#truish

Consumers today don’t want to be sold to, they just want to have conversations with purpose-led brands.

People want precisely targeted and relevant messages to empower them throughout the buying process.

People have shorter attention spans than ever and can only tolerate 3-frame micro videos before getting bored.

We hear this kind of stuff all the time in the advertising world. Usually from the lips of some TED Talk guru who thinks they’ve discovered the marketing theory of everything, conveniently laid out in their new book, of course.

Heads nod in unison as this hollow-eyed huckster spews their snake oil from the stage. These are not dumb people in the audience. So why are they so captivated by this cult leader wannabe?

Because he is speaking the world’s most popular and hypnotizing language—Tru-ish.

Take a tried and true (dare I say obvious) insight, sprinkle in a few buzz words, add a dash of “this changes everything” energy, and you too can achieve master level fluency in this diabolical dialect.

That sprinkling of truth is what hooks you, a reputable delivery mechanism that lulls your brain into a state of unquestioning acceptance.

People don’t want to be sold to. Never did, really. But do they really want to have a conversation with the company who makes their toilet paper, even if said company donates half their rolls to underprivileged chimps in Liberia?

People who are ready to buy something do like to know that there’s a good deal available at their local store. But I’m not sure they want to tracked to every corner of the internet for the privilege.

And yes, we have lost some of our ability to pay attention; we’re more distracted than ever. But we’ll also spend an entire long weekend binging all 27 seasons of Law & Order SVU from the toilet so we never have to take a pee break. We’re complicated like that.

Tru-ish may not be a new language. But social media has helped fuel it’s spread, especially among the elite. Politicians, the press and business execs have all become remarkably fluent, knowing full well that most of us are nearly powerless to resist its appeal.

To give ourselves a fighting chance, we must learn to recognize Tru-ish before our minds have been seduced by its lilty brogue. Only then can we see it for what it truly is.

You took my hands and pulled me up the creaky steps, to the platform, and we walked a while among lavender-colored wildflowers, which might have actually been lavender, and tall, pale green grasses. I was hoping to catch sight of a pika, or a ram, but that would have been too picturesque I guess, preposterously so.

Our cheap, gravel-eaten shoes clomped along the wood. The two mountains wrapped around us. It was a high valley with a crystal clear, utterly flat lake showing us the clouds and the more distant fourteen footers capped with snow and unseen wildlife.

A middle aged couple with tight cheeks and tanned skin passed us. They were wearing backpacks. You asked them if they summitted that day. I remember it because I'd never heard the word used as a verb before. I've pinned it to the back of my brain ever since, a way to seem like a native. Ask a mountain climber if they summitted, call a proper mountain a fourteener; do these things and you'll slip by unnoticed. They said they had reached the top. 

We stepped off the rows of wooden planks and pushed through the grass. We settled on some scratchy turf beside the lake, our arms and legs intertwined and we stared into each other's eyes and I was happy in the sort of way that makes me cry, because I start thinking immediately of how ephemeral it all is, the happiness.

We were high above the city that is itself a mile above the sea. The air was thin and my head was foggy, but I didn't get sick. We sat there and took in the scenery and you told me to make a memory. To take a picture with my mind. 

It was a ludicrously beautiful day and I was nestled between the two lush peaks, listening to the soft lap of the water on the grass, staring at you staring at me. A Hallmark card version heaven. I knew I would think back to it. Maybe I only do because I told myself I would. Maybe I only force myself to dredge it up the same way I pull the word summitted from my mind's cork board.