Unfiltered, as in Cigarettes

In the last scene of Mad Men, if memory serves, Don Draper is in some kind of hippie yoga retreat, blissed out on what I perceive to be endorphins and possibly some hippie drugs. Like Don, I have stepped into board rooms, bored and wanting more. I too want to suck on cigarettes and have disdain for the world.

I do not want money. I have all the money in the world. I want, simply, more.

In another Mad Men scene, Peggy Olson has a cigarette in her mouth as well, this time sticking it to the patriarchal hierarchy in their advertising agency. She is walking down a hallway to her new office, now promoted. She is wearing sunglasses and a smirk.

I don't know who I'd rather be. The lost man who finds himself, or the woman who overcomes. At least Don Draper had a journal he wrote his existential dread in. Peggy, if memory serves, spends time in a mental hospital. Both are extraordinary experiences.

This isn't about money. I want the extraordinary, the cigarette smoke that isn't filtered, like the best writing, or Don's genius ideas.

I'm not sure why I chose Mad Men to describe, poorly, my ambitions, my desire to spend my life on a pedestal, when money isn't an issue for me. Don Draper is kind of, well, disdainful and mean. At the best, he is a successful advertising executive, but is that all there is? I believe his fake identity, as well, led to shame, when initially it might have been a high.

I too want to write campaigns, make a splash and kick dirt at my enemies.

I want to walk into an office building and have a secretary take my coat, make me feel something like powerful. One day, I'll surely find myself at a hippie yoga retreat, overwhelmed with the biggest smile on my face. But I'll have achieved what accompanies some level of fame, and though it's not money, to me, it's better.

All the money in the world, and all I want is fame, recognition, and the ability to stick it to my enemies. A mix of both Don Draper and Peggy Olson, like one of Don's stiff drinks, ice polluting the point, a mystery behind glass. Money leads to this corruption of spirit, an inevitable smirk behind what could only possibly be true talent. But let's call it a successful advertising campaign for what we should all want, money aside.