It's not completely a coincidence

Yes, sometimes things do “line up” just right and seem like a message or an attempt to influence you.  That’s just the nature of sales and campaigns of all sorts.  Whether it’s a politician, new taco, skin care product, or movie, when you see it talked about or you feel the need to have an opinion, that’s a planned thing.

In cultures like ours, the media is constantly driving products and ideas, and so it is not unusual when there are “pressure point times” – critical moments when people or groups use a variety of messaging and placements of stories and ideas to move people.

Like a sheep dog knows and/or is trained to move around a flock, a pair of sheep, or even an individual sheep to move the whole flock, different collections of people in our culture and world want to have influence and do a variety of things on different scales or levels to make that influence happen.

This includes straight up advertisements, the careful selection of news stories to promote and push, the even more careful selection of images to share and voices to solicit to speak, and then the more subtle, but likely more powerful other things “out there” in entertainment, ads, internet bots, etc – all work together like a sheep dog.

Messages are created behind the scenes, designed to push or pull people in one direction or another. Seemingly unrelated stories work together to move people in all sorts of direction.  Typically, they push or pull on some common ground with the most people possible – attempting to encourage some and demotivate or demoralize others.

Music, “straight news”, the dialogue or story of a TV show or movie, what’s trending on social media, and what is floating around in your head – all of it can be manipulated without you even knowing it. 

If you’ve ever suddenly had an opinion about something because a topic just came up, that was crafted and started a good while back and some people “out there” are hoping it builds momentum for something they really hope unfolds.

It doesn’t matter what your politics are, where your place in the economy is, or how we read and thoughtful you are, we all typically only work with the material we’re given and/or that we’re pushed or encouraged to focus on.

You might think you know what it’s pushing you toward, but often times you’ll be surprised by how counter-intuitive some “pushes” are and where you are in the chain of events. 

It helps to at least be aware of that process and to at least try to step back from the peer pressure you might get and from the firehouse of info that comes at you each day.

Peace and goodwill.