Lockdowns underscored for me how important it is, not just to set aside moments – even many moments – for reflection and creative practice, but to make sure to spend as many of these on such activities in a row. And to help ensure others are enabled to do the same.

I know I have been writing for some time now about what seem to be severe hardships thrust unnecessarily on a world that, I believe, could solve its problems with relative ease were there not so many distractions. (Why are so many businesses intent on garnering attention surely needed elsewhere by appealing to their audience’s basest weaknesses? It seems to result in such rapid production and consumption of nonsense when individuals could far more intelligently develop discernment, direct their attention accordingly, and apply their gifts wisely if better allowed.) But a recent discovery has led me to believe we may have stumbled into a cultural watershed.

As heartbreaking as the loss of my favorite perfume was last year, I noticed a few weeks ago it was getting harder and harder to find a more important life essential: Spindrift brand Cranberry-Raspberry sparkling water.

Are cans being hoarded by the same person who’s been buying up so much Francis Kurkdjian’s APOM Femme, I found myself wondering? (Or Cartier So Pretty? Or Tom Ford Rose de Chine by the way? … Wait, I just looked it up … Did Rose de Chine get re-released this year? After almost a decade of torture?)

Anyway, after obviously reaching out to the Spindrift team to let them know that an evil genius had begun stockpiling Cranberry-Raspberry, presumably in order to sell individual units for millions of dollars each, I received little information in return.

(I know this update interrupts the flow of this essay, but as a September update, Spindrift reached back out to me this week to let me know Cranberry-Raspberry is back!)

My fellow connoisseurs of what’s wonderful: we need to start learning that well-trod paths are very rarely right paths.

But I’ve gotten to thinking. What if it would be possible to harness the knowledge we all now have – that it is as if, on the consumption and ratings-fueled cultural descent in which currently we find ourselves, we seem to be rapidly approaching a creative cliff of daunting proportions – in order to turn what seems a sudden influx of the blindly popular and the remade, to our advantage?

What if we could out our heads together with the producers of a product like Coco Mademoiselle, say? They could be approached privately, compelled to disclose the main source of their grievance against the world, turned, and convinced to cease production so that an arguably overabundant product could be made relatively scarce … until the moment it becomes needed.

On Preparedness

Just imagine. Back to the theme of this blog, what if all countries’ communications infrastructures are ultimately redesigned so as to support educational, thoughtful, and productive environments in which world-scale problems are solved daily and as a matter of course; and people develop new forms of discernment naturally, leading to a world in which all were suddenly well? But then a rogue actor began contemplating the re-introduction of ratings-based media ecosystem in order to profit personally at the risk of backsliding the well-being of the globe?

We would be prepared and could finally disclose, after countless years of planning, that we have in our possession all of the world’s remaining bottles of Mademoiselle and that we are not afraid to use them, and by dousing an entire country if needed.

By that point, global populations, many of whose citizens will be engaged in some form of regular creative practice, would be focused enough to be in tune with their olfactory, gustatory, and other senses in order to understand the gravity of the proposition. No longer the prisoners inside Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

“We have warehouses of knockoffs stockpiled from our Communist years,” rogue nations may say, “but nothing rivals the dreadful prospect of having to revisit an era of remakes from a normally creative society like yours, and a country that knew better. Please have mercy.”

Detecting a hint of insincerity we will reach like lightning for our holster and discharge a warning spritz of mademoiselle, leaving our counterpart writhing on the ground in a temporary and harmless, but memorable, agony before administering the world’s only known reversal agent, normal coco.

“You’ve just been mademoiselled, mister,” we will reply. “And don’t think we won’t do it again. We’re the misters now.”

Relieved by the effectiveness of a previously untested weapons system into which we have invested untold time and resources in recent decades, we will dutifully decontaminate our hazmat suit for another day, knowing it will be important to remain ready.

On Timing

One additional reason I believe governmental stockpiling of Coco Mademoiselle today could be our country’s best defense against global catastrophe down the road is that we are in a precarious, and potentially fleeting, moment. America may come to its senses and revamp our communications infrastructure soon, putting a virtual end to distractive fear- and anger-mongering. Normal creative functioning could resume, and remake production may cease at any moment.

Communist countries offer no indication they are interested in refraining from future domination attempts. And our current-era remakes will only be produced for so long. By stockpiling this resource now, we will be preparing to restore world order when doing so will inevitably become necessary.