‘There’s no better way to kill a bad product than with good advertising.’ When I worked in advertising that phrase was our way of reminding ourselves to stay true in what we said about our product, but also, to try our best to make sure the product was good in the first place. If we launched very clever, successful ads and people responded and bought the product, which turned out to be a dud, word would spread fast!
Every time I hear the phrase ‘In these uncertain times…’ I think ‘that is advertising a lie’. Humans have never lived in certain times. I doubt there even exists such a thing in a parallel universe! All that we know about life is, at best, that certain things may be likely to happen, or not. The only certainty that may possibly exist for us is in this moment. Not a nanosecond from now, or an hour from now, but now… oops… gone.
What is my certain moment, is not your certain moment.
Frustrating.
It is to our detriment that we buy into this well advertised concept, that somewhere out there, was, or might one day be, certain times. It is a bad product of faulty thinking.
Yesterday I was diagnosed with glaucoma, and partial sight loss in the lower portion of my visual field–both eyes. This was the third in a series of tests, so there is no doubt. For half the day I morphed through four of the five stages of grief and loss… denial… anger… bargaining and sadness. We’ve all been there.
I took the eye drops the doctor said for me to start ‘immediately’.
I went to bed. Stuck at sad.
This morning I woke, if not happy, at least aware of the many times in life I have been lucky. It was an unusually warm morning for the middle of winter, so I grabbed my camera to greet the sunrise. The amazing colours and cloud formations put everything into perspective again. The power of the thing that is bigger than us, more beautiful than artists can replicate, reassures me– restores me. All things are possible, and as they should be, if not always as they are advertised to be.
Stage five: acceptance.
In the wise words of Bob Dylan…
“The Times They Are A-Changin’”
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
(I shot all these photos on my walk this morning, isn’t it incredible the spectrum of light, shadow and colour?)
xx Ardys
ardysez 
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