Heresy

The passion fruit effect

This heresy came from a joke and a thousand smiles with a story about someone they call “passion fruit” for his incredible ability to “tangle things up”, in colombian slang, which can be translated as an enormous power of influence over others. 

I took this little term to my class this week and a comment made by one of my students sounded incredibly like  “passion fruit”: an application of the art of marketing to lead customers to buy a product that does not necessarily add the most value, or perhaps they do not even need. In short, the “passion fruit effect” is the cornerstone of a consumer society ignited by the effect of modern marketing, with all the hype.

Of course, I have nothing against marketing.  I love it.  I work with it.  I teach it and I learn about it every day.  My heresy is that the problem lies in the fact that the “passion fruit” effect is a short-term illusion, if what we are selling is just passion fruit and not a product that actually adds value.  Passion fruit is sweet and enjoyable, but the cost of selling by tangling things up is the reality that people will not continue to be misled for long.  So in the end, no one is in for the long haul.

And the situation gets even more complicated when we apply the passion fruit effect to our relationships and we think that the way to sweep someone off their feet is by “tangling things up”.  Over time, the effect wears off and we stop adding value.  This generates empty spaces in our relationships that are eventually impossible to bear.  Our customer, in this case, our partner, understands that you cannot keep a true relationship going based on the “Passion fruit effect” and we eventually lose them – even though in some cases, their body is still by our side -.

So although the “passion fruit effect” is tempting and fun, it is another way of creating short-term hopes that eventually have to be backed by a reality that will add value to the other… otherwise, the story will not have a happy ending.

Drivers wanted

I was teaching a class to a spectacular group of students today, and we discussed the divine and human about Volkswagen’s "Drivers Wanted" campaign; this campaign has one of my favorite slogans: “On the road of life, there are drivers and there are passengers.  Drivers wanted". Of course, I couldn’t pass up the chance to discuss the depth of such a proposal and that is when this heresy was born, and I have dedicated it to them, my students, these students and all of those who have passed through my life: they have been my teachers and have become my friends.

We can be spectators of life, or we can take control and choose to steer it ourselves, choose what we want and simply take it.  My heresy is an invitation to be the drivers of our own life, my heresy is simply the search for drivers, deep souls willing to take the risk and the cost of knowing what we want and take responsibility for our own happiness...

What about you? Are you a driver or are you a passenger of your own life?  Drivers wanted!!!