You may have noticed lately, if you are the kind of person who pays attention to these things, that life seems somewhat more tiresome and unrewarding and that it is much more difficult to work up the enthusiasm for things, especially the beginning of things. You may have decided that you were in a kind of funk or suffering through a period of the blues (two distinct styles of music) but that is not the case. You feel this way because your will has been sapped.

Some of you, those who have neglected the assigned reading, may be unfamiliar with the term "sapped". To sap someone, or in this case, some thing, is to strike them soundly across the back of their melon with a blackjack, cosh, sash-weight or "sap" (hence the name). This has the effect of rendering the sappee, rather immediately listless, un-energetic, unenthusiastic and, quite possibly, supine. Sound like a familiar feeling? I thought so.

Whenever a crime has been committed, and this is a crime against your stores of energy and initiative, the first thing the police attempt to deduce is who has perpetrated the thing. In this case we need to figure out whose hand wielded the dark instrument that stole your get up and go. But where to start?

It was, I believe, Julie Andrews who first pointed out that the very best place to start was at the very beginning. But this is NOT where we shall start. We don't have either the time or the space (even in our new expanded monthly format) to go back to the Big Bang. Let us begin instead with a look at advertising.

Yes, that's right, advertising. Advertising is the art or craft of making someone turn their attention to a product. In a positive way that is. The etymological root of the word advertising is the Old French word avertir meaning "to warn". It's pretty clear that it hasn't had anything like that for a meaning in some time.

What advertising does now is attempt to convince you that some thing is so good that your life will be much poorer for not having it. That is to say, if you do not own a Volkswagen Jetta (I picked this car more or less at random. I have nothing against the Jetta which I am sure is a fine automobile if in fact, they still make it. On second thought I do have something against it. Jetta is a stupid name for a car) then you are conveying yourself about in some other vehicle which, in all probability, is considerably less cool, insanely over-priced, far less efficient and very likely dangerous.

This is what professional advertisers are paid to do. They are paid to write and design print ads and create commercials in such a way as to convince you of the rightness of the above statements. So? I hear you say. What the hell does that have to do with my general sluggishness and apathy? To which I reply: plenty.

Think for a moment (if it is not too much of a strain) of the cumulative effect of all those ads. After all Volkswagen is not the only company promoting its products in this manner. Thousands of businesses employ thousands of advertising firms with thousands of employees to engage in this sort of thing 24/7/52. In fact, one third of all people gainfully employed in this country work in the advertising industry either directly or indirectly (I made that figure up but I'll bet it's a lot).

Therefore, all day every day year round we are being metaphorically bombarded (you would be severely bruised if you were literally bombarded) with advertisements. All of these pointing out the things in our life that are inadequate, out-dated, unsafe or uncool. That is, if you don't own only the latest, most up-to-date, new-fangled thingies (if you do then just stop having this article lazerically beamed into your cerebral cortex or however the insanely wealthy take on information these days).

Are you beginning to guess why you feel unmotivated. That's correct! The advertising industry is constantly reminding you that you are a loser! With their constant bludgeoning, or "sapping" if you will, of your ...er, will, they are effectively making you into the kind of person who is uninterested in doing much of anything. So, the question you must ask yourself is this: what am I going to do about it?

If you are at all like me the answer is: nothing. It really seems like it might be kind of a lot of work.

Hugh Briss