Everyone's Tired / Who or What?
Someone did not like the post titled Going Home From Work / Casuistry from a few days ago. He asked, "even if we are being manipulated through mass psychological propaganda, what matters is happiness, is it not?"
Well no. Happiness in itself is not a goal in life. It is overrated. If a bank robber gets away with a few million dollars after murdering a dozen people during the heist, he may well be very happy. If we're all "manufactured" to be unconscious consumers, nothing is left to distinguish ourselves from others, but how much we consume; What car we drive, how big our house is, where we go to vacation etc. If getting ahead is the only source of meaning in our lives, in everyone's life, how sane can our society be? In fact, this climate of competing to be better consumers is probably the reason behind 1 in 5 Americans suffering from a mental illness. Many would also agree that the meme of our age is, "It's OK, if you don't get caught".
We are programmed to be be a consumers; We are unknowingly and irrationally driven by what we want, not what we need. And what "we" think we want is not actually determined by us. In such a society, how do we interact with each other? What do we talk about? How do we feel when someone else has more than us? How do we treat those who have less? We are living in a "what" world, not a "who" world. Who a person is rarely matters anymore, but what they have is of great significance. That is why relationships of all kind, between parents and kids, colleagues, friends and especially between couples are failing.
Although I couldn't remember the exact phrasing, or re-source it, I had read somewhere that:
- Only when,
- Who you think you are,
- Who others think you are,
- And who you really are,
- Are one,
- Can you flow with, not against, nature.
Song of the Day: You've Lost That Loving Feeling - The Righteous Brothers (1964)
