Today I spent a few hours in a bookshop at the aiport in Málaga, signing copies of THE LITTLE BUDDHA. In between I was reading in some of the magazines that were on sale in the shop. At some point I was flicking through the english GQ magazine. It’s crap, I know. Anyway, what struck me was 1) the amount of advertisement for a magazine that costs 6 Euros, and 2) the kind of products advertised. I ended up counting some of them. What do you think is the product that is by far the most advertised one, in a ‘cool’ man magazine, in the december issue? No, not cars. Not snowboards either. Watches!
I counted only full page (A4) ads. In the first 30 pages there were 13 only about watches. That’s almost half! Next in line? Perfume, with 7 out of 30. The whole magazine counts 336 pages, of which there are 36 full-page watch advertisments.
Where on earth does the male fascination for watches come from? Everybody has a mobile phone nowdays – some people have even two or three – and every mobile phone displays the time. So does this mean that all these guys wear all those expensive watches only to show off? Nothing but jewellery? Or maybe it’s some kind of code, to demonstrate that you are ticking right...
Most philosophies talk about the importante of the Now, of living in the present. Yet it seems that the world over people are madly obsessed with a fashionable device that distracts the owner from the present moment. A device that puts life in chronological order.
Yet isn’t that what it’s all about, that everything is happening at once?
Right now.
From THE LITTLE BUDDHA - "The man without time", © Rosie May Harrison
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