...tao of marketing and other thoughts

Filed under: Admin, Random

Today, a little praying mantis stood at my door…such a majestic and beautiful creature.  Just as the most beautiful bird is most likely to be caged, I couldn’t help but capture this insect for a moment.  I wanted to look at it.  I wanted to watch it.  And I did.

As soon as I placed him into a glass jar, it scurried about the round perimeter trying to move itself upwards, outwards.  It couldn’t though.  It’s container was too slick for it too escape, but not so slick that it wasn’t aware of its presence. 

The mantis’ quick movements were impressive, but I still imagined some desperation in its attempts to find a way out.  A little less majestic…a little less beautiful.  After a few minutes, I preferred to release the animal than to keep it caged up, even though it had stopped trying to get away and had resumed its old majestic ways by adopting a regal posture, standing perfectly still, its head and eyes turned so that it looked like it was staring directly at my own eyes.

Once the jar began to tilt, he still didn’t move.  It would have been futile, I think, with an angle still too step to traverse.  Then, as I tilted it more, he appeared to make his move just as the true opportunity for escape presented itself.  It darted out of the jar and onto the leaves of the bush I was standing over.  One, two, maybe three leaves later, it perched itself on a leaf, standing much as it did in captivity. 

Marketers often try to capture that which is beautiful or popular and use it for their own desires.  Perhaps, that is human nature.  Before my time with the mantis ended, I grabbed my digital camera and took a few pictures – another form of holding on to the mantis’ beauty. 

The mantis-in-the-jar and the pictures don’t do it justice.  A thing in captivity is not the same as it was before.  When marketers try to use beauty and popularity to peddle goods, it is nearly impossible to capture the essence of what made something beautiful or popular in the first place. 

How much better it would be, I thought, to plant a garden and nurture an environment that this mantis and others like it would enjoy.  Then, I could enjoy the company of the essence of mantis-ness…as long as the mantids didn’t know the garden was a great, big jar and they felt they had the choice to leave.

I’m glad this bug dropped by today.  You can see it, too, in the header image of this blog, and in these pictures…

My visitor:

  
Another angle:


Can you see it? Effortless marketing:


Keywords: BlogZoopa | praying+mantis | Angelo+Coppola