Word.(s).

More and more I don't understand the world.

For about 4,000 years, since the development of the first written alphabet, humankind has written things down. That's how you keep records. That's how you can recall things. That's how you can say, "this is what I said, promised, did, saw."

Some archaeological sites in the what are now Syria or Iraq have shards of hundreds-of-thousands clay tablets. They're buried or laying around. When archaeologists had access to those regions, they began translating the writing on those tablets. They were usually records of transactions, trades, inventories or debts. 

Those things were written in media that were fairly permanent. Writing, for about 4,000 years, was a way of recording facts and statements and promises. Hammurabi's Laws, the Justinian Code, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights are all examples of this age-old practice. 

The written word has advantages over other forms of communication. 

The word is there and easy to find. It's written and permanent. It's accessible and can be recalled. You can pick it up and put it away and pick it up again to see if you're getting what was promised. 

That used to be the function of a lot of advertising.

The confines of a printed piece and its tactility forced you the advertiser--the one making the promise--to clarify and codify things. Writing them down forced decisions, clarity and and what we would call today, "transparency." "But you said"- accountability.

Then, as an industry, advertising stopped writing things down. We let print perish.

Sure, print as a medium has all but disappeared. But we allowed writing to disappear with it. We decided it was ok to never to the hard work of figuring things out and writing it down so people knew and could refer to it over and again.

For years when I worked on IBM I asked every media person I worked with, and there were plenty, give me the digital equivalent of a double-truck with gutter. (Journalism does it.) They came back with a 300x250 banner. All but invisible and 97% of the time blocked by (b)ad blockers.

Last week, I had dinner with a bunch of my-age advertising people. As we all talked about how our agencies were doing, I did my usual thing. I said "My belief is that most people don't know what anything does anymore or why they should buy one thing over another. I work closely with CEOs and founders to help them understand what they make and sell."

One of my friends lit into me.

"Your problem, George, is you're too smart. You're too rational. No one cares anymore. They buy a feeling."

I've gotten that comment virtually every day of my 44-year career. And I don't believe it.

Just moments ago in "The Wall Street Journal," I read an article on a $1,000 wastebasket. As the saying goes, I toss nickels around like manhole covers. But I read this article and I want this thing.

I'm not looking for rational reasons why if I'm buying a can of soda. But if I'm thinking about something expensive and important, I don't want the nagging neuroses that I made a dumb or hasty decision. I want what in bygone advertising days we used to call "permission to believe." Someone will surely say that's not how Gen% or GenZ or GenJen does things today, but I don't buy that. Everybody says whatever generation is completely different, but their kids are just like they are.

In what used to be amerika, we're about to have an important election.

You know what I want from the candidates, I want a print spread in every major newspaper that says in simple language, this is what I intend to do when I'm president, these are the sort of people I will hire, this is who I will defend, who I will tax. This is what I believe. 

Politicians will do no such thing because it pins them down.

And that's the point of writing things down. To be pinned down. So you can be held to the standard of truth.

My point is simple.

We see more messages than ever. More messages that say nothing.

I'm tired of always-on marketing that's always empty.

I want a promise.

I want it in writing.