Marketing and th Dark Night of the Soul

"In the real dark night of the soul," wrote F.Scott Fitzgerald, "It is always three o'clock in the morning."   On this line, I agree with Keith Humphries that watching TV in the middle of the night is a pretty depressing experience but I think he has it backwards.   We learn from such lugubrious inquiries, Keith says:

(1) You are not all right the way you are (i.e., you are fat, lonely, unattractive, out of work, poor)

(2) There is a product you can buy that will immediately make you all right

But watching TV at the lonely hour is not the cause of self-contempt; it is the consequence.  Nobody has to tell you that your life is screwed up;you knew that already or you wouldn't be here.  That's why you are a secure for a cure.

It all makes me remember the late Hugh Slate, LA lawyer and the proprietor of the first bankruptcy mill with which I was ever closely acquainted.  Some thought Hugh was a shyster and I recognize a fair basis for that belief: there is good reason to suspect that any lawyer who advertises on TV is a shyster. But I have another opinion: I think  was just an early master of mass marketing and economies of scale.   I do remember his ads, where he'd repeat, with his rich Tennessee accent (as a commentator remembers it): "we make bill collectors leave you alone, and that means leave you alone."

 
Got it? Now go and get some sleep. And call me in the morning.

Afterthought:  I suppose the counter would be the idea that "three o'clock is not a good time to start anything, whether morning or afternoon."  And BTW, yes, Keith said four o'clock, not three, but same difference.

Defensive Update:  You were watching, Buce?  Got some self-contempt issues, have we?  No, not really, but I've always been a patchy and inconsistent sleeper.