaissance of thought. I hope he's right. But I can guarantee you that it will not happen if the intelligent are stuck in meetings listening to speaker phones drone on about the value difference in offering logos on tote bags vs. keynote speaker sponsorship.

Oh, and here's part 1 of one of my favorite episodes of Penn&Teller's Bullshit