A writer recently released a new book. Organizing an event at a local bookstore, she set up rows of chairs and plenty of promotional material in anticipation of an audience. To her disappointment however, no one showed up. Now, Suzanne Young has been an author for over fifteen years, making this experience all the more devastating.
If this were to happen to us, we’d probably try to cover it all up, trying to maintain an image of popularity. Suzanne took a different approach. She posted a photo on Twitter, showcasing the fifteen empty chairs and, adding that this was the lowest point in her career. Surprisingly, many writers responded, sharing similar experiences.
More interesting though, how did I stumble upon her tweet? Well, it was actually through someone else’s response. This person, who has been known as the email marketer, seized the opportunity to exploit the writer’s post for his own purposes. In his response, he claimed that the writer had made elementary mistakes. Thereby of course insinuating he has all the right answers, for which he conveniently sells various high priced information products. When asked why the author had shared the photo on Twitter, this email marketer replied along the lines of, “Must be some strange ploy to win sympathy.”
This response speaks volumes about the email marketer’s character. I had previously followed his Twitter account in the hopes of seeing some personal growth with him after all these years, but it quickly became evident that nothing had changed. This man perceives everything through a lens of tricks, tactics, and strategies. But note how, despite promising success to everyone and portraying himself as being on top of the mountain, after all of these years he still has to sell expensive information products, using the same old tactics and tricks.
So, who’s the better of the two? The writer striving to improve herself, honestly sharing one bad day, or the email marketer who will always have to convince others of his “secret knowledge”, a man seeing tricks everywhere he looks?
Allow me to add some philosophy into this conversation. In a book about Socrates by Ward Farnsworth, the importance of philosophy is explored using a metaphor by Plato. Imagine living your entire life in a dark cave, chained in such a way that you can only see one side of the cave wall. Occasionally, shadows dance across the wall, created by light emanating from the other side. That’s all you see. It’s all you know. Your entire visual experience is limited to a collection of shadows on a cave wall. And there are other people next to you, also chained in the cave just like yourself.
Imagine one day you break free from your chains and emerge from the cave. Once your eyes adjust to the light, you finally behold the world as it truly is – a world filled with shapes and colors. After enjoying this for a while, imagine you’d have to go back, to explain this to the other poor souls, who are still locked up in chains in that cave. It would be hard to explain, wouldn’t it?
Now, realize that we are all chained up in some way, but we haven’t realized it. And we need to work to find out our mistaken perceptions, in order to be free from them. That’s philosophy for me. Ultimately, this is also a search into who we truly are… and the choices we make of how we express ourselves. And honestly expressing herself, is exactly what this writer did, simply with a picture of fifteen empty chairs. Food for thought!
Regards,
Vincent J. Dancet