The Devil is a Salesman


The devil is a salesman.

For a time he was limited to carnivalesque used car lots.

Sometimes you would see him screaming on a billboard or hear him calling at all hours of the night blasting 1-800 numbers.

On occasion he might even stroll right up to your front door and knock twice.

But now he is everywhere; streaming his way into our homes.

Worse–into our brains.

Five seconds here, thirty seconds there is all it takes.

There is nowhere he can’t be, and he cannot be turned off.

The sad truth of it is, he didn’t barge into our lives.

We welcomed him with open palms.
We welcomed him with the promise of high-speed connectivity.
We welcomed him with the promise of photo feeds.
We welcomed him with the promise of on-demand food delivery.
We welcomed him with the promise of binge-watching twelve seasons.
We welcomed him with pay-per-clicks and hashtags.

We carry him to work, to home, to school, to parties and to plays right in our very pockets.

He is clever, the devil.
The noise hides what goes on in his workshop.
His instruments are not our hearts but the absence of them.
He knows that the heart is made immaterial by the material.

Consumption clouds our free will.

While we are subdued and undone by distraction, he continues to tinker.
As long as there is no peace, there will be no one to lay bare his devices.

The question is, was it the devil all along? Or was it mankind making his own undoing once more?

It’s not God in the machine.

It’s the devil.

And we’ve only just begun to let him out.

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