An Enigma

”The power to unlock tomorrow is found in a box.’  So says the TV ad for Kellogg’s Mini Wheats cereal.  Now, if you think about that more than for just 1/10 of a second, you will quickly realize just how dumb (yes, I’m using that word) that sentence is.  Shredded wheat has the power to unlock tomorrow??  Give me a break.

Of course, there are those who are not ad executives who will “absorb” that statement over time and gradually, gradually, gradually, that statement will grow on them.  They will become convinced that, if not Mini Wheats at least, they can find the power to unlock tomorrow from any of a number of “things” from vehicles to cans of beer to toothpaste.

I have a couple of comments.

First, I’m not sure I even want to unlock tomorrow.  “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”  The words of Jesus in Matthew 6:34.  I have enough to deal with today to have to think about tomorrow.  Do I really want to “unlock” tomorrow today?

Second, although I know what they were saying in the ad, and why they were saying it (the healthy effects of eating whole grains), they were just awfully presumptuous, I think, in how they said it.  Of course, that’s what makes ads successful, but it seems to me that we the public are all too gullible to believe just anything that’s told to us.

We are manipulated.  We are managed.  We are maneuvered.  And we not only allow it; we embrace it.  We go along with it all.  What is it with the human race, and western culture specifically, that makes us that way?  And why?

I am told that there is an app making headway that will reserve a table for you at a restaurant…for a fee.  You will pay anywhere from two dollars to fifty dollars or more just for the privilege of getting a table at a restaurant.  The price depends on demand, the popularity of the restaurant, and who else you’re apt to see there (or who else may see you there).  I’ve never paid to get a table at a restaurant and I don’t intend to do so.  I’ll eat at  Burger King before I do that.

We are truly an enigma.  We like to parrot our independence.  Yet we pay big bucks so we can say we’ve been to the fancy restaurant that some star goes to from time to time.  We say that no one is going to make decisions for us.  Yet we blindly accept what we’re told in TV ads that range from the absurd to the ridiculous.  We say we’re open-minded, yet we vote straight tickets in elections.

Ira Stamphill said it well in 1950 in his song, “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.”  Listen to the refrain of the song.

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand