Meaning is empty without Belief

Look at these two pictures. I captured these two moments at Luoyang (a place of great historic significance in China). The girl is sitting atop a lotus and trying to mimic the Buddha pose, just for fun. Her friends, who are not in the frame, were clicking and cheering her. The man is looking at a very old rock carving of Lord Buddha as he takes a drag and reflects (perhaps).
This shook me, more than many of my Chinese friends – may be because the beliefs imbibed in me from childhood about paying respect to God. However if I were not aware of the concept of God, or may be not aware in the way I have been told, then this statue would not have been anything more than a relic of historical value or a beautiful creation that has been preserved. And may be I would also be sitting atop the lotus with my shoes on, doing something similar.
I do not intend to pass a value judgment on anyone here but I believe it is worthwhile looking at things from the other person’s point of view before classifying their behaviour as good bad or anything else. To me things or people do not mean anything without being founded on an underlying belief. A belief, in turn, is based on knowledge and experience. To be able to have an objective point of view about anyone, we perhaps need to make an attempt to tap into their experiences and knowledge and then things look a lot simpler to understand and relate to.
I am not well read so I do not know how many religions already say something like this, but to me this is the biggest religion.
There is no walk like trying to walk in another man’s shoes for a while..
When I step back and look at this from the consumer understanding perspective– the analogy of walking in another man’s shoes comes in very handy. When I try to fathom the knowledge and experiences of the person who I am speaking with I start looking at the world as s/he sees it.
The intersection of the way he looks at the world and the way we as consumer behaviour professionals look at the world is the place where insights opportunities and breakthroughs live.
This sure is an amazing experience!

filmmaker-planner-marketer

A filmmaker can be a great planner;
A real planner can be a great filmmaker;
If a planner can think films (commercial feature films please) then he can think people even better!

Pardon my limited knowledge of the art of film making but whatever limited I know makes me believe that if a planner can think like a filmmaker, or if not that much then at least he can get in the mind of a filmmaker upon watching his creation, he can really do some great people oriented work for brands and marketers.
The act of getting into the mind of a filmmaker helps in understanding ‘the creation of meaning’. How we create happy environment, how we create sensitive moments, how we make romantic intimacies happen etc.
The symbols of intimacy, joy, revelry etc say a lot about the culture and the way meaning is created in that culture. Filmmakers do it all the time and good filmmakers do it really well.
Any planner who can understand (and perhaps even recreate) the ‘creation of meaning’ in a way people relate to it happily is poised to be a people person.