Life As We Know It
In a meeting I attended very recently on the possibility of putting out a magazine, one of the speakers spoke of the kinds of magazines that do well in the stands. Principally, she mentioned that with a hectic lifestyle, articles should be reduced to bullet points and no winding prose. Readers want to know immediately the long and short of the article. Thus, for magazines to sell, bullet points and a short description is the must-see new look. After being presented with several examples of glossy mags that sell well, I agreed albeit grudgingly.
Which brings to fore the truism that art imitates life. The world is fast-paced, so must our readings. So, what kind of a life do we have now? We live in a world that is dominated by a lotto mentality where we seek instant gratification. We adopt a Hollywood swagger where we glorify form over substance. We prefer to see the world as half-empty rather than half-full thereby engendering a pessimistic worldview. We praise people who make millions regardless of the means rather than emphasize the value of an honest wage for an honest work. And last but not the least, we prefer glossy magazines over intellectual discourses.
Humanists say that man is the measure of all things. But even that no longer holds true. Man is held captive by the technology that springs up almost every day. Man is besieged by the events that he ought to control but cannot. Man has become the mere pawn in the battle between conglomerates, consumerism and crass materialism. The marvels of reproductive science are slowly but surely diminishing the role of man into a mere donor. In short, man no longer controls the lay of the land. The territory has had him marked. And as the world becomes more and more secular and less and less sacred, the juggernaut towards the irrelevance of man becomes all the more inevitable.
What do we make out of these conundrums? What must we do to reverse the trend? The answer, my friends, does not lie in the stars but in ourselves. As fellow travelers, let us find the answers soon. But I do not think the answers will be found in those glossy magazines.
Which brings to fore the truism that art imitates life. The world is fast-paced, so must our readings. So, what kind of a life do we have now? We live in a world that is dominated by a lotto mentality where we seek instant gratification. We adopt a Hollywood swagger where we glorify form over substance. We prefer to see the world as half-empty rather than half-full thereby engendering a pessimistic worldview. We praise people who make millions regardless of the means rather than emphasize the value of an honest wage for an honest work. And last but not the least, we prefer glossy magazines over intellectual discourses.
Humanists say that man is the measure of all things. But even that no longer holds true. Man is held captive by the technology that springs up almost every day. Man is besieged by the events that he ought to control but cannot. Man has become the mere pawn in the battle between conglomerates, consumerism and crass materialism. The marvels of reproductive science are slowly but surely diminishing the role of man into a mere donor. In short, man no longer controls the lay of the land. The territory has had him marked. And as the world becomes more and more secular and less and less sacred, the juggernaut towards the irrelevance of man becomes all the more inevitable.
What do we make out of these conundrums? What must we do to reverse the trend? The answer, my friends, does not lie in the stars but in ourselves. As fellow travelers, let us find the answers soon. But I do not think the answers will be found in those glossy magazines.
posted by Edwin Lacierda | 1:04 AM
5 Comments:
Correct ka dyan. You know, we have a culprit in our midst and she is working in one of the Old Media establishments and they pump out gossips about this and that celebrity. What do you think, ms. she capili?
This reminds me of that instance when i got to talk to one of my officemates. Since I'm very much exposed to these glossy magazines, i know what you're talking about, really. Many times I've been thinking of leaving my present job...because i couldn't see how these entertainment magazines that the company has been publishing contain any social relevance at all. Sometimes I'm torn between the ideas of whether i would be staying still, hoping that i could be an instrument of change (naks!) or whether i would be leaving, as a sign of protest...if i choose the first one, i think i should start to have an additional organ in my body that would help in supplying "more patience"...or if i choose the second one, i'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind at all...:) SHE
ahhm..i think you generalize. Not all glossy magazines are created equal. Some of these mags lift up my spirits on a rainy afternoon, and fulfill what they were meant to do...entertain. That in itself makes the P100 I pay for a mag, worthwhile.
That's true. Not all magazines are created equal. Some are sleazier than others. And over-all, they may relieve you of the stress that you're in. But because their articles are short, they will remain pallatives.
Nowadays we prefer glossy magazines over intellectual discourses simply because people are looking for entertainment. they want to escape from reality by reading, for relaxation. as what you've mentioned, "world is fast-paced, so must our readings," we tend to just roll our eyes and hoping to already grasp what the article was tring to convey. publishers know best what their consumers want. =)
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