Image is all

The whole thing could easily be done in a movie studio.

We live in a world in which nothing is real and everything is staged.

A world in which every action is calculated.

Every encounter scripted according to how it will look.

The inauthenticity is palpable as everyone obsess about their image.

Uttering silly words such as Change. Leadership. Strength.

Infantile concepts that mean nothing.

On an individual level, we tend to be obsessed with appearances.

With projecting an acceptable image of ourselves to the world.

I'm not just talking about the superficialities of fashion.

But of the subtle masks and poses we wear as shields in a world filled with strangers.

The unreality of the modern world projects onto our faces,

Into our voices,

Into our thoughts;

Hence the mounting desire to "get real"
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The search for authenticity.

Just as words are losing their meaning.

So also have images lost their power and mystique.

No language has ever before had the number of words that exist in English.
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The profusion of precise technical terms for increasingly fine divisions of reality.
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Yet true meaning recedes all the further.

The most graphic cinematic images of violence leave us unmoved.

Because we know that despite their near-perfect verisimilitude, they are not real.

Nothing is, in a world of images.
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Hence that thirst for reality.
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Anything real.
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No worries!
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Look over your shoulder there is a lot of reality headed our way.