Choice Is An Illusion
“Choice is an illusion. You already know what you have to do”. I heard these words in the latest Matrix series, Matrix Resurrections and since I’ve kept them present in my conscious mind as they contain meaningful insights worth further dissecting and reflecting upon.
Those of us working in the marketing realm more or less understand how profound the statement above is when it comes to creating the illusion of choice around a product or service.
Once the problem which stems from a simple marketing claim is identified, the solution is presented. If the framing is done impeccable, you can juggle with several solutions and be certain that those you target will pick the one option you always envisioned to be the end all be all solution while giving them the illusion that they had free will when choosing.
Isn’t this one of the biggest tricks in life?
Think of ten jars of jam that come in different colors but all taste exactly the same. You grab one thinking it was your choice without giving the advertising campaigns you were bombarded with for years a thought. You can’t even draw the line between your conscious and subconscious mind let alone differentiate illusion from a simulation that is presented to you as truth.
And yet, you’re convinced you know yourself well enough to differentiate truth from false aka pick up the nuances of choice.
How much time of your life have you spent getting to know yourself better?
What makes you think that you are adequately equipped to better depict messages that are delivered to you from the hive mind as opposed to the ones that are transmitted to you from inside your temple?
Food for thought…
Who Is Making the Choice for You?
First, let’s get the following out of the way:
Not everyone likes choices. There is quite a big group of people who is literally waiting for others to make choices aka decide for them. Whether these people are scared, lazy, have lost touch to their inner core or are susceptible to all sorts of external influences is irrelevant at this point.
Then there’s another group of people who will go to great length to research, evaluate statistics, listen to others from all walks of life with opposing viewpoints while also doing a lot of spiritual work in order to be able to choose as close as possible to truth – if such thing exists.
While both these groups are kind of extremes, the vast majority of humans is bathing somewhere in the middle of the choice paradigm.
So, who is then making the choice for these fellow humans?
In most cases it’s going to be a colorful mix of external rather than internal factors. The emphasis is on the external factors as these tend to have a broader and more profound impact when the subject is running on the treadmill of life trying to make ends meet while looking after a family and ensuring there’s enough food on the table.
I always love to travel across countries, continents and cultures to experience firsthand how different types of promotions and marketing setups are implemented to capture attention and ultimately drive sales.
While everything was very heterogenous 20 years back, things have changed tremendously over the last two decades. Big brands and shops have colonized airports, malls and city centers while local businesses have been pushed “out of the way”. Promotions are the same wherever you go. Shop layouts in Asia are similar to the ones in Europe and the US. There’s hardly any country-specific marketing campaign to study and learn from. Everything has gotten homogenous and quite boring in my perspective.
What do you think happens to the mind when it’s presented with the same things everywhere it goes?
If you’re convinced that you’re still in control of the choice-game, think again.
Choice Is An Illusion, or Maybe Not?
By now we have all been exposed to the idea of life being a simulation and the speed of light being the door to another realm. This amazing 3D-game we live in is something to reckon with even in the most sophisticated metaverse that is being created aka programmed nowadays.
Will the illusion of choice prevail or will it reign an entirely new meaning?
Today, we see those disconnected from their inner temple wonder shoeless clueless in this simulated reality being pushed around like dolls in a fabric. Choice is an illusion to them and it will likely stay that way going forward.
What if you learn to tap into that genuine connection to your higher self with choice becoming totally irrelevant as you already know what you have to do. What if…?
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Originally published on my blog at StrengthInBusiness.com.
