« Outside beauty is the visible part of inner beauty. And it manifests itself in the light that emanates from everyone’s eyes. »
Paulo Coelho, Manuscript found in Accra.
hello, young Padawan
It is with great courage and tenacity that we are painfully trying to be fine in this sick society. Except we do not use the right tools.
Most of us endure this burden with emotional buffering.
“What is it? “. An emotional buffering is something you do to avoid seeing reality in front of you. For example buying something you do not need to feel a moment of pleasure, making you forget that your dream was to be a plumber, with your small business and your pretty van. Today you are a sad bank employee dreaming of another life in front of his computer, but who is too afraid to start. So you bought a new TV, while your old one was still working. An emotional buffering can be a purchase, a pastry, a film, a drug, sex, a hobby (and not a hobbit, ed); in short, it is anything that makes you escape from your responsibilities or the reality.
And here is our modern society, our society of the “unseemly positive”.
In the streets, I see hundreds of dull eyes, of gray and devitalized faces of people who nevertheless “have everything they need.” A weariness of living that I do not like at all. It is so sad to unfollow the path of one’s life, walking down the street alone like a non-contagious zombie (imagine the distress, ed).
That’s why and what I wanted to talk to you about today.
The absurdity of the feel-good trend
Trinkets, books, TV shows, everything has become “feel good” in our society. The hypocritical “I am always all right” way of life. However, I have the feeling that when it becomes urgent to always be fine, there is something that does not go well.
Open your eyes and dare to tell me that everything is fine in this society where the old, the sick, the disabled, the abnormal people are removed from it, invisible, but everything is well. This society literally destroys the planet on which we depend, but all goes well. This society makes us sick. Our air, our water, our fruits, and vegetables have become toxic, but everything is fine. But what do you think happens if we stop eating, drinking or breathing (unless you’re the guy in The Big Blue movie, ed)?
Food, air, and water are our most precious goods, a billion miles ahead of money, but we shit inside it, literally. It does not go well, but everything is fine.
A sick society. But everything is fine.
feel bad, a reality
“Forget everything: with this object, you’ll feel better”.
Buy Zawa’s latest fashionable jacket, new Stuart Leitzman shoes, new H&N pants, or a Chinese website on the internet … Even an activated carbon toothpaste can make you dream of – presented by Miss Idontkowhoo on Instagram, bought 18 bucks (while it worth less than 2 euros), and giving you this little shot of “feeling better”.
You receive it, you are excited 10 minutes, then the next day arrives and you do not remember it anymore. You need another dopamine shoot. ” Oh ! This ad on the tv! I would love to have that thing … ” and boom we go again.
I would like to talk to you about something I did not experience but that I was described so well that I can allow myself to explain it to you: the addiction to a hard drug.
At first, I was told, it’s amazing. A bit like a Christmas morning when, as a child, you open your beautiful gifts. Pure, frenetic happiness, it is magic.
Then quickly, it’s a descent into hell, so to avoid it you need a shoot again. But unfortunately, the second time will never be as good as the first, the third never as well as the second, and so on.
So, then, the spleen of the descent becomes more and more settled in the cortex of the person who becomes dependent, until it ends up making one depressed, empty of meaning and life.
Have you made a parallel with consumer society? It’s exactly the same thing: a learned company dedicated to making us addicted to dopamine, the hormone of pleasure that you feel when you activate an emotional buffering. You must have this new TV, these new jeans, the same shirt as the girl on Instagram, you want more, always more, and during that time we run to our loss. Our mental and ecological loss.
To make you react, I will even dare to have the audacity to reveal to you a fact: it is better for the survival of humanity to be addicted to crack rather than to overconsumption. Yes, you read well. Crack or hero, eh, you have the choice of your drug, but not on your consumption anymore.
But don’t worry, you will be much happier and fulfilled by being reasonable because by thinking of having everything, you lack the essential.
the apropos positive wave
Yes, you can go well in a sick world.
I’m not going to do biblical paraphrase, I mean you know my religion is rock ‘n roll, but I seem to have heard one day something like “love your neighbor like yourself”. Well, that sentence basically summed up the very essence of my thought.
Because if you have as much esteem for yourself as the one you have for a closet door, it may be difficult to respect others. What will get us out of all this is self-love, because if you love yourself, you respect yourself, you do not want to put poisoned food in your body, so you will invest in your health, therefore you will also invest in your mind, and if you love and respect yourself, you will love and respect others, like yourself. Do you follow me? I think so. You can check out this cute article that will give you some keys.
In the end, all this will bring you the happiness you will never have with any consumer item – because the purpose of life is not to have, but to be. The positive, the feel-good, is noble; we must respect its values, instead of turning it into shitty consumption items.
Loyalty
« The true hero is not the one who is born for the great deeds, but the one who has managed – by means of little things – to build a shield of loyalty around him. »
Paulo Coelho.
It’s crazy to write an article on the emotional buffer that is consumption and talking about ecology and mental health. Really? Here are two beautiful smart oxymorons (you have it? “smart (oxy)moron”, yep, I’m still here! lol, ed): “a healthy emotional buffer” and “an ecological consumption”. Eight words that summarize my article and should be written, in all modesty, on the doors of UN’s toilets, because there is only one place where we really think with humility.
Be careful, loyalty is not judging oneself. And just as being aware of the facts does not prevent us from realizing ourselves and being happy, provided that we are fully aware of our responsibility. Indeed, the biggest polluters are not the citizens but a handful of huge companies, certainly, but our mode of consumption supports them or not. If nobody buys it, it will not be sold: That is, intellectual loyalty.
Let’s be loyal to oneself, accept oneself as one is, nobody is neither better nor worse than the other. Let us be loyal to our mode of consumption, and therefore to our humanity. Because as I have already shown on this blog, it is not the planet that we must save – which will be much better without us – but Human, which, without a habitable planet, will look like a dick.
« When the last drop of water is poisoned, the last animal hunted and the last tree cut, the white man will understand that money is not edible.»
Sitting Bull, Indian tribal chief.
You can be happy and committed, happy and aware, as long as your way of life is in line with your convictions. You can be fine, in a sick society. You can be “Feel Good” without the stupid and the cynical side of our society. I want to see responsible and happy people, dancing and singing naked in the street! (delete as appropriate).
Sing, dance, love, laugh, share moments with those you love, rather than buying stuff that will make you dull and sad. Your life deserves to be lived in color, but not on a TV screen.
Much love and support, dear human pal 🌈
Sources :
IPCC International Panel on Climate Change
Erwann Menthéour, “Les chances qu’il nous reste”, ed. Fayard.
Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France.