So Sooth Me.

As readers in this space know, I read a lot.

By a lot, I mean more than anyone I know.

If you ever wonder how I write so much, it's because I read so much.

Yet, whenever I have intercourse with others, I feel like the odd man out for my reading. 

I get made fun of.

Excoriated, even.

It hurts a little, if you must know, feeling like an outsider. But etiam si omnes, ego non. Or Ich nicht.

Now more than ever.

Now in English: even if all others, not I. Or just not I.

I'l mocked and told of all the great things I'm missing by reading about the last days of Tsar Nicholas II, or role of women in the Classical world.

Either example is more illuminating about the state of our trumpian dystopia than I wish I had to think about.

One of the things that reading gives me is a view of human foibles. Maybe TV and movies would too, but I feel books have a longer view--and more authoritative. 

For instance, over the years I think reading has led me to some simple, timeless, human truths that are missed by just about everyone.

Here. I'll write some down for you.

1. Soothsayers abound. 
We might not be reading bird entrails or the gizzard of goats like the Greeks and Romans did, but most of humanity seems to be spending most of its time predicting the future.

As in ancient days, many of those making predictions, think of themselves as in possession of some god-like wisdom. They believe they see things others can't because they've been touched by the divine. Or by a whitepaper. 

Except like most soothsayers past and present they're not divine. And they're wrong as often as they're right.

Humans always have been and always will be scared. Of today and tomorrow. We look for people and predictions we can believe even if they're wrong. For no good reason, they remove fear.

Until the fear comes back. 

Usually worse than it was.

2. Something for nothing never works.
Since the beginning of time, humankind has looked to gain without paying for that gain. We're all of us looking for the winning lottery ticket without having to buy one.

At the start of the internet era, advertisers (and agencies) bought this hook, line, sinker and stinker. We could target people exactly with no waste at precisely the moment they were hungry for something. 

Not only would cost be eliminated, risk would be, too.

I'd imagine since digital advertising started literally trillions of dollars of brand-equity have been destroyed because brands and their agencies wanted to believe telling people about what they make or do didn't matter. 

It does matter. 

Just as paying for talent who can differentiate your brand matters. You won't get it from cheap and you won't get it from AI.

Anything worthwhile costs.

3. All progress is based on a leap of faith.
Humankind has always tried to convince itself that the universe is an if-then proposition. If we pray to this god, our crops will be watered. If we use this best-practice, our business will thrive.

In fact, when the notion of best-practices first infected advertising about 25 years ago, I used to say to people, "Madison Avenue is the best retail street in the world. But one in five stores are empty. If all you had to do was follow rules, everyone would be rich. The rules aren't that good. And following isn't that simple."

4. It's more complicated than you think.
Many people today believe data is a panacea. It will give them a view into the minds and desires of consumers and will help brands sell more.

Usually, that data is based on six or a dozen variables.

Whereas your brain, yes, even yours, has over six-trillion synapses. Meaning real, human decision-making is way more complicated than even the best data-mining.

5. Hard work works.
I have a friend who runs an agency. He often assigns five teams for five days. They have to come up with five ideas a day. At the end of the week, 125 ideas are posted on the conference room wall.

Collectively or individually, that's how life is.

Do a lot to get a little.

I've written 7090 posts in this space.

About twelve have been good. Maybe fourteen.

As Yogi said, "that's not a typographical error, it was a clean single through the middle."

That's not a bad batting average.

Thanks for reading, even though I suck.