THE REMAINS OF A CIVILIZATION

Going to MoMA for the first time since the pandemic started, I was reintroduced to the museum's visitors' solemn quietness deference. It is like walking into a church where art is God and religion at the same time.

Looking at the art pieces spread across the museum's broad and ample galleries, it felt like going through the remains of a civilization. Never before the 20th century felt this distant. According to observers, 9/11 marked the beginning of the 21st century by dramatically changing the geopolitical world order. The pandemic, the most significant social experiment ever made, changed us. And this unprecedented experiment is still running.

Visiting a museum in the context where we are living is now is a totally and radically different experience. And the Museum of Modern Art, the meeting place of modern and contemporary, suddenly becomes somehow ancient.

From Van Gogh to Duchamp, Andy Warhol to Jeff Koons, and the latest acquisition, more than 26.000 artists work are in the museum's collection. The collection includes an ever-expanding range of visual expression, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, photography, architecture, design, film, media and performance art. Everything is there; every critical piece of modern and contemporary art is represented at MoMA. Browsing the half-empty galleries– the museum is working on reduced capacity due to the pandemic–feels strange and eerie. After 15 months of different stages of lockdown, being among people inside a closed space makes you feel uneasy, which only makes the whole experience more surreal.

Watching people quietly observing what's on display, you realize that they look like survivors going through the wreckage of our postmodern world– quietly sorting out the debris of what society leaves behind after being decimated.

To me, it felt like the ultimate confirmation of the ending of an era. The end of the world as we know it. So far. It might have happened many times before in history, but I've never experienced quite like this in my lifetime.

Like most of us, over the last 15 months, I wondered many times when we are going back to normal, or if will we ever?

If it's true that our civilization is fully represented at MoMA, then there's no going back. We won't ever look at these fragments of life the same way. That’s because art is only completed in the viewer's eyes, and our eyes won't ever be the same.

It makes me wonder if these art pieces won't gain an entirely new meaning now? And by just proposing this question to myself, MoMA seems more alive and relevant than ever before.

THE ETERNAL REMAKE, REBOOT, SPIN-OFF LOOP

We can't overestimate the importance of culture, especially those pieces of culture that become the foundation of our perspective in life.

I think for the last 30/40 years, society has been constantly reloading and repackaging what was created decades ago. Today, it isn't hard to find remakes of 80's success – recently, there's been announced that Dune, Scarface, Splash, Karate Kid are ready to be released or in different stages of production. Remakes, reboots, and spin-offs help studios mitigate financial risks, and familiar characters and plots are a safe way to attract current audiences.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, and it seems that the previous generation has something to do with it. People born in the '80s and in the '90s spent most of their younger years without social media. With the arrival and consolidation of social networks and smartphones as the most important and effective way to share culture, late Gen Z and Millenials bombarded the digital space with their formative cultural references. A whole new generation was exposed to their music, books, art, and films, and they began to feed and chew on it. Next thing, they started to regurgitate it back to culture. Since then, there's a massive production of content and cultural trends based on what was produced decades ago. In a way, it is as if we haven't created anything original and new since then. That's not entirely true; something original made out of existing content is still original – just ask Marcel Duchamp.

But I wonder if the constant simplistic recreation of the same also lowers the creativity bar and shapes a more conservative and conformist audience?

Over the years, Hollywood studios, brands, influencers, and artists became more and more cautious of what they put out there to the world. By not taking risks to ensure viewers will "get the message," it feels like we are stuck on an eternal remake, reboot, and spin-off loop. There's a push to transform every piece of content into something acceptable to mainstream audiences. It seems we are continuously referencing the past but stripping off its original context and just keeping its attention-grabbing elements —form without substance.

When reflecting on the London 70's punk movement, Vivienne Westwood, one of the architects of the punk fashion phenomenon of the 1970s, realized that although they thought they were attacking the establishment, they were just part of the distraction. That's because the British mainstream quickly absorbed the punk aesthetics leaving the politically charged message behind.

Take Madonna and today's female pop singers, for example. Early Madonna was a product of the 70's disco era mixed with some NYC punk attitude, black music roots, and lots of sex – she grew up during the 60's sexual revolution, the 70's sexual decadence, and hit the 80's charts in the height of the AIDS pandemic. In the '80s and '90s, Madonna's provocative videos and stand on sexuality were highly controversial and reflected the tensions in society at that time.

Fast forward to 2021, most female pop singers still rock an oversexualized persona, music video, and song lyrics to grab attention. To play it safe, the provocative message has been diluted, reloading the shock value performance that generates buzz without the original context. 21st century Madonna seems to have followed the same formula.

This is happening everywhere. Adding social media to the mix, we are recreating content and feeding it to society at the speed of light, making people instantly famous today, only to turn them irrelevant the next day. The most recent spin is coming from a cancel culture that wants to erase the past to conform with the norms of today's society. As if rewriting history could make up for past mistakes instead of being a reminder of the obstacles society faces in the path of progress. At the same time, it seems that the more extravagant the artistic expression becomes, the less essential the substance is.

And the more we recreate, remake, reboot, and spin it, the shallower the next generation will be.

WE ARE HERE. WE ARE QUEER. FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, IT'S 2021. GET USED TO IT.

In case you have been living under a rock, Queer is a word that describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender.

Wait a minute, cisgender? What is it?

Most people who are assigned female at birth identify as girls or women, and most people who are assigned male at birth identify as boys or men. These are cisgender.

So, cisgender isn't queer. Is it clear?

Queer people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

What? Transgender?

Yes, some people have a gender identity that doesn't match their sex at birth. These people are transgender (or trans).

Transgenders are the “T” in LBGTQ+. You know, the L"" is for Lesbian, "G" for gay, "B" for bisexual, and "Q" for Queer. So, transgender people are queer.

Actually, there's another more updated acronym: LGBTQIA+. Being "I" for intersex, and "A" standing for "asexual" or "aromantic." Finally, the sign + was added to encompass all spectrums of sexuality and gender.

And there's non-binary too. Some people don't neatly fit into the categories of "man" or "woman," or "male" or "female." Some people don't identify with any gender—other people's gender changes over time. They are non-binary people.

Many non-binary people use "they" while others use "he" or "she," and still others use other pronouns.

Now, you are familiar with an entirely new alphabet. But pronouns and the LGBTQ+ acronym are the most mundane expression of it. It's the tip of a more significant shift that is shaking up the world. Actually, speaking of the tip, this topic has reached the tipping point. For most of the time in the recent past, society was either simply unaware of people dealing with gender and identity issues or, in other cases, just chose to look the other way.

But, these are some of the leading topics in culture and society today. Queer or not, it’s time to get updated and get used to it. There's a new speech, an entirely new language that needs to be rewritten off of what we used to consider the norm. This new thinking claims that the norm is to be free of normatization.

But this new approach to gender and sexual identity has been getting people really anxious. Aside from learning how to use the correct pronouns – just ask; it's that simple – the anxiety comes from the unknown. If the norms that we grew up used to are changing, that makes people uneasy about themselves. And fear is the mother of anxiety, uncertainty, and intolerance.

But these societal shifts have been happening more often and increasingly fast since the early 20th century. Just think of some of the last century movements: women's lib, black power, flower power, gay lib.

These movements changed society drastically and propelled the world to a more progressive view on what people individually and as a group needed. And they haven't stopped. Instead, they have been boiling up and dynamically changing until they reached the tipping point.

Think of the causes you stood up for and felt passionate about when you were young. Maybe now we need to stop reacting defensively or judging people and reconnect with our beliefs from our more youthful days. Especially the idea that change is good.

Like Bob Dylan said: “The order is rapidly fading. And the first one now will later be last. For the times they are a-changin”.

IS THIS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT?

As summer approaches, I found myself reflecting on last winter. Seasons have changed, but it seems it all stays the same.

As I have an internal conflict on whether I should write this, I have an internal conflict about whether I should post it too. I have watched people fighting on social media over different political views for years, and I've seen many close relationships get permanently fractured. While I struggle to join the loud and dissonant voices, I think of the value of my very own and very singular opinion. 

Those who are more familiar with my background know I was born under a dictatorial military regime, and it deeply affected my family's life. And it is that experience that tells me that I should feel right to say my piece. 

I refuse to accept that in the 21st century, we still believe in a binary world where there are only two options available: left or right. Being left or right is the same as good or evil, depending on where you and others stand on the political spectrum.

It all started with left or right, then it became far-right against far-left. Pushed so far on the polar opposites, what to say about everything in between?

I can't agree with people who say that they stand against intolerance while at the same time they dismiss people's different points of view by simply calling them ignorant. You can't fight discrimination with prejudice, and every time you push someone into a corner, remember that you are pushing yourself into the opposite corner as well. And more polarized and dangerous the world becomes.

I can't stand the patronizing and self-righteous attitude of educated people who don't understand where the discontent of others come from and believe they can solve the world's problem by lecturing others on what's right or wrong. All of a sudden, we all became experts in politics. And we see enemies everywhere. 

I can't stop thinking to myself: What have we done? How did we get here?

That reminded me of John Steinbeck's book, The Winter Of Our Discontent. The novel wrote it in the '60s in America, and the last that Steinbeck completed before his death in 1968, is a study on American moral degeneration and a deeply penetrating look into the American condition. It is a story of greed, delusion, and dishonesty in Eisenhower's America, and it is a brutally pessimistic commentary on the American Dream. The book follows the main character's story, Ethan Hawley, who succumbs to the pressures around him, his subsequent moral corruption, and the lengths to which one must attain success.

Steinbeck's novel finds many parallels with current issues. But it isn't happening in America only. We might have been too busy looking at our digital screens for the last decades, but one of the thing Covid brought out into the open is that the world has lost its compass. 

I'm not talking about "moral compass," at least not from a conservative perspective. The compass I'm talking about is the truth and the principles. When the truth isn't the truth anymore, principles lose relevance, and we lose direction.

One can say that truth is relative, and it depends on each one's perspective. I would say yes! And that's the challenge and the beauty of it. When looking for the truth, one can't ignore or dismiss, other's perspective.

Education or resentment shouldn't be overlooked, but one isn't more real than the other. Algorithms filter and select content for us, or we block people on social media with different options– we have been hunkered down long before Covid. Locked in our own bubbles, we seek a truth that fits us only. One-sided, flat and single truth. 

A misinformed and ignorant comment on social media can be infuriating. But what to say about patronizing replies from alleged educated people? Actually, if anything, I think the intellectual elite has the moral responsibility to elevate the conversation instead of shutting people down.

Is it always going to work? Probably not, but where do we go if we stay away from principles? Just like the truth, principles are a life's compass. I know how outdated this might sound, and yet…

We are all disillusioned and discontent. The world isn't what we thought it could be, and once we had to stop, we had to face it. We haven't thought about “we” in a long time – maybe ever – and now we blame others for the mess we all made together. 

We can blame anything we want. The economy, Trump, Obama, America, Brexit, Bolsonaro, Lula, Putin, social media. Greed. And then we can look for someone to save us because we think it isn't our responsibility. To me, the unquestionable truth is that it's only our fault.

In Shakespeare’s Richard III, from where Steinbeck took the Winter Of Our Discontent title, the character talks about a promising future, a glorious summer that is about to begin.

As summer approaches, I find myself wondering if, at last, is this the winter of our discontent?

EVERY CREATIVE IN THE WORLD OWES THEIR CAREERS TO MARCEL DUCHAMP

I went to art school not because I liked painting or drawing. In fact, my drawing skills were less than mediocre. Painting, I barely tried. But I liked art and design, particularly art history and conceptual art. I also enjoyed writing, but I thought that art was a more conceptual field than writing. So, I picked art over journalism.

Of course, I didn't do great in any class involving any manual skill in college. But I did very well in other areas.

In my freshman year, I had this fantastic conceptual artist as a teacher. Her name is Jac Leirner, and she is known for sculptures and installations created from mundane objects and ephemera, like promotional tickets, empty packs of cigarettes, and plastic shopping bags.

I don't remember the name of the class anymore, but it was basically about painting techniques and color theory—basic stuff. But I remember that we had to paint 3 different oil paintings on paper for the semester's final project based on the lessons we had throughout the course.

I worked on the 3 pieces using the techniques we learned but referencing 3 works from my favorite painters. On the back, I wrote an essay connecting their work to the assignment. I thought it was a very clever device to downplay my lack of skills while bringing attention to what I thought was my forte: the idea behind the work. 

Surprisingly, she gave me a 9. But she also said that although she believed that the thinking behind the work was brilliant, she warned me that I wouldn't get far as an artist if I didn't learn the basic techniques. She was right, but what she didn't know is that I never thought about being an artist myself. At that time, I also didn't know what I wanted to do at all.

Long story short, after working in a couple of art galleries, I scored an internship at an advertising agency in art direction following a friend's suggestion. 

When I first sat in front of an Apple computer, I realized I didn't need to draw or paint anymore. I was finally free to put my ideas out without my lack of drawing skills pulling me back. I also found a field where I could have a career creating ideas without being an artist.

Art School introduced me to Marcel Duchamp. And Marcel Duchamp changed everything. I wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for Marcel Duchamp.

When Duchamp presented his work titled Fountain - essentially a urinal - signed with a pseudonym, R Mutt, to the 1917 at the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in NYC, he proposed the most provocative question to art in the 20th century: what is art? and who decides it?

In doing so, Duchamp paved the way for Conceptual art— artwork that was "in the service of the mind," as opposed to a purely "retinal" art intended only to please the eye. Duchamp established that the concept, the idea itself, is art.

This is such radical thinking that changed art, and in many ways the world, forever.

There are so many implications on the thinking that art is everywhere and that art itself is only completed in the viewers' eyes, meaning that the work of art is open and any individual interpretation is possible and welcome. 

When Duchamp challenged the early 20th century notions of art, he triggered shock waves that would ultimately set people free to be creative without having to conform to taste or other conventions, allowing people like me more than 50 years later to find a way to express their creativity and make a living off of it.

Duchamp understood that technology would also disrupt the way we produce everything - including art - and that technical skills would become commodities. For this, I thank him and Apple from the bottom of my heart!

And he was entirely right. After the II World War, technology evolution would propel exponential changes that would enable people to create anything. Ideas became the utmost skill to change and shape the world we live in.

When you think of the visionaries that have been leading the world's innovation at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, they are people who had an idea and found ways to develop technology to implement them: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg... The list goes on and on.

Ideas can change the world. And a man with a vision back in 1917 changed my life, before I was even born.

FIRST, YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH NYC. THEN YOU HATE IT. ONLY AFTER IT, YOU'LL BE READY TO REALLY LOVE NYC.

At first, NYC opens up to you like the hottest person in the room. It’s sexy, exciting, mysterious, and dangerous. It promises you great sex. And that's fine because you are young at heart, and you only want to get laid anyway, just like anyone when they first arrive here.

You think you are in a movie; everything looks strangely familiar and at the same time utterly different from what you expected. It is luring, glamorous and exciting. You want to check the NYC box and eat the entire apple!

Next night, next hookup, next job, next bar, hopping around in sparkling boozy nights, intoxicated by the glamour constantly oozing from the city. The city that never sleeps and it always keeps you awake at night.

You are going to make it in NYC. Pop the Champaign, chug the tequila, finish that line, and hold my beer because I'm taking this city by storm.

Uptown, downtown, uppers, and downers, it's the American dream. But watch out; everyone is jaded in NYC. And NYC will break your heart because it's a broken dream in an already broken world. It will take you down and challenge you to build yourself up again.

That's when it hits you hard: you hate NYC.

You hate the packed subway trains and every busy midtown crossing; the polite "good morning" that the CVS employee gives at you when you walk in just to ignore you a second later. Or the grumpy deli employee that isn't afraid to show how much he despises your guts at 4 am.

You hate the preppies all over uptown; bridge and tunnel people on weekends; the rank of freaks eyeing you late at night; smug faces shopping on Bleecker street, thick black-framed aloof artsy types drinking wine at Chelsea's vernissages; the latest spring collection; drivers honking outside your home at 2 am. You loathe the tiny apartments with windows that don't open; tiny apartment with windows that don't open with obscene monthly rent; bougie girls carrying little pets and designer bags; homeless people asking for cigarettes, white trash drunken youngsters barfing on the street; backstabbers having coffee and smiling at you before meetings; miserably unhappy servers trying to upsell; people hustling everywhere. And taxes! You can't hate anything else more than the taxes in NYC.

Running across the city, always late, always on time. You realize that the hustle and bustle is killing you. You want to yell at a corner: pretend is a city!

Like people suffering from a collective Stockholm syndrome, you think you can find solace in people going through the same thing as you. Then you gather with friends at a bar at a happy hour and cheer to NYC. Like war survivors, you feel proud that you made it this far. You convince yourself that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But don’t forget: “live in NYC once but leave before it makes you hard.”

But part of you keeps hoping for one sign of humanity. Just one, that's all it takes. And then one day, without notice, it happens!

It is just another spring day, nothing special about it at all. You are walking on the street, and the sunlight hits the tree branches in a certain way, or a baby on a stroller – or an unknown passer-by – exchange eye contact with you. Or maybe you are at a restaurant, and the couple sitting next to you gets up and decides to dance on the street.

It's a small and fleeting moment. But that moment fills your heart with hope. All of a sudden, everything is possible again, and you love living that moment. That's when you realize you love NYC deeply.

To me, this is the real NYC – a city you can only know if you really pay attention to it and let it speaks to you. I checked that box and found out that beyond the glossy surfaces and the rigid inner layers, there's a heart pumping in there—the heart of NYC.

I’ll always ❤️ NYC.

I'M STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT BILLIE EILISH. SO DOES SHE.

I don't remember the first time I heard Billie Eilish. But her image and voice gradually caught my attention.

When I finally watched her perform live on tv, I thought I was watching something new for the first time in a long while. Then I read about her refusal to fall into the pop music industry machine and instead choosing to be an icon to body positivity. Defying gender stereotypes that mold each new female singer to a Lolita sex symbol type, she preferred to show up wearing her green hair trademark, baggy shirts, and trousers covering up her curvy body. I thought to myself: this generation found a voice and at last times are changing.

Indeed, it was refreshing to watch a talented new singer that refused to look like another Lolita. Since Britney, it seems that every new girl in the scene eventually followed that playbook. But then there was the first time I noticed something sort of confusing about her. I never could get the baggy clothing matched with designer brands' logo patterns. I tried to decode its message, and it really didn't add up to me. Was there some sort of irony in wearing baggy clothing with Gucci logos all over it? It might be, but I couldn't get it. Let me be clear, I get the baggy tracksuits and hoodies. What I didn't get was matching it with the overly labeled designer clothes.

After that, I think I didn't pay much attention to her until her “The World's a Little Blurry” Apple TV+ documentary came out. It gave audiences a more intimate look into her creative process with her brother Phinneas and also on the relationship with her very supportive parents. It was surprising to know that she's been diagnosed with Tourettes at an early age, and the documentary showed how she deals with her condition in a demystifying and candid way. It also revealed her fears about how their fan base reacts to her social media, sharing a sneak peek at how she literally throws herself to the adoring crowds of fans. To me, that type of adoration was a red alert.

Finally, it documented her teen crush for Justin Bieber and the moment Eilish in complete ecstasy meets her teen idol. That part got me very confused again. Eilish moody lyrics, silky vocals, and eclectic music combining pop, jazz, EDM, and more, to me, sounds so far away from Bieber's pop style. It gave me sort of a short circuit. Who could ever thought that Eilish was a Bieb’s fan?

It is true that I don't like Bieber. In fact, any of Bieber's versions: baby teen promising swooping hair Bieber; bad boy Bieber; and finally, repentant Bieber. But Eilish and Bieber styles are not only different; they seem to come from entirely opposite directions. This made it even more surprising to find out that she still wholly adores him even today, creating an interesting parallel to her adoring teenage fans.

And now, another shocking revelation: Billie Eilish British Vogue cover showed her with her new blond locks wearing a tight pink Gucci corset. Yes, the same girl who used baggy clothes to push back on pop stars stereotypes and celebrated body positivity now poses like a pinup and claims, "It's all about what makes you feel good." "Suddenly you're a hypocrite if you want to show your skin, and you're easy and you're a slut and you're a wh---. If I am, then I'm proud," completed the singer.

I tried to put this puzzle together when I remembered that Eilish is only 19 years old. A 19-year-old girl changed her looks and got the world talking about it! I can't help but feel fiberglassed by the reach, power, and importance 19 years old kids have today. Her relevance isn't undeserving at all, but it's crazy to think of the storm created by the press and social media around a 19-year-old girl's transformation. As if it comes as a surprise that a young girl of her age decided to try another look. Shocker, right?

Back in 2019, a 17 y.o. Eilish claimed she wouldn't ever need a stylist. She said in a New York Times profile then: "I'm not that kind of person, and I'm not that kind of artist." Looking at her Vogue cover shoot, I fear that Eilish might be on track to become another talented pop singer who succumbed to the music industry machine. It wouldn't be the first time, and sadly not the last. But at the same time, she is just another young girl experimenting and trying to figure out herself. And she should feel free to do it.

Of course, it isn't that easy when you are in the limelight. However, aside from the media scrutiny that comes with being a celebrity, isn't it odd that today we give so much importance to something so trivial as changing a look? More importantly, why do people care so much about 19 y.o. girl's change of heart. Looks like we have plenty of more pressing topics going on in the world. A global pandemic, maybe?

Eilish transformation into a bombshell sexy siren might be confusing and perhaps a risky career move. Or it might be another Instagram-like look that we will forget a week from now. Soon, we will find out. I'm not downplaying the importance of young people having a voice, questioning society, and pushing for change and progress. But I wonder if we are putting too much pressure on youngsters and giving too much importance to people who don't know much yet?

Maybe we should hear their questions and have a conversation instead of expecting them to have all the answers.

I WAS BULLIED AND I DIDN'T KNOW. UNTIL I DID.

It took me decades to realize that I was bullied, and it took me the pause that the pandemic gave me to understand to which extent we live in a society that enables and systematically normalizes bullying. Gay, straight, short, tall, fat, skinny, white, black, or brown. There's an endless list of the box that you should fit in, and if you don't, and most of us don't, it is enough reason to get people bullying you.

I recently came across this piece of data: Only 7 percent of men globally relate to how masculinity is depicted in the media.That is a shocking statistic, especially when you think that 93 percent of men don't feel comfortable with the same standards that they help promote in their daily lives.

Now think beyond masculinity. Think of how many people feel uncomfortable in just being who they are in general.I've always had a problem with fitting in any box. The idea of being categorized as something and then having to act according to a specific norm always made me cringe.

For example, for my straight friends and I was a little too gay, and for my gay friends, I was maybe not gay enough to their standards. That shows that prejudice, and its best friends intolerance and bullying, happen among any group of people. Refusing to live up to these groups' expectations added a lot of tension to my life, and many times it made me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious around any of them.

And then there's the clique effect. Cliques are like a curse. When we are very young, we want to belong to a group, and we eagerly try to look like others just to feel accepted. But when we grow up, sometimes, we don't grow out of this pattern. And there we go through life trying to be accepted by a people, burying deep down our own insecurities and authentic identity to be accepted and survive the environment surrounding us. Because I didn't follow the clique's playbook, most of them gave me a hard time.

My parents were an interesting combo. My father was a pragmatic atheist communist, and my mother was a catholic with an artistic spirit. While one liked to preach about what was right or wrong, the other chose to pray for the best. One was fascinated by politics, and the other loved the arts. I guess my choice of not fitting in any box came from my experience of trying not to choose sides and, at the same time, curious about both points of view on life. Although I'm thankful to have been presented with such diverse takes on life early, it wasn't an easy ride.

My father was a man of his generation. Pragmatic and uncomfortable in showing emotions, as much as intelligent and liberal, as he was, he was too critical as well. I think my first experiences with being bullied came from him when he would lecture me at the dinner table, dissecting every word from my mouth. It was a pure exercise of his analytical and logical skills, and I am sure that he believed it was education. Nevertheless, it fed my insecurities for life.

My mother was the opposite. Caring, sensitive, and artistic, she encouraged every creative aspect of my personality while at the same time unconsciously reinforcing the impression that somehow I was always in need of protection. This dynamic ended up forging a personality that, on one side, was terribly self-conscious,on the other side kept pushing back to any form of conformism.

Too tall, too sensitive, too old, too young, too skinny, too critical, too emotional, too cynical., too bold, too soft. Throughout my life, I've been categorized as so many different things, some opposite to another, that I lost count of them.

Does it sound familiar to you? I bet it does. That's because I'm not an exception; I'm the rule. We are the rule. Have you ever felt hurt or had your life opportunities blocked just because you don't fit the mold or don't belong to a particular clique? Who hasn't?

Well, for most of my life, I didn't even know I had been bullied. I just thought that this how things go. If you are different, things will be more challenging, and you better get used to it. I didn't know that the box that I don't fit in; most people don't fit in it either. And that those people making my life miserable were trying hard themselves to conform to something that only made them miserable as well.

That positive side of coming to the realization that there's nothing wrong with you is the feeling of self-empowerment. Yes, you might have been a fool to second guess yourself in the past, but now you know you were OK all along. And once you know, you can't unkown it.

THERE'S NO SUCH A THING CALLED DIGITAL. EVERYTHING IS CONTENT. LET'S TALK ABOUT CULTURE.

Not long-ago marketers' influencers proclaimed: we are living in a digital era. There was plenty of evidence to confirm it then. And even more now. All you have to do is look around. In fact, you are reading this on a digital device.

But if everything is digital, is there anything non-digital? Is there a need for us to label a thing as digital anymore? Today we experience the world seamlessly from analog to digital to the point that sometimes we can't tell the difference.

When you read a magazine – those made of paper that still exists –, and you like the cover or a particular article, what is it that you do? You take a picture and text it to a friend or post it on social media. There, that analog piece has just been converted into digital. It's the same thing with that cool exhibit or experience you attended. You like it; you share it.

We live in a world where we exist with analog and digital, all at the same time.

But when you take that picture or simply share it on text with a friend, you are actually producing content too. Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, many of them generating content more than once a day. It has been like that, increasing exponentially, for decades already.

In 1996 Bill Gates published an essay called Content is King. 1996! Almost 25 years ago, Bill Gates said that one of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC and a modem can publish whatever content they can create. And that was before smartphones, high-speed streaming, and the Cloud.

Ok. What's the point?

Let's face it, the concept that Content is King is old news. Once content generation became accessible to anyone with a smartphone, the game changed drastically.

What's next then?

Next is an abstraction. But if we don't know what's next, we can quickly identify what's current.

Beyond being content generators – and curators – the brand needs to be culturally relevant and purposeful. We don't buy products anymore. Products, in most cases, became a commodity, a vehicle to carry out a message. And messages only matter – and attract attention – if they are relevant.

Any brand today can be – and should be – carefully curating and crafting its message. For God's sake, we are not talking about advertising! Advertising might part of the mix, but let's face it, we are too cynical these days to believe in only advertising. We do still believe in purpose and actions, though. We like to be entertained and informed.

The conversation shouldn't be about content anymore.

The conversation is about Culture.

Purpose, information, and entertainment – they are all about Culture.

Let me know how your brand brings purpose to the world, inform me, and entertain me, and maybe I'll pay attention. And maybe after that, I'll buy your product. Then, only then, I might share it with a friend.

* Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/) is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities and habits of the individuals in these groups.

JARED, KYLIE, ZENDAYA, TIMOTHÉE AND THE NEXT CULTURAL CYCLE.

We all know well Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame prophecy, and experts have talked long enough about how it found confirmation in the success of reality shows and social media. In fact, current cultural cycle is all about fame seekers and the celebration of all forms of narcissism.

But it seems that the next cultural cycle will promote a dramatic shift.

To me, nothing epitomized the current cycle better than the rise of the Kardashians. As a cultural phenomenon, KUWTK is shallow, frivolous, and apparently harmless entertainment like any other reality show. However, they knew how to tap into the cultural trends and harness the power of social media to boost their business like no other.

Since its debut in 2007, the show has become one of the longest-running reality shows in the US. It has also followed and fed some of the most important social media trends of the last 15 years.

From Kim's 2015 Selfie book to Kylie's lip fillers, KUWTK helped reshape women's self-image worldwide. Mixing scandals with constant over-the-top displays of wealth and self-indulgence, it helped amplify online toxic beauty standards. When we look back to the first 20 years of the 21st century, there will be more selfies than any other image.

So, what's the next cycle about?

If narcissism, decadent indulgence, photoshop, and image editing apps were already getting outdated before the pandemic, the coronavirus only sped up its downfall. But with millions of people hunkered down consuming social media content for too long, people begin to talk about the effect of constant promotion of perfection on teenagers, especially young girls. When a major global brand like Dove starts to lead the conversion about toxic beauty standards with its 2021 Real Beauty platform new campaign, it is undoubtedly becoming a mainstream topic.

It is not like the world will suddenly ban fake beauty, fillers, or filters for good. People will continue posting pictures, craving for validation.

But Gen Z, who has grown up with reality shows and social media, seems to have had enough of it. The pendulum of history always goes from side to side, but this time it looks like it's beyond that. It seems more about a long-needed adjustment.

But this shift makes me wonder what will happen with celebrities and artists who banked on social media as a way to amplify their reach, careers, or business?

Kim Kardashian, the savviest of the bunch, has already started to reshape her career as a law student and ambassador of prison reform. The rest of the family still keep posting half-naked and pouchy lips selfies on Instagram.

And this is gender-free practice. Looking at some other famous actors' social feeds, we'll find the same old barrage of selfies and carefully edited casual pictures.

Take Oscar winner Jared Leto, for example. Once his generation's rebel, the actor turned sex symbol, rock star, and most recently fashion icon didn't make anything of notice since his Oscar win with Dallas Boys Club. But he has been posting selfies or shirtless pics every day. The same guy who personified the opposite of a high school jock male stereotype, and won an Oscar portraying an HIV-positive transgender character, became a poster boy for social media narcissism and conformism.

Going in the opposite direction, Timothée Chalamet, the Jared Leto of the Gen Zs, only posts occasionally, and his posts are basically promoting one of his films or magazine covers, combined with a couple of "non-edited" pics and some random stuff like a picture of a road in Massachusetts. Maybe, just like Leto (49), in the future, Chalamet (25) might shift from a talented and pretty, and yet awkwardly, actor into a fashion icon and sex symbol too. Who knows. But as for right now, they represent polar opposites.

They both use social media to keep in touch with their fan base, but their feeds portrayal very different images. Chalamet is the new fresh look of the 2020s, while Leto's image seems to have devoured the person. One seeks recognition and connection, the other feeds his fans with a narcissistic ego trip quietly promoting unobtainable beauty and life standards.

But the narcissistic aspects of social media had a way more onerous impact on girls. Research studies point out that young women are the most vulnerable audience to the pressure to conform to beauty standards promoted online. But today, there is a new dynamic happening. Different forces are playing opposite each other ; or it might be the passing the torch from one cycle to another.

Let's look at Zendaya and Kylie Jenner's case. Just like Leto and Chalament, regardless of their ages, they represent totally different cycles.

Zendaya and Jenner are in the same age bracket, making the actress and the social media and cosmetic mogul both Gen Z. While Jenner inherited and embodied the Kardashian Instagram indulgent and highly filtered ethos and esthetics, Zendaya represents a more modern, socially and environmentally conscious fresher take on beauty and life. Dove's new campaign is targeting this audience. Young girls who will be will be adults in a couple of years and look for brands related to their values. The new cycle signals a shift from narcissism disguised as self-empowerment to a natural, democratic, and more organic promotion of people's enablement.

As rich, powerful, and influential as Kylie Jenner is today, it seems like she has peaked unless she shifts her image too. In 2021, narcissism is so last season.

GUST OF WIND AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RELIVING A MOMENT

The first time I listened Pharrell’s Gust Of Wind, the song hit me like a blast.

It captured the energy and feeling of the moment I was living at the time.

Just like other songs that became part of my life’s song track, Gust Of Wind played on repeat on my iPhone for weeks.

But there is one specific night walking in Tribeca under a serious but yet hopeful moonlight that I will never forget. My heart was full, and without any reason, or maybe because of too many, the song made me feel like the world had opened up to me. The way ahead was full of uncertainties, the road behind had too many bumps, but I was full of hope.

When I scroll down on my life’s playlist, I can find many other similar moments: Prince singing Around the World In A Day while I saw from the sky Spain’s shore approaching; Raspberry Beret played while I watched dandelions flying behind my bike, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Moving On was rocking while the bus crossed a long road into the country; Paul Weller’s Wild Wood was blasting loud on the headphones when I was on a catamaran with the wind on my face; and Waterboy’s Whole Of The Moon helped me to drive sadness and joy throughout my life. The list goes on and on.

Yesterday while walking at the beach at sunset, I listened to Gust Of Wind totally by chance. I just pressed play on my Iphone, and it randomly picked Pharrell’s song. It reminded me of that night years ago in Tribeca. I’m in such a different place - pun intended or not - at this time in my life. But it made me think of that feeling and I felt a mix of hope and fear. Fear because I worried I couldn’t relive the moment, but hope because it carried me through everything in my entire life. 

I’m not an optimistic person; I’m a hopeful person. Optimism, to me, is about pragmatism and action. Hope is about will and emotion. My heart fills up like a balloon when hope gives me the will to move on amid all uncertainties.

That’s the common thread among these moments and songs. They are all about moving on, all about the journey, and not so much the destination. As abstract as the destination can be to me, hope is that place you long to be, but you know you are not there yet. It’s an unfolding journey made of many moments that are impossible to relive. Fleeting seconds made of a combination of elements that came together only once and without anticipation. They dissipate in a blink of an eye, but not before leaving behind an enduring emotion.

Yesterday I walked on the beach listening to Gust Of Wind as a placeholder, or maybe just as a bridge until I find another song, but I had hope in my heart.

MAJOR BRANDS SHOULD TAKE NOTES FROM THE LUXURY INDUSTRY

Located at the top of the scale, the luxury industry focus on products and services that are not necessary but pleasant and satisfying to possess. 

With products being commoditized by technology, luxury brands shifted their focus beyond the product and services. High-end consumers aren't buying just a high-quality product or service anymore; they buy from brands that represent their lifestyle and values.

It's about relevance. 

Not too far in the future, we will be able to design and print our own sneakers. Or maybe we will sign up for a subscription service that will deliver it to our homes. The things that we wear today will become "stuff" soon. Or just like Miranda Priestly* would say, something that we pulled out of a pile of stuff. The world is being commoditized and utilitized.

To offer more pleasant and satisfying experiences, luxury brands redefined their purpose and relevance to customers and society in general. 

But there's more. Luxury brands are writing a new playbook saying that every brand wanting to remain relevant today should start taking notes from. 

It begins by understanding that legacy is a value from the past. 

Legacy brands that are betting on their history and longevity but aren't relevant to the modern cultural context are deemed to become irrelevant by yesterday. 

Inclusivity, diversity, and sustainability are not just for show. 

Brands must express genuine commitment and purpose to have a positive impact on society. 

Prada appointed as joint heads of the brand's Advisory Committee, the artist and activist Theaster Gates, and producer/director Ava DuVernay; LVMH has signed up to the worldwide code of conduct battling discrimination against the LGBTQ community in the workplace; Gucci formed a Changemakers Council aiming to make a lasting social impact; Rolex partnered with National Geographic to promote exploration and conservation.

Evidence that luxury brands are addressing culturally and socially relevant topics is everywhere. Still, they are also starting to realize that they became cultural objects themselves. Millennials and Generation Z have grown up in a world of borderless connections, and they are the most racially and sexually diverse generations in history. In tune with all that is going on, Louis Vuitton appointed Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White, as the brand's artistic director. Not only the black designer in charge of a world luxury giant, but he is also a millennial.

Data. Do we still need to talk about data today? 

Data is such a 2010s topic, but Data Privacy is more current than ever. To create better experiences, brands will need to draw data from all customer's touchpoints. Like GDPR and CCPA, legislations are being enacted globally, reaffirming the need for brands to think carefully about privacy when managing their consumers' data today. 

Managing customers' data is a matter of transparency and trust. 

But if consumers value their privacy, they also love personalization. 

Social platforms offer valuable behavioral data to enable more personalized experiences, which creates an opportunity for brands to develop more custom-centric and authentic engagement.

Just like data, tech-driven is such a last season topic. Still, gaming, experiential, AI, immersive, and personalization - all data & tech-related topics - are very much on-trend. 

Chanel launched a gamified store experience in China; skincare brand SK-II's utilizes state-of-the-art facial recognition; Gucci created an interactive Book of Gifts including its own emojis; Jaguar Land Rover partnered with IBM to launch a new in-store virtual reality screen; Virgin opened an immersive cabin test-run store installation; Rag & Bone created an AI-driven experience to create a video for its Fall/Winter collection launching. 

There are many other examples of how luxury brands are pushing the envelope on innovative brand experiences. Storytelling, branded content, social media, and collaborations are amplifying the brand's ethos. Modern brands are creating omnichannel seamless experiences that are more authentic, purposeful, and relevant.

Leading luxury brands are adapting themselves to constant societal changes without losing their core values. 

Just like every modern brand should do.

*Anna Wintour's inspired character in the film Devil Wears Prada.

MAGIC HAPPENS IN A BLINK OF AN EYE

There's always something extraordinary and exciting about live events. Before the pandemic, "experiential" and 'immersive" were every brand's aspirations. Among many things that 2020 changed, it made us rethink the meaning of what we call digital, giving a totally new context for experiential and immersive. But some of the magic of live experiences were lost.

This week I found myself thinking about Alexander McQueen's memorable and highly theatrical fashion shows. I thought about a time when we could witness moments, fleeting as they could be, but still, and perhaps because of it, they could last forever.

Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty 1999's Show was something unique and one of a kind. It captured a moment in time while simultaneously being ahead of its time.

Nature versus machine, fear, exaltation, and sensuality were recurrent themes in McQueen's work, and he always turned it up to 11 with his fully theatrical fashion shows. Combining his famous sophisticated craftsmanship and tailoring with his fearless and experimental artistic expression, he took fashion shows beyond a simple display of clothing.

Savage Beauty show ended with Shalom Harlow standing at the edge of a turntable, her arms above her head, protecting herself from two robot arms spraying paint on her virginal white dress.

That was the show's most emblematic, thrilling, and memorable moment. Even if you only watched it on the news back then, you couldn't help thinking about how it would feel being there when it happened.

22 years later, when fear of automation is a current topic in today's culture and society, Savage Beauty ending is still as relevant and powerful as ever.

Today it became a piece of digital content that you can still watch at any time on YouTube. But it's more than that. It's a memory of a time when we weren't only viewers. A time when we could also witness live and extraordinary moments happening right in front of our eyes. They might happen in just a blink of an eye, but isn't it what magic is all about?

WHAT’S THE COLOR OF MY SKIN?

Before moving to the US, I never thought about my skin color. Actually, I only thought about it when I needed to choose sunscreen SPF. I'm so painfully pale that without SPF 70 sunscreen and staying under an umbrella, I'll go from pale to bright burning pink in a flash. In that aspect, my skin color has been clearly a disadvantage compared to people who can get tanned easily.

Everything that I wrote above screams white privilege. Being Brazilian and only caring about the color of my skin when choosing SPF shows that I obviously grew up without ever experiencing any racial prejudice. But skin color is less about pigmentation and more about how people see another person.

When I moved to the US, I found out that Americans thought I wasn't white simply because I was born in Brazil. Aside from thinking they are all American are color blind, I wondered why did they care? I thought to myself, it's OK that you believe that Brazilians are brown or black – sorry to disappoint you – but I couldn't pass the fact that someone thought it was appropriate to question someone else's skin color or race.

I began trying to find out what box I belong to. Or what box other people think I belong to. I always thought of myself as a Latino, but I preferred saying Latin instead. I think it is a broader term encompassing all countries with Latin as the root of their languages, like Italian and French. Maybe it's because of my own ancestry with Portuguese, Spanish, and French backgrounds. However, being Latino is not a matter of genetics. It's about how you identify yourself and how others identify you.

I know this is a loaded topic, so I tried to educate myself on the matter. I learned about the Latino community's fight in the US to be acknowledged and have equal rights and how the term Latino is empowering for the community. This term gained usage partly because it more easily accommodates Brazil's people (who speak Portuguese). To my surprise, I found out that if you ask Latinos in the US if they consider Brazilian Latinos, many of them are reticent or simply say no. That’s probably because Brazil being colonized by Portugal instead of Spain, like most of South America, makes Brazil sort of an outsider.

One curious thing I learned is that Latinos in the US don't think they are white, though. But the most important lesson I learned is that it's an entirely different ball game when you actually experience racial biases. In my life, I've experienced other types of prejudices before, so I could quickly identify the feeling too. It makes you understand the empowerment feeling that comes from the sense of a community that stands together. It gives you a different notion of context, politics, and identity.

Skin color matters because people still care too much about it. But mainly because it can be used to empower or disempower people. You can never learn enough about this topic because it's a dynamic subject that keeps being updated continuously. It's essential to always make education part of your journey in searching for your own identity.

Well, in the end, I realized that because I'm Brazilian, I'm not white enough to Americans and that the Latinos don't think I am one of them. Since then, every time I had to check the racial box, I choose alien.

IS PERCEPTION REALITY?

In the early '80s, Rolling Stones magazine hired Fallon McElligott advertising agency to create a campaign to attract a new range of advertisers. The main goal was to show that the magazine's readers were no longer hippies, but they had become affluent and mainstream. Fallon McElligott's iconic "Perception/ Reality" campaign was a huge success. The cleverly simple designed ads – more than 60 different executions – reached their goal by raising the ad sales by nearly 50 percent.

That idea that "perception is reality" was first expressed in a statement made by George H. W. Bush's political strategist, Lee Atwater. Atwater's message was that if you can make people believe something, it becomes, if you like, a de facto fact.

Atwater's phrase became part of the culture – although most people don't remember him – the magazine campaign became an iconic cultural moment.

However, for decades significant brands still have followed the playbook that perception is what it counts.

But 40 years later, is perception still reality?

The answer is, with big, bold, capital letters, NO.

Today, more than ever, people expect to see words translated into actions in a demonstrative and effective way. Brand's perception should also express what the company behind it stands for and its role and responsibility in society.

Today, even big and bold actions only count if they are relevant and consistent. It's not the time for one-offs; it's time to make a difference.

Talk less, do more.

A heartwarming positive message ad would be enough to keep a brand relevant and build its reputation in the recent past. It was enough to be entertaining.

The journalist and historian professor Neal Gabler wrote in his book “Life – the movie” that entertainment is arguably the most pervasive, powerful and ineluctable force of our time -- a force so overwhelming that it has finally metastasized into life. 

He argues that entertainment and movie logic has been incorporated into every corner of society, and that was "the triumph of entertainment over life itself."

We can find evidence of it in the success of reality shows, the increasing power of social media, the influencer's and celebrity cult phenomena, or even on the way primetime shows deliver the news or how presidential debates are staged. It's all a big show.

This show is over. Welcome to the new normal.

The coronavirus pandemic dramatically changed the world, and we still don't know the full extent of its effect on society. While we try to adapt to the new normal, one thing is for sure, though: priorities have changed.

In March 2020, many brands announced their efforts to help fight the virus and support people whose lives were utterly disrupted by the pandemic's devastating effects on the world's health system and economy.

The companies behind these brands are leaving their mark in history and on people's minds in a way far beyond that any considerable marketing effort could do. That's because companies and brands understand that they are made of people, and they are both their most valuable asset, advocate, and yes, consumer as well.

It is too early to understand the shifts that this pandemic will cause in the fabric of today's society. But it is not too soon to see that this crisis, as it unfolds, reveals the conflicts and challenges of the way we live. Or that we used to live.

During the beginning of this crisis, some business leaders quickly jumped to say that one couldn't ever forget that the company comes first. For them, it meant that layoffs and furloughs were a way to make sure the company would survive. As some entire business industries are being wholly disrupted – potentially thousands of companies will disappear in the following months and years – one wonders what the company is without the people?

To Jack Dorsey, people comes first. The co-founder and CEO of Twitter pledged $ 1 billion ( 28% of his fortune) to fund COVID-19 relief and other charities. In 2015, shortly after Twitter laid off roughly 8% of its employees, Dorsey announced that he was donating almost $200 million in Twitter stock back to the employee grant pool. It was about a third of his total stake in the company.

He famously tweeted at the time: "I'd rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small."

Jack Dorsey was followed by several CEOs stepping up by taking pay cuts, promising no furloughs or layoffs, and by doing so, writing their names in history.

As the traditional ideas of leadership, success, and opportunity are being questioned by society, companies behind big brands should do the same.

They must redefine their purpose– what they mean to consumers both practically and emotionally – and look at their company culture and make sure that their corporate values, environment, practices, and ethics align with their employee's needs and are relevant to today's society.

Walk the talk.

Did you get that?

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SHARON STONE'S HIGHS AND LOWS?

In 1996 Sharon Stone walked the Oscar's red carpet wearing a Valentino skirt, paired with an Armani tuxedo jacket and a white Gap T-shirt. She completed the look wearing a gardenia on the lapel that she picked from her garden. 

That year, Stone had been nominated to the best actress for her role in Casino, and her high-low look created an immediate media sensation and became part of fashion history.

In fashion, High-low is when you pair the most expensive pieces in your wardrobe with the most affordable, or rather, cheaper items for an effortless look. 

But Sharon Stone seems to be herself the embodiment of high-low.

With a career that spans 3 decades, the actress and activist have had a fair share of successes and failures.

Sharon Stone's public persona is daring, bold, over the top, but yet strangely relatable. She's an unmistakably beautiful woman, but one could say that she isn't prettier than many other tall, blonde former models who turned into acting. We can't deny her sexy appeal too. But according to her recently released memoir, that's the result of the combination of Catherine Trimmell's personality (her Basic Instinct's character) and a public image that she carefully crafted to deal with the press – Sharon Stone calls herself an introvert in her personal life.

I'm wondering if this mixture of high-low isn't the secret of Sharon Stone's allure?

Perhaps because being an introvert makes her vulnerable, she uses her sex appeal as armor. I bet countless women in the world can relate to that. And many men too. We all have our always-ready-to-deploy-armors. It can be sex, wits, strength, humor, violence, you name it.

From the famous leg-crossing in Basic Instinct to Catwoman's embarrassing flop, Sharon Stone made it look like she dealt with life with a combination of passion and ease, of determination and detachment.

In her book, Stone says that an accident with a Vera Wang gown made her improvise the 1996 Oscar's look. 

She obviously looked glamorous, elegant, and beautiful. Wearing simple makeup and jewelry with a nonchalant attitude, she clearly stood out.

She had everything to feel vulnerable, and yet it looked like she was having fun.

Maybe that's Sharon' Stone’s secret: ride the highs, but don't take them too seriously. Take the lows as something that we just have to deal with.

SEX AND THE CITY, MAGNOLIA, BUDDHISM AND BEING JUDGMENTAL

Judging. Oh boy, don't I judge!? Sometimes I enjoy judging people too much. I can't help looking at them and judging how they talk, how they look, their mannerism, their ideas, and their beliefs.

My friends and I used to gather around the table to drink and talk shit about people– remember those days when we could do it person? We could do it for hours, and between laughs and cracking wise jokes, we wouldn't feel the time passing nor bad about ourselves.

There's one episode of “Sex and the City” that Stanford, the girls gay friend, says: "We judge. That's our hobby. Some people do arts and crafts. We judge".

I thought this was hilarious and reflected well that urban type of friends who love to gossip and make funny and witty remarks about other people. I can totally relate to it, and I still think some one-liners are simply too good, irresistible, and delicious.

I didn't care for a long time about the difference between criticism and judgment. Of course, the never-ending groundhog day we are living in gave me pause to think about it too. And I realized that I'm too critical most of the time, but I crossed the line to judgment many times.

To me, criticism is simply observation and analytical thinking, and I do enjoy analyzing things. But judgment has moral overtones; it aims to dictate what's right or wrong. Passing judgment is a very tricky thing to do because in the end, who do we think we are to judge other people, right?

I believe that crossing that line has everything to do with fear and sometimes anger. I criticize to get an assessment of the situation and what's the best action to take. Sometimes, driven by fear, instead of evaluating a problem, I'm quickly jumping to judging.

Other times, it's driven by anger, then I chose to quietly judge people. Just like that scene in “Magnolia” when a journalist challenges Tom Cruise's character with an uncomfortable truth about his path. When he keeps staring at her, she asked what is he thinking. His answer: "I'm quietly judging you.”

You see, it's hard not love those one-liners!

I've read about how Buddhism says that all things are empty. This is the realization of nothingness. But, emptiness or nothingness does not just mean nothing. It means not being attached to anything, especially your own perceptions and ideas, so that you can see your life clearly.

I've been trying to learn to look at things as empty shells. They are what they are and they are furtive. They mean nothing else than the meaning we give to them. I’m trying to be more present and let go of things.

Like Buddhists say: "Gone, gone, gone. Gone, gone, completely gone. Enlightenment."

I don't know if it's too late to reach that type of enlightenment at this point in my life, but part of me thinks that it's never too late to try to feel better. And I really want to feel better. Who doesn't?!

IS IT MICHEL FOUCAULT'S TURN TO BE CANCELED?

This week, Guy Sormon, the French-American professor and philosopher, caused shock waves among intellectuals worldwide, claiming that the French philosopher Michel Foucault was a pedophile and a rapist. According to Sormon, he witnessed Foucauld, who died in 1984 aged 57, having sex with Arab children while living in Tunisia in the late 1960s. Sormon's allegations quickly became a hot topic.

Following his claims, a 1977 petition to the French parliament calling for the decriminalization of sex between adults and children came to people's attention. The petition was signed by Foucauld and list of prominent intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir and Gilles Deleuze. This information added more fuel to the controversy around Sormon's allegations.

So, is it time to cancel Foucault too?

What if – in today's history revisionism hunger – we begin rushing to cancel everything that doesn't reflect society's current spirit?

For centuries, from ancient Greece to modern times, the elite enjoyed a very liberal lifestyle while the dregs lived under a conservative order. The very same ruling class that dictated the rules didn't have to abide by them. Only the regs had to. To me, it's a clear case of a double standard.

We could go on and on about this social arrangement, but this got me thinking of how much we, regular people, don't help fuel this social order too?

People complain about the wealthy's privileges; once they have climbed up the social ladder, they quickly begin to emulate the same behavior they had called it out before. It might be their way of showing to the world that they have arrived. Others say that it is all about empowerment.

But I wonder if a society ruled by principles that at the same time celebrate privilege isn't systematizing double standards as a norm?

Perhaps protected by the privileges that come with being part of an intellectual elite, Foucauld didn't think the bourgeoisie middle-class rules would apply to him. In fairness, he wasn't afraid of professing his beliefs out in the open, like in 1977's petition.

I think we can't look at this without looking deeper into their historical and personal context. But most of all, we can't look at it without first looking at ourselves in the mirror. 

Once I heard that principles only matter when they're inconvenient. We can't pick and choose what we wanna say and what we wanna do at our convenience. Or we might be at risk of having to cancel ourselves someday too.

FROM 9 TO 5 TO 24/7

“Well, I tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen

Pour myself a cup of ambition

Yawn and stretch and try to come to life…

… and it's 6am, and I'm already live on camera."

The last line is the 2021 updated version of Dolly Parton's iconic 80's lyrics. It's looks like it's always showtime, and we are always on.

What started as a necessity to keep working during the pandemic transition into a societal transformation that seems to have reached the point of no return.

Yup, 9-5 has gone 24/7.

I hear some people thanking this for the digital transformation caused by the pandemic, and others blaming it on the digital transformation caused by the pandemic.

Leaving the digital transformation (yawn) and the pandemic aside (as if it is possible!), do you ever find yourself thinking, "what's the point"?

Think of all the hours and energy we put on working (plus the stress that comes with being constantly on) and one can wonder “what am I getting out of it?”.

Probably we might be spending less and saving more money, but what's the point in making money if it is not conducive to a better life?

Then think of the satisfaction work can give. Remember that sense of accomplishment and pride for a job well done? Remember when we celebrated good work instead of quickly moving to the next task? That's all out of the window. In a world where faster became synonymous with agile, there's no room for satisfaction. No time to celebrate achievements, and no time to rest either. We are all too busy for that.

I consider myself lucky to work in the creative field of a worldwide industry with a massive impact on society. I think I'm fortunate because I can work remotely and still be creative. But today, no matter in what industry you work, we are all working on an assembly line of a planetary engine that addresses the demanding needs of that very same engine. Kind of we are eating ourselves to stay alive, which is contradictory and a recipe for disaster at the same time. Well, it might have always been this way, and yet not so much.

We are all burned out.

The pandemic is in itself an enormous threat, but its consequences are as threatening as the disease itself. We all fear for our health and lives, but we are also fearing losing our jobs, the economy tanking, the future of kids who have little social interaction outside their families, or creating a generation of people who are not only socially crippled but also didn't experience the best that education can offer. I know, the list goes on, and this isn't news to anyone.

What to say to people who didn't have remote working as an option or simply lost their jobs?

One year into this and these questions become more and more critical. And yet, we are far from solving them because we haven't even tackled its origin: the virus.

But here is where I find myself going on a tangent and beginning to think that the virus isn't the mother of all these problems. It pretty much opened Pandora's box for sure, and boy, look at was lurking inside for a very long time. It seems like it's been there for centuries, and we just got used to it.

From politics to work and social issues, the virus brought out in the open everything hidden in the deepest layers of our society. And here we are, in many aspects, more aware of the world we live in but on the verge of being numb again due to exhaustion.

ANDY COHEN, KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS, TRUMP & POP CULTURE

Today I bumped into Andy Cohen's Instagram post showing a 15 years old picture from the Real Housewives franchise launching. He writes that the show changed Pop Culture and his life forever.

Indeed it changed his life, but thinking that changed Pop Culture forever is a stretch. It makes me wonder what does it mean to change Pop Culture?

The first thing popped into my head was the famous picture of Britney Spears crashing a photographer's car window with a baseball bat. It's sort of random memory, I know. But I could argue that that moment did have an impact on pop culture.

Did it change the pop culture, though? I don't think so. Britney definitely would prefer it never happened. So did us, especially with today's revisionist spirit that makes us embarrassed for shaming her in the past. We all could have passed without it.

So, I guess impacting is different from changing. Andy Cohen's self-congratulatory post makes me think he believes that changing Pop Culture is a good thing. You see, he didn't say that it had an impact. He states it changed it. Forever. I think he mistook having an impact with changing it. I think Michael Jackson's Billie Jean music video and MTV have transformed pop culture. Elvis did it too. And the Beatles. For sure, Madonna did it as well. The list goes on.

Were those changes good? In my opinion, they were because they reflected where society was at that time and propelled it to move forward. New ideas, new voices amplifying more libertarian and diverse thinking. But changing Pop Culture can go either way. When you looked back in time 14/15 years ago, we can spot the beginning of consolidated trends in the following years. One can't deny that we wouldn't have had Trump's presidency without the celebrity cult, for example. I find it curious that the end of Trump's presidency - and how it ended- coincides with Keeping with Kardashian's reality show final season. It is almost like we have exhausted that theme, and that type of narrative doesn't fit with the pandemic world we live in now. Can't help thinking that it might be the same with the Real Housewives franchise. I'm wondering if it isn't out of time already too?

Was it fun? Hell yeah! Was it good? Hard to say, but I don't think it matters. It was is brainless entertainment mixed with a little - or a lot - of a guilty pleasure. They indeed had an impact on Pop Culture. But more importantly than that, they reflected it's time. A world that today looks increasingly like something from the past. Time to change.