I’ve always had problems with impulse control and concentration. Generally speaking, I suffer from mental surges where my mind is inundated by endless thoughts. When I was younger I couldn’t help but say almost everything –even those that required restraint– that came to my mind. In middle school, I once lashed out at my principle in anger and said things I should not have said. He told me my curse was that I let my mouth run before my mind. My best friend from high school still tells me that I should write things down rather than saying them out loud, to allow myself some extra time to think about what I am saying. Medicine, or rather psychiatry, explains this as the result of a physiological defect. Apparently, the parts of my brain (known as the temporal and frontal lobes) responsible for impulse control and concentration, are not as large as most people’s. Therefore, I get frustrated by the routine. Now, in my 23 years of age, I believe that I have made cnosiderable progress in controlling my thoughts, but every now and then, especially when I am watching television or surfing online, I have to take a deep breath to stop feeling like I am overdosing on caffeine.
There are two things that provide peace, one is reading; I pick up a book or the paper and retreat to a quiet corner. As I start reading, I enter into a new world, where my only mental activity is earmarking the ideas of the author. The other is writing. In between commas and spaces, I am usually able to organize my thoughts into coherent ideas. However, lately I notice that I keep getting these flashes in my head while I am writing. Sometimes I’ll remember a jingle, or the impression of an actor in a commercial that was designed to burn its irresistible message: “Thou shall consume” into one’s memory. And then suddenly my opinions will change a little. When, I read what I wrote out loud, I’ll realize that my prose mimics the rhythm of the commercial clip in my head. I accept its seemingly innocent conclusions wrapped in various contexts which, I was (according to some) subliminally programmed to adopt as my own.
For example, as I was writing my sociology notes the other day (the chapter was patriarchy and gender), I couldn’t get the Advantage Black-Advantage Rouge credit card commercial out of my head. It has a visually pleasing take on a provocative social statement: You can’t argue that men and women are different so embrace it…Here are two cards for you…let’s further the divide between the sexes, so you may yell at each other from across the poles and call your inevitable lack of communication and emotional incompatibility, passion. My next mental step was the famous book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, and before I knew it, the flood gates burst opened and in came an endless torrent of references, ideas, perceptions, and experiences I had to sift through helplessly. I must add that despite its message, which some will undoubtedly consider dangerously limited about the nature of sexual dynamics, this particular commercial was enjoyable to watch. And so I thank its makers for the brief moment of entertainment their work brought into my life. Yet, at the same time I can’t help but question the silver lining of the commercial’s message which basically reads: Never mind that you too will eventually be affected by the troubled global economy, never mind that in your culture debating sexual politics is a complete luxury, but CONSUME. And if you don’t have the money, here is a product which will loan it to you on rates that will literally bury you in debt. People like me do not benefit from this sort of temptation. But that is my problem and mine alone.
I am not of the opinion that marketers are evil, or that their sole purpose is to push the corporate envelope. Hell, I plan to be one someday. However, I strongly believe that someone somewhere should fight the good fight and monitor the mental environment. Let me quickly state, so that I may avoid intellectual theft that the idea of a mental environment existed for quite sometime now. There are publications that have gallantly established themselves as its guardians, but their position is generally against advertising and advertising alone. One of these publications is Adbusters, which I bought on an impulse while I was in America. Their slogan read: Who is in charge of the mental environment anyhow? I believe, this question, may just be one of the most profoundly important questions in our consumer culture. I could not find any articles that quenched my curiosity in that issue of Adbusters. So I went online to check out their archives. Then, I came across this:

“Your mind is a clear mountain stream running burbling through the rocks. Pepsi stands up, unzips its billion-dollar ad budget, and takes a leak, staining it forever brown. Your brain, a verdant old-growth forest, until it dies the death of a thousand swooshes. Your soul, filled with the crystal fresh air of early morning, until Philip Morris blows in a cloud of its seductive smoke (McKibben Bill, What’s my damage – A call for mental environmentalism, Adbusters Magazine, Dec. 2001).”

I don’t believe the issue is as black and white as this quote makes it seem. Marketing should not be held solely responsible for polluting the mental environment. Yet, there are certain practices that have to be monitored. In my opinion these include; the incessant poll taking at every website and corner stand via questionnaires and whatnot; spams which are already outlawed in 40 countries and the EU; and finally telemarketing.