Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Salesmen

  • The High Cost of Woo

    The High Cost of Woo

    I find myself wondering just how much the historical Jesus billed Lazarus for his resurrection.

    And what about all that water he turned into wine. Must have made a fortune. As for the Gaderene swine – wonder if he flogged them off for a hog roast.

    You see, I have been considering Woo recently. Not that I’m suggesting JC was a fake – and anyway, how would we know after two thousand years.

    But modern Woo – that really is something that has me scratching my head. There is one particular American Woo salesman who really takes the biscuit. He wears designer shades with diamante adornment and suspect clothes. He jets all around the world spreading the Word and sells save your soul books by the million. He peddles what one could politely call nonsense and gets handsomely rewarded for leading people in search of the end of the rainbow.

    The only one who ever finds the pot of gold is the sly salesmen himself. Quite what the suckers who buy his produce end up with is something else. Disillusionment and despair perhaps. At worst, some of them are tipped over into madness and death, when the spiritual riches the wondrous healer promises turn out to be apocryphal.

    It does not escape me that I tend to talk in riddles and poetry myself these days. And metaphor and allegory and symbols.

    But at least I am not charging you for it. Nor do I wear diamante specs. And I don’t try and look like Gandhi or an Ashram Guru. Or JC for that matter – I never liked Jesus boots anyway. And the locals would think I was a right odd one if I took to wearing flowing desert robes down Deal at the supermarket.

    I do not promise to unleash your infinite potential for a fiver. I do not offer you aura therapy or undertake to massage your chakras (even supposing I could find them).

    I have not found “peace beyond understanding” (as one asinine salesman claims) and so I am afraid I can’t sell it to you. Nor do I have the resources to have my picture taken in every exotic location from Ulam Bator to Timbuktu, in each of which I peddle my gospel in return for money.

    But Old Diamente Specs is just one of thousands of purveyors of faery dust and snake oil – admittedly one of the most successful. Financially I mean – I don’t suppose his flock has benefited much from any miracles .

    What I like about my local priest is that he doesn’t always have his hand out, or if he does I feel every comfort that he will be giving it away to the poor. Once the greedy local Bishop has taken his cut. Robin Hood really should do something about the Church hierarchy.

    There are good people out there and you can always tell who they are. There is a wonderful old clergyman round here who gave immense comfort to my fearful father. He beams goodness and joy. He fills my day with light, when I chat to him out of one of my rambles. He makes me feel good about the world.

    He is not shoving some mumbo jumbo down my throat, and even if he did he would never dream of charging me for it.

    Woo salesmen on the other hand are false friends. All they want is my money.

    At one stage I followed serious and worthy clinical research from some of the world’s finest institutions on the possibility of a cure offered by psychedelics.

    And I believe such cures will come to pass. Shepherded into medical use by hospitals and doctors.

    And if you wish to jump the gun, perhaps with intelligent application, you may affect your own cure.

    What you should not do is to head to your local Woo salesman who has set up a Mother Mushroom healing church. Or a Sister Ayuhuasca’s Shamanic temple.

    Social media and the Internet are awash with videos of the hilarious ceremonies offered by such people. They are mostly crafty westerners who have donned Shamanic robes. They dance around blowing sacred smoke into people’s eyes and fanning them with hocus pocus. Mother Mushroom will heal. Sister Ayuhuasca will speak. Wooooooo! Many of said money grasping fake Messiahs are interviewed speaking in faux-hushed tones, wearing priestly white.

    There is nothing wrong with ritual and ceremony in the right hands. I’m all for smells and bells and Gregorian chanting. It lifts the soul and can heal the mind.

    What I do not want is “for profit” spirituality. I don’t believe in healing the world for money. I do not like “entreprenooooooooors” like Diamante Specs. Fake priests.

    Spirituality and good works belong to genuine priests. Whose motives are, well, godly shall we say. Health, healing, the spirit. Salvation, the Way.

    Would you expect to find healing at Mc Donald’s? If not, then why would you buy it from a fake guru whose main interest in you is to empty your wallet?

    Jesus never charged for resurrection. If someone seeks to sell it to you, hopefully you will be wise enough to turn away.

  • The “Influencer”

    The “Influencer”

    There can be few callings which I hold is such low esteem as that of the “Influencer”.

    Apparently, an influencer is “an individual who has the power to affect the purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience”.

    I picture the male influencer as a man of around 40, sporting a brown and overly wide chalk stripe suit. On his feet are likely to be found a pair of grey basket work winkle-pickers.  He will have a orange tinted face, a perma-tan, mined presumably from some tub of ointment or procured from that most bizarre of salons, the tanning shop.

    His voice will be unctuous and over friendly – for he is the close relative of the “Salesman”. He will appear over confident, bumptious and very probably ignorant. His education will have been from the University of Life, since conventional universities do not yet offer education or training in “Influencing”. No doubt that shortcoming will end soon. At some college near you, a three year degree course in “influencing” will soon become available.

    It’s all to do with Social Media apparently.

    They say that “influencers” fall into the following categories:

    1. Celebrities
    2. Industry experts and thought leaders
    3. Bloggers and content creators
    4. Micro Influencers

    What the hell is a “thought leader”? You got me there. No idea I’m afraid. Perhaps it’s some horrible new invention by the US Military or the CIA. Brainwashing?

    And “celebrities”? Women with enhanced breasts and huge buttocks married to swarthy gentlemen wearing gold chains who drive large white Rolls Royces? Yes, I think that must be it.

    Anyway, these awful people blog and vlog. Vlogging is apparently blogging but making it doubly ghastly by videoing their message.

    Men in their brown suits and women with their protruding exuberance will stare out at you and unashamedly try to convince you to part with cash for loathsome tat you have no need for and don’t want in the first place.

    ICOs (International Coin Offerings) represent my earliest memory of the “influencer”. An over zealous little puppet was recommending that we should buy entirely useless tokens and altcoins which would crash and burn shortly after launch. The odious little shark was getting paid by the issuers to push their useless junk and thanks to “fomo” (yuk!) his horrible tactics proved most efficacious.

    So there you have it. The “Influencer”.   All you need to know really. If you recognize one switch the blighter off immediately. Smash your “smartfone”, abandon the internet (or at least use it for something useful).

    The “Influencer” turns out to be nothing but a modern interpretation of the grubby, odious salesman.

     

  • Flogging Blogging

    Flogging Blogging

    Commerce is so utterly grubby and most practitioners of the art are second hand car salesmen, whatever they pretend they are selling or “doing”.

    The blogosphere is no exception; it is an area where people try to practice commerce but usually, it seems unsuccessfully.

    The blogosphere has its fair share of oily salesmen particularly in the world of stock market trading where I spent some years and at times made a lot of money. Until I decided to quit because it had all become too nerve-wracking for my ancient body and mind to put up with any longer.

    In the world of trading I believe that most people must know they are selling nonsense, particularly where they are pushing trading “systems”.

    But it is much the same in blogging generally.

    In particular I am most amused by those whose trade is to sell blogging advice.  Their business seems to be more than usually incestuous and tautologous.  Who knows whether these people make money or not, but it is more than a little ironic that in order to make money out of blogging they have to tell other people how to do so.

    What is that all about then?

    Enough of such scepticism and negativity. I argue elsewhere in favour of freedom of choice: in euthanasia for instance or the use of “recreational” drugs.  It is equally evident to me that those who do not like blogging salesmen should avoid them – they have a choice.

    I tend to avoid “infomercials” and many blogs fall into this category.  Shopping on the internet is different – and very convenient. If I want to find a canoe or a book by Sartre I can do so with ease end enjoyment.

    Infomercials and blogs selling stuff (information or otherwise) under the guise of being interesting and informative are a tedious switch off; so switch them off.

    There is some acceptable crossover. Interesting authors may talk about their life as well as offer books. Newspapers these days are simply money making blogs – and I guess most of them carry advertising to make it pay.

    There is no harm in people being paid for what they do, provided the sales pitch is inoffensive and the goods or services offered are genuine.

    I suppose I have come across too many offensive sales pitches and too many crappy blogs. Perhaps including my own.  Who knows; as in every other area of life, I find myself mired in uncertainty, a certain amount of hypocrisy and much ennui.

     

     

     

  • The Internet Blagger and Bluffer

    The Internet Blagger and Bluffer

    I am always amused by the sheer vastness of the Blagging and Bluffing community on the internet, offering advice on subjects in which they themselves possess no expertise whatsoever.

    I know someone whose motto is “bullshit baffles brains”.  I believe what he means is that if he spouts enough nonsense, his victims will think he knows what he is talking about and buy his second hand cars or cave in to his unreasonable demands.

    Alas, there will always be fools in the world. It was ever thus!

    The internet is a very heaven for such people.

    “Never in the course of human history has so much, of so little value, been written by so many.”

    To misquote Winston Churchill.

    We are all Salesmen now.

    Bloggers, who (like myself) have never made a penny from the written word, hold forth on how to make money from Blogging.  More dangerous by far are the countless thousands out there offering trading and investment advice when (if they had any real experience) they would know they are selling moonshine.

    It must be the sheer ease of the process which has brought out these legions, like bugs crawling from under a stone.

    Go to WordPress or “BottomBook” or a thousand other centres of internet expertise and excellence, press a few buttons and LO!  Suddenly you are baffling other people’s brains with YOUR bullshit!

    Many are called but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:14, for those in doubt)

    Like any other calling, many will try and baffle your brains with their bullshit but few will actually make money out of it.  Their internet blagging career will end not with a bang but with a whimper.

    And yet there are those who will persevere.  You will subscribe to their trading tips, you will buy their fashionware or delight in the prurience of the lives they reveal to you or the breasts they expose to your gaze.

    And then they will go “viral”.

    Apparently this does not entail contracting or spreading STDs (although who knows these days?).

    It means that suddenly their bullshit has baffled not only YOUR brains but those of hundreds, thousands and millions like you.

    Welcome to the Internet!

  • The Salesman

    The Salesman

    Is the “salesman” grubby and embarrassing by definition?  Are they all oily, bumptious and crooked? From the seller of second hand cars to to those who peddle rugs are they all tarred with the same brush? Insincere and self important, is the salesman is out to short change you?  Are they all name dropping two faced asses?

    No, I don’t think they are but when you come across a bumptious fool and one of the bad ones, get out of his way swiftly, run quietly home and lock the door.

    Both characters were fairly harmless by comparison with some examples one may have to deal with.  Salesmen and charlatans (all too often interchangeable terms it seems) have been with us down the ages.

    One could forgive them if they were merely trying to do an honest day’s work (and most of them surely are).  But sometimes you are plagued by a salesman who is so truly awful he gives the entire “profession” a dirty name.

    He will claim that black is white, he will lie until he is blue in the face. He will be so full of bullshit and sheer arrogant nonsense that even he has difficulty taking himself seriously.  He will take a few terms of art pertaining to professions in which he has never qualified, mix them all up in meaningless, mangled sentences and try to convince you he is right and you are wrong.

    All the while dropping names of the great and the good to whom he has recently paid homage (or, in his dreams, they to him perhaps).

    The most important things in his life will be trips in private jets, helicopters and yachts and he will worship famous names be they politicians or “bizniss men”, showbiz or royalty.  He will bask in reflected glory.

    If that were all he did he might be forgiven.  But he can be out to swindle and put down all around him.

    The vast majority of salesmen do a good job and an honest day’s work.  But if you come across the sort of fool I have been describing, then run and don’t look back. Whatever else you may do, do not engage him in conversation.