When the People Are Dying

Dearest Rachel –

This is definitely not one of the tunes we swapped between us when we were courting after I graduated from college, but it’s true that at least one of Tonio K’s songs was in that lineup. This one has way too much social commentary to be considered a love song, to say the least. But you know how it goes; there are days when the algorithm sends me a song that I remember from those days, and it resonates with me yet again, like the slogan for Corn Flakes: “Try them again for the first time.” In fact, it could be said that it does that much more so, simply because I can relate to the line in question in a way I couldn’t back then.

Take another listen to that bridge, honey. The ‘monster’ who serves as the central figure leaves the garden to sell things, but a salesman cannot succeed without a clientele willing to buy what he’s selling. Granted he offers a wide array of products, so if one isn’t interested in this item, he can swiftly redirect their attention to that one instead. But in order to be induced into a purchase, a would-be customer has to be made to perceive that there’s something missing inside of them that the proffered product – whatever it might be – might fill.

Even better, what if he could convince them that the emptiness within them was a terminal condition? “You have a void in your life, my friends – a black hole within you, growing ever more powerful with every day it goes unattended to. Without this miracle cure I hold in my hand, the crushing weight of that growing absence will inexorably squeeze the life out of you, and soon! You must come to me for succor, lest you perish from all that ails you!”

To be sure, it’s better to have the customer come to such a conclusion on their own. People can be manipulated into certain behaviors – salesmanship, advertising and marketing, as fields, are devoted to learning how to do so, because of the vast financial rewards associated with mastering the techniques. However, there comes a certain point where the prospective customer notices the manipulation – they may see behind the curtain, or the suspension of disbelief gets stretched juuust beyond the breaking point – and suddenly, not only do they conclude that “eh, maybe I can live without this product after all” but they resent the one who pushed them into thinking otherwise against their will. Trust is lost (although, given the implied character of the ‘monster,’ that’s probably just as well), as is the customer – forever. Even if he changes his mind and wants to buy that product at another point, he’s not going to buy it from you.

But there are a few product lines for which the sense of “if I can’t have it, I’ll die” doesn’t have to be generated so much as merely directed. The most relatable is that of food, as we really do need to consume something on a daily basis (multiple times, in fact), and going without for much longer than that is almost guaranteed to stimulate an Esauvian response: “What good is anything that I have – or anything I might have in the future, for that matter – if I’m about to die from hunger right now!?” Of course, Jacob had a leg up on American food vendors in that his was the only game (pun not intended, as I understand that his stew – chili, maybe? – was meatless) in town; we have enough options that we can afford to be judicious in our choice as to what to fill our bellies with, and how much to spend to do so. You’ll recall evenings where I tried to let us get hungry enough that we would know what we wanted to eat at some point; most of the time, it didn’t work as well as I hoped.

On a more serious – and considerably more expensive (because how much can you spend on a single meal, in the final analysis?) – level, there is also the topic of medicine and healthcare. As with hunger, there are often symptoms of physical discomfort associated with a lack of the medicine or treatment. To be sure, in olden times, it was often borne up with, under the assumption that there was nothing that could be done for one ailment or another – although touted remedies existed in certain eras that were sometimes effective, although at other times, they were literal snake oil. Even today, modern medicine offers cures and alleviations to pain and suffering that still leave one wondering if we’ve actually gotten past those bad old snake oil days – especially after the last few years. But throughout all that, they didn’t have to convince us that illness – and potentially fatal illness – wasn’t a thing; their challenge was to convince us that what they had to offer was the means to overcome it safely.

But these days, such discomforts as we deal with aren’t nearly so compelling as all that. Unless we’re literally dealing with a terminal illness, we generally know that whatever it is we may think we’re missing out on isn’t going to kill us – any such claim is dramatic in the extreme. So this leaves the ‘monster’ with a dilemma; what sort of issue would convince enough people that his solution – any solution – would be a sine qua non, the one thing that they literally couldn’t live without?

Enter love. Or should I say the lack of it. It’s axiomatic in marketing circles that ‘sex sells,’ but to a certain extent, the same can be also said for love. Possibly even more so, since there seems to be an entire gender that prefers love to sex, and there are enough of mine that weigh them roughly equal. Buy this, use this, the advertisers say, and you’ll never be lonely again; you’ll have friends and lovers surrounding you at all times – or at least, whenever you want them (and let’s face it, customer, isn’t that all the time? they say with an oleaginous smile). And somehow, it still works on us, because there is a realization that a lack of contact and connection IS, in fact, doing us psychological damage.

The problem is, even as we thrust fistfuls of money at the ‘monster,’ deep down we know that what he’s selling us isn’t actually going to solve what ails us. Even if it actually succeeds in drawing others to us, it’s only a temporary fix, or they’re not drawn because of us, but because of this thing that we have that is separate from our selves. At some point, we have to acknowledge that what we’ve bought is little more than a bill of goods, with no value in terms of what we really want it to do for us.

It’s even funnier when you look at the potential purchases I’ve been researching lately, honey. Travel to this or that exotic place, on my own. A house the size of a cruise ship stateroom, big enough for one, but little more, to be used out in some remote place in the woods. A home in a country where I neither read nor speak the language, and couldn’t interact with the locals even if I wanted to. If I’m looking to solve an absence of contact in my life, I couldn’t fail harder if I tried. But “when the people are dying… you know, the people start buying.”

Keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.