Trends and fads are all over the place, whether it is biggie sizes at the hamburger chain or the latest electronic gadget you just have to have. But are you really that much happier with your cell phones, iPods and a paper sack full of burger fat?

The media tells you so, and if you’re unhappy with the 21st century, just take a Zoloft and enjoy the brave new world.

1984 happened more than two decades ago, but we haven’t quite figured out that big brother is the media – it dictates how we should think and feel.

The wine media is really no different. To a certain extent, it is controlled by big brother and ad dollars. And the wine media wants you to think of wine as a glorified object instead of as what it really is: a magical potion.

Wine is a commodity just like soy beans. But wine is an art as much as it is commerce. The art is in the beauty of the glass and your relationship to it. The magic is in how wine transforms you.

One of the greatest lures of wine is that it is ancient and prehistoric. I enjoy ancient evenings, gazing at the campfire or burning a log in the fireplace, drinking red wine and telling tales. Away from big brother is when wine works its magic.

Wine encourages the joy of living and communing with your ancestors. You are free from the slavery of credit cards, the 9 to 5 and the 700 Club. Wine is about freedom – a short visit away from the madness of modern living.

The ability to renew humanistic feelings, relationships and connection is often the forgotten goal of drinking wine. It is easy to get caught in the hype that surrounds wine, the scores, the “giant mouth feel” and the cost, forgetting the freedom wine affords us all.

Pliny the Elder wrote millennia ago, “In vino veritas” – in wine there is truth. We stare into each other’s eyes without blinking and exercise that scarce commodity called truth.

And the truth sets you free. The weight of masks and the body armor of business disappear, and all that is left is the lightness of being.

In meditation, the ability to be spontaneous and intuitive has long been the goal when attempting to reach a level of consciousness at which you are most natural and in tune with your surroundings.

Does wine help reach meditative stages? In certain amounts of consumption, it can have a calming effect, your senses becoming keener. It is no accident that wine is part of many religious rituals – it is a link to the spiritual world and the mystical universe.

Wine can help you think and react intuitively. Enlightenment can be sudden or gradual under the influence of wine. A problem becomes clear – all the pieces of the puzzle come together. Suddenly, you see a situation from a different angle.

Reaching that level of natural intuition where the mind is clear and the tongue is loose is where friendships are won and love is made. It is important to be real; to tell the truth without fearing the consequences. We all have the courage within us, but sometimes it is buried. Wine makes it blossom.

Those who enjoy “reality shows” on television may forget that the true reality show is right in front of their faces – it is life. And life can be highly rated or just about to be cancelled.

Self-realization is considered the highest level of consciousness. The ability to understand that there is “one reality” and to see ourselves within that context is what life and wine are all about.