Facebook: the world's newest religion.

Half a billion practicing converts and slouching towards a billion rapidly, speaking 75 languages and all in just a few years, no millenniums needed. The Moses, Messiah and Pope of this amazing cultural phenomena is one Mark Zuckerberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, not to mention the subject of the Academy Award-nominated movie about him, “The Social Network”. He’s only 26 and already the $6 billion young man. He is creating Marshall McLuhan’s global village without knowing who McLuhan is. Like his predecessors, Marx, Jesus and Freud,he is a system builder. He has a vision of the world and is using his relentless genius to build it. He is the Uber Nerd and like his brilliant fellow nerds is hell-bent on bringing his brave new world to us at warp speed, no matter how socially disruptive his creation might be. And brother, is it going to be disruptive. Goodbye privacy and adios borders. I’m not on Facebook (it’s a generational thing). I can’t knock it except to point out that it’s not informed by literature (he’s never heard of E.M. Forster and he went to Harvard). He’s not interested in politics. He’s probably heard the word Orwellian but doesn’t know the source of it. So the revenue keeps pouring in as the photos keep being uploaded, the updates and links keep growing and the posts keep everyone posted. Is it a dark and tangled forest or is it a way to remind us that we are all one as the Buddha said. One of the main tenets of Buddhism is compassion and Facebook is electronic compassion. As for privacy, you must lose everything to gain everything and in a zen twist, wherever you go, there you are.
Luke says that the Kingdom of God lies within you. It’s as true a statement as there ever was. Maybe Facebook is simply a 21st Century version of the wisdom we’ve known for over 1500 years. But with lots of ads attached to it.

Everybody's selling, but nobody is buying.

For as long as I can remember it was easy to buy and hard to sell. Now it’s the other way around. No one has any money (except the 2% who are rich) or any credit so that the all important word in economics, demand, is at a standstill. On the other hand we now have more selling methods than ever in history. Hundreds of TV channels, thousands of radio stations and millions of internet websites. All of them pitching as hard as the late Bob Feller and suggesting you buy from home in your pyjamas with your credit card. But people don’t have any money in their pockets, let alone their pyjamas. so these messages are falling on deaf ears. Another upsidedowner is from the advertising playbook: the more you tell the more you sell. It used to be true in the golden age of copy and David Ogilvy. Unfortunately we live in an age where most messages are visual, and hence. hard to determine their meaning. If you do click on one of the enticing sites you’ll get a flood of information, or should I say hyperbole. I scroll down page after page of promises only to end up at a bar called “Order Now”…a $437 value only $47 if you place your order in the next 35 nanoseconds. Hope springs eternal, especially in these times, but these offers have the distinct aroma of scams. There used to be real products, real benefits and real companies to deal with but now who knows? As Marcel Proust once said, “To goodness and wisdom we only make promises, we obey pain.” Like foreclosure, unemployment and bankruptcy

Say something witty

Don’t tell jokes under any circumstances. They’re long-winded, boring and usually not very funny. Try to emulate Oscar Wilde: ‘A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Or try Noel Coward: “When I was in London I performed for café society, in Las Vegas I performed for Nescafe society”. Take a point of view that is skeptical and worldly. No mother in law jokes, no Lewinski jokes, no Tiger Woods jokes. You’re not there to trade one-liners with Henny Youngman. You’d lose every time. Use the language cleverly: “His limitations are boundless”. I got a fortune cookie today that said wisely: “Humor is an affirmation of dignity.” That’s the trouble with today’s stand up comics: no dignity, therefore no humor. Don’t use four letter words ever. You don’t want to be confused with a fourteen year old. Use the moment. Here’s an example: Red Skelton was one of the funniest men of the 20th Century playing the rube and the clown, but at the funeral of Harry Cohen, the bullying and unloved head of Columbia Pictures he remarked wittily at the large crowd at the service by saying: “Well, as Harry always said, give the public what they want and they’ll come”. Wit can bite and it should. Just look at the poetry of Alexander Pope. You’re exposing folly and pretension. Mort Sahl said he was very worried about the bowling alley they were putting in to the student union at Cal. Worried, why? Because he was afraid it was going to be a new Major. Brevity is the soul of wit. To wit: Noel Coward and a friend were at a reception in Africa when one of the pompous leaders came in followed by a diminutive aide. I wonder who that little fellow is?, asked the friend and Coward said, “Probably his lunch”. Remember Addison DeWitt, the critic in “All about Eve”? When Marilyn Monroe bombs at her audition for a play DeWitt recommends she try television. “Will I have to audition” she says, and he answers acidly, “My dear, television is just one big audition”. Of course television humor is a big business and if you ever get the opportunity to write for a late night show you can make $3500 a week. But you’ll be required to do 20 jokes a day and they won’t be memorable for more than a few minutes. I give the last word to Noel Coward: “Wit is like caviar, it should be served in very small portions, not sloshed about.”