Seduction in Suits and Selfies

I've spent many a day in my life training salespeople. Not retail, but business-to-business sales. Slick-suited pretty men and sexy women, silvery-throated lookers who used every trick to get the attention of some suburban white-collar man sitting in a committee being pitched to.

Often our salespeople talked about "value propositions," "return on investment," and "competitive advantage," while they flexed their biceps and showed their cleavage.

With pretty PowerPoint presentations of puerile rising graphs in the latest fashionable colors, dressed in the just-a-little-too-short skirts and too-tight-around-the-padded-shoulders jackets, they flattered and mesmerized, adding a bit of titillation to the dreary existence of the mid-floor corner office decider wannabe.

Their audiences—often the faceless committee members, each with a pen poised like a sword ready to strike—are enticed not just by the prospects of higher margins or improved efficiencies, but by the polished allure of the presenters. It’s a theater of the absurd, a spectacle where every pixel of the PowerPoint slides and every line of the pitch has been optimized for maximum seduction.

The format of the sale has changed, but the same sex and fear are pushed. Now they have added a bit of that Ronco-dicer-slicer-but-wait-there-is-more-two-for-one-almost-out-of-stock, to their Facebook, YouTube, tweets.

Sure it's different. But no, it's not. Same massaged message, new medium.

Influencers often don't realize they are salespeople being programmed for someone else's lunch. Rather, they think of themselves as famous, popular, trendsetters, or content creators and are too vapid to realize they lost out on a hefty commission for a few cents on each impression reward.

They operate in a borderless world of Instagram filters and TikTok dances, peddling products with the casual swipe of a finger. Their followers, loyal and impressionable, hang on to their every word, unaware that they’re mere pawns in a meticulously orchestrated game of digital manipulation.

Beyond Awareness

Celestial wonders, vast and grand, 

Outside the reach of our limited hand. 

Stars and galaxies, mysteries untold, 

More than awareness, their stories unfold. 

Our minds grasp fragments, a fleeting glance, 

Searching for meaning in the cosmic dance.

Bounded meaning

 \”In the realm of words and genes, 

Boundaries emerge, tagged and ritualized, 

Sentences and DNA, both marked by unseen hands, 

Revealing sequences that breathe life into meaning \”

{ Linguistic and genetic threads, 

Woven with care, each boundary a sacred mark, 

A serial sequence unfolds, 

Bringing coherence to chaos, order to the unknown }

[- Rituals of structure, revered and followed, 

In language, in life, in the code of existence, 

Meaning is not inherent, but constructed, 

Through the careful arrangement of elements, 

Boundaries that define, sequences that reveal -]

@ Interconnected systems, 

Linguistic and genetic, 

A universal principle of order, 

Binding the fabric of reality, 

In the ritual of boundaries, 

Meaning comes to being %

This Breath

 

Accusations passing

 In Athens' court, where shadows loom,

Meletus stood, with righteous boom.

He pointed fingers, cast the blame,

At Socrates, the gadfly's name.

"This man," he cried, "corrupts our youth,

With questions sharp and bitter truth.

He mocks the gods, defies our ways,

In Athens' streets, he sows dismay."

The jury swayed by Meletus' plea,

Condemned the sage to drink the tea.

With hemlock's poison, Socrates fell,

And Meletus thought he'd done so well.

Yet time's a judge more just and wise,

It sees through pride and righteous cries.

Meletus fades in history's scroll,

While Socrates, immortal, whole.

For though the finger pointed fast,

It's Socrates who'll ever last.

His wisdom echoes through the age,

A martyr on life's grand stage.

Boundaries of Identity

 In the shadowed corners of the mind, 

Where boundaries whisper, unseen, confined, 

We trace the lines that carve our fate, 

In the silence, we contemplate.

Personal walls, a fortress built, 

To guard the heart, to mask the guilt, 

In the quiet, we find our voice, 

In the darkness, we make our choice.

Cultural threads, a tangled weave, 

Inheritances we cannot leave, 

In the mirror, we see the past, 

In the present, we are cast.

Geography's embrace, a cold, hard land, 

Mountains, rivers, where we stand, 

In the earth, we plant our roots, 

In the soil, we find our truths.

Social lines that bind and break, 

In the dance of life, we ache, 

Class, gender, race, a cruel divide, 

In these boundaries, we confide.

Monied tides that rise and fall, 

Shaping dreams, both grand and small, 

In the struggle, we find our strength, 

In the hardship, we go to any length.

Education's light, a distant star, 

Guiding us, though we are far, 

In the halls of knowledge, we seek, 

In the pursuit, we are unique.

Legal codes that bind our hands, 

In justice's name, we make our stands, 

In the balance of right and wrong, 

In the silence, we belong.

Technology's reach, a cold embrace, 

Connecting hearts, a digital space, 

In the screen, we find our place, 

In the void, we leave a trace.

Temporal winds that shift and sway, 

Through the ages, night and day, 

In the passage of time, we grow, 

In the shadows, we come to know.

Fools Folly