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7.15.04 When You Wish Upon a Star

If you grew up in the fifties you were used to hearing Jiminy Cricket sing "When You Wish Upon A Star." It was a Disney theme song. The dark side of this sunny notion is that middle-aged Americans now equate wishing with making dreams come true. And because we don't like anything too weighed down with words, our epitaph will be "wishing makes it true."

I was going to write about lying but I'm veering toward writing about believing. George Constanza (Seinfeld anti-hero) said, "If you believe it, it's not a lie."

Geoge Bush, his dark-side father Dick Cheney, and their neocon crew have actually persuaded themselves that Sadaam was in cahoots with Osama and that Sadaam was about to unleash WMD on good Americans. (I say Americans because, well, does anybody else really matter?) Jiminy Cricket didn't say that your wishing couldn't be motivated by greed and cynicism. The wishing formula is apparently as neutral as any other law of nature. Wishing makes it true -- "makes no difference who you are."

Wishing makes it true.

Wishing makes it true.

It's the American theology for the twenty-first century. Believe it. Isn't it the whole notion behind branding? I wish everyone to love and trust my company. Therefore I will create lots of imagery and come up with a good story-line. I will start believing it myself. After all, if I don't swallow it, how can I expect my buyers to choke it down?

This is consistent with our deeper, centuries-old American mythology that says reinventing oneself is always possible. We do it so often now we don't even think of it. It even permeates our therapy salons: let's not waste time figuring out the truth about who you really are; let's just decide who you wish to be; then we'll help you focus on your strengths (the things that conform with your wish-self); and then we'll help you learn to behave as if your wish-self really existed. Believe. After all, it helped Pinocchio become a real boy.

It doesn't mean that wishing isn't a lot of work. Presidents, preachers, and marketing executives work very hard. Wishing is not a passive activity. You just have to remember that it is not the science of truth-discovery but the art of myth-making and story-telling.

All hail, Jiminy Cricket.

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