Identity

When I was a little boy, I had a wild imagination. As an adult, it’s simply gotten more expansive in its imagination – but, never throttled.

There were a lot of key moments in my development as a boy, where I encountered certain things in life and thought to myself ‘someday, I want this thing to be a part of my life’.

For example, I remember seeing (and hearing, Nate.) motorcycles and making it a personal goal of my 10 year-old self that I would one day be the one on the back of seen hog.

It took over 20 years, but I eventually did it. The joy I felt when I revved the engine of ‘Snakebite’ for the first time wasn’t joy that came from a 30-something year-old; rather, it was the joy that my 10 year-old self wanted to feel someday.

That seed of desire came alive, and it blossomed over a 20+ year period. Along the way, it taught me the value of setting goals.

Another 10 year-old me remembers seeing a man in the locker room at our athletic club. He was in his 20’s, built like a tank and he had his nipples pierced.

10 year-old Aaron thought: “One day, I want to look like that.”

10 years later, 20-year old Aaron could bench press 315lb and decided that it was time to make that old dream a reality. I walked to Evolved Body Shop in Columbus, OH, on a Tuesday. Every Tuesday, they offered 2-for-1 piercings.

Every part of that experience is baked into my memory; the clothes I wore, the feeling of the chair, the artwork at the shop and finally – how I felt. It was exhilarating.

I walked home and looked in the mirror at a chiseled man with his nipples pierced. Me. I looked in the mirror and saw it was good; then mentally checked off the goal I set as a child.

A week later, I started taking judo classes. That was a mistake…

In older generations (like mine) we have a lions share of life events that were first seeded into existance during our childhood years. In my case, I saw a motorcycle as a child and dreamed of one day feeling like a badass on the back of a screaming Harley Davidson.

Attribution is a common term in online marketing/sales. However, it’s an important term to apply to your own life when you think about what you’ve done, want and are aiming for.

Said differently, where did the goal first originate?

In my life, I’m old enough to see the distinction between goal attribution that was found in my physical life experience – such as the locker room moment – versus seeing things in my life that I chased because I saw them on the internet.

A large part of our identity can be found through the lens of our desires; we are, to some degree, what we pursue.

Something significant happend in the early part of the 20th century that directly impacted the desire of the masses. What was it?

The radio.

Prior to the talking box in the corner of the living room, familes might have songs stuck in their head; songs they heard because they saw a live musician playing in a speakeasy.

After the radio?

43 beans in every cup
(of Nescafe real coffee beans)
That’s all there is!
43 beans in every cup of Nescafe
All coffee, instant coffee
With the lets-have-another-cup taste

If you’ve heard the jingle, you know what I’m referencing. If you haven’t…the jingle is from an old marketing campaign for Nescafe.

Why do I bring this up? Because it highlights an important break in how a desire could be created.

Rather than desire springing from somebody walking out in the world and experiencing the physical world around them, they had an idea planted in their head by sombody external to their home – while they sat on the couch.

Human behavior began to be steered, en masse, by advertisers who were paid big bucks by corporations. ‘External’ wants and desires began to get mixed up in the brains of people who tuned in to that loud box in the corner of their living room.

10 year-old Aaron wanted to ride a motorcycle because he thought it was cool.

37 year-old Aaron wants to ride a specific model of motorcycle because programmatic advertising told me it would be the bike that would finally complete me.

Before you put underwear on in the morning, you can see 150 advertisements on your phone.

Before you listen to a song on Spotify, it’ll suggest somebody else for you to listen to.

Before you get out of bed in the morning, advertisers all around the world have already decided what you’re going to see and experience every time you go on their app.

What impact does this have on your sense of self, when all of the things you encounter – and are supposed to want – are decided by people who will never know your name, or what’s truly important to you?

That’s an interesting thought to ponder, between the scrolling.