Nightmare Fuel Day the Eight - The Year of Average Living

Another Day, another prompt!

This is another one I didn't take literally. The image is quite evocative, but it's hard to make it into something _not_ literal, and my initial ideas seemed hampered by the expectations. The author shrinking to a tiny clone of everyone else, Gregor Samsa-style? The existence ot tiny beings who secretly control or make the world? A hidden world beneath ours? They see too.. expected. 

I toyed with the idea of technology creating a sameness within us (one which I touched on in previous posts here), but those, too, felt literal and didactic. So I took a slightly different route and a different form. Look at the image, see what I found, and - if the spirit moves you -  ponder what you'd do with this image.

From José Manuel Ríos Valiente on Flickr,
shared under a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives license.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/josemanuelerre/5385576298/

Dear Editor:

When we learn to let go of our ego, we may truly find ourselves. Each day we are beset by suggestions, hints, and recommendations by sources ranging from search engines to booksellers to streaming video services. What would happen were we to accept all of them? Can this be the gateway to the age-old dream of freedom from the shackles of desire? The Year of Average Living explores these questions, summarizing and expanding on the journey begun within the pages of my blog of the same name.

For one year I chose the first restaurant selection from online review sites, the first "you may like..." suggestions from Netflix Hulu, the first suggestions from Amazon. In the spirit of successful and provocative experiments such as No Impact Man, The Year of Living Biblically, and 365 Days,524 Recipes. Like the very best of the genre, The Year of Average Living transports us beyond the initial premise to teach us lessons about ourselves and the world around us. Do these suggestions and recommendations represent liberation from ego, or another form of corporate slavery? What can one accomplish when freed from the shackles of the thousand tiny, inconsequential decisions one must make? Learn all this and more.

My work as a freelance writer and web-developer with specializations in new media marketing and search engining optimization gives me great understanding of the subject matter and a strong platform for this book. I live in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York  with two cats.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours,

Jacob Weill.