I got a beautiful piece of direct mail today from Getty Images. It's an accordion fold brochure. On the front is a series of white panels that have big slogans on them ("Advertising doesn't tell it like it is" and "Technology is taking over"). These white panels are perforated, and when you peel them back, a glossy high-res photo is revealed with an associated sub-caption. For example:

Technology is taking over --> We'll desire the simple life and technology will become more invisible.

Apparently commas between two independent clauses will also become invisible. But that's not my gripe.

Because, believe me, people. I have a gripe with Getty Images.

Behind door number "Do more. Earn more." is the very contemporary thought: "Those who go back to their roots and do one thing well, will replace the heroic multi-tasker."

Ah! That's where that comma went! (Still not my gripe.)

Putting aside my fun with commas, let's look at that sentiment again.

Those who go back to their roots and do one thing well, will replace the heroic multi-tasker.

Getty, are you serious?

I am trying very, very hard to come to terms with the fact that this sentence appears to use the word HEROIC as a fucking insult. Please, pretty please, someone tell me that I'm over-reacting and I'm not really reading this last bit as: the multi-tasker is "heroic" because he attempts greatness and FAILS.

No, seriously. I'm flabbergasted. This piece of fucking propaganda -- from a respected, high-class photography house -- suggests that practicality wins over idealism.

If you say, well yeah, it does -- get the hell off my website.

I have, for many years, thought and despaired over the idea that I was fragmenting my talents to my own detriment. If only I focused and concentrated on just one thing, I could do that one thing better than anyone. So what should I give up?

Then I snap out of it. I can't give anything up. It's not who I am. It's not what I do. And it's not what I want to achieve.

What I want to achieve takes a lifetime to achieve, so you'll pardon me while I get back to work. Before I go, here is the Pasconian caption to that image:

Who will replace the showy, shallow, and self-important multi-tasker who busies himself yet accomplishes nothing? The individual who begins by doing one thing well, then continues to learn, to act, to achieve until he ascends into the heroic.