Some thoughts on paths.

I read somewhere, somewhere obscure, about how rural footpaths are some times maintained in Merrie Olde Englande.

To keep branches and limbs from encroaching along the way, a hooked implement is stationed at either end of the path. You take an implement upon entering the path, and groom as you walk. You leave the implement on the other side of the path when you are finished. And presumably someone coming from the other direction will grab the implement and groom as they go the other way.

It all sounds so reasonable and simple.

I wonder if we do the same thing in advertising, or can.

We are all of us clearing paths for people who come after us.

We are all of us, I believe, charged with keeping those paths clear.

Too often, unfortunately, we are like cage fighters.

We think only of ourselves and our own survival.

Honesty, integrity, mensch-ness are seen as hindrances.

Things that can only get you in trouble.

We should be clearing paths.

Instead we are laying mines.