Festival Day 2

Day 2 off the Cannes Lions festival was not nearly as overwhelming as the first day; however, I think today was the first day I had to decide between all the speakers I wanted to see in addition to the meetings we had scheduled for our class. Two of the seminars I attended today stood out to me.

The most influential one I saw today was about the power of boredom. A famous Korean television producer explained how his simple television show about people doing nothing but cooking three meals a day in the rural country side is so successful. The entire seminar focused on how we are constantly doing things to keep ourselves from being bored, whether that is working or using technology. The speaker pointed out that we spend our time working so we can make enough money to take vacation to do nothing. This hit home with me. The way we live our day to day lives has stripped the joy of the little things in every day life. People to no take the time out to even sit back and enjoy a moment for ourselves, put in extra work to make a delicious home cooked meal instead of ordering takeout, or even taking a second and sit without any technology to observe the world around us. This talk made everyone question: what is the meaning of labor, life, and the meaning of time and what are you doing to achieve these meanings.

The second most influential seminar I went to today discussed how cannabis will displace culture of places who accept cannabis as a medical use. This speaker discussed the benefits of using cannabis as a pharmaceutical drug instead of the stereotype it is given with the war on drugs. The possibilities of changing people’s view on this topic is possible; however, I think some major branding would need to develop for the certain strains of cannabis used for pharmaceutical purposes that were discussed in this seminar. It is going to take more than science and history to break this barrier: the culture around this topic needs to be reformed.