Tail Wag Dog #2
Hello again.
The world is still going to sh*t but I am so much happier now than I was a year ago when I published the first TWD book. This is all thanks to you. Yes YOU, as I am pretty sure you are holding this second book because you liked that first one. THANK YOU.
Nevertheless...
The past two years of writing business-inspired satire has made me think much harder about all the messages I see passing through mainstream & social media. Not just what is said, but who is saying it and what are they trying to convey? Is there something grotesque hidden behind the curtains, or a darker agenda? What analogies are there with stories I heard earlier but paid less attention to?
I'm a visual person and have drawn pictures as long as I can remember. New A.I. imagery tools have opened my mind in a way similar to doodling without knowing where it will lead. The potluck element in A.I. is no different, it surprises me, ever so often something beautiful and thought-provoking pops out.
I’m writing these words in the weeks before the US elections. The Middle East is on fire, Ukraine is sinking into the mud and the sovereign debt is at crazy levels worldwide. Climate alarmists have been hurricane obsessed in the past few weeks and are looking for the next season to panic over. Meanwhile people are dying for the wrong reasons everywhere.
Thank God for humour.
Not because any of the above is funny – it’s bad. Bad bad. But most of the business related chaos, the new-trend hype, the climate panic or whatever other new drama is whirling around us isn’t evil. I still find that when pulling back those curtains, more often than not something clownish is revealed. Naive managers prioritizing made up problems that sound great but don’t work. In lockstep with the growing army of bureaucrats attempting to influence our lives with contradicting regulation. Most of it is grotesque, clownish like a badly run circus. Endearing to watch.
Please join me again in making fun of it all.
Costas Papaikonomou
November 2024, The Hague, NLD