King of the Castle

Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Nothing Is Missing From Your Life

The mystics tell you “all is well, all is well. You don’t need this or that to be happy.”

Well, that philosophy doesn’t move product, folks.

I’ve lived in a corner of my head for so long, seeing things just so, never questioning, never challenging, happy to be blind. At least, happily wearing my blinders.

And then I started to lose focus. I stopped focusing on all those shows and commercials the television told me to watch. I stopped focusing on all the products the magazines told me to buy. And I stopped focusing on all the ideas and philosophies the newspaper, television, and magazines told me to believe.

And I was lost.

I was lost for a long, long time. I believed in nothing, not even in myself. My life took on the form of the slowest suicide possible. I was feeding my corpse, dragging it to work, putting it down to sleep at night. Watching the television but looking through it, waiting for the day to end. “There’s one less day I have to live through.”

I wanted something to be passionate about. Anything. And yet everything seemed so pointless.

I’d been raised by television and myriad advertisements all my life. Television and ads were always there to tell me something was missing and that I needed to buy this and that to fill the void. For years I believed it. I, quite literally, bought into it.

But it never filled the void.

And yet I went on thinking, as I was trained to do, that something was missing.

I thought to myself, “Have people throughout history been this miserable, this unhappy, this unfulfilled?” Are people in other countries and other cultures as unfilled as this?”

And that’s when I thought about the economic factor. It’s all about selling something in this consumeristic society. It’s all about money. The television and the ads convince us that something is lacking in our lives, that we’re not “up to snuff” without this new that or that improved this. It’s drilled into our unconscious minds. What will our children think of us if we don’t have “the best”? What will our friends and neighbors think of us if we don’t have the latest and greatest model?

The folks behind the television commercials and the ads are so driven to make their money that they nearly convinced me I must have something I do not need. Once they’re able to tie my self-esteem, my self-worth, into the mix (they made me doubt I could be happy without possessing every new thing), they know I’d buy anything to find peace, to save my soul.

Just look at how often the word “love” is used in ads these days. The product for sale is now the equivalent of love. You can buy love (i.e., this product) to fulfill your lacking life. How evil, how depressing is that?

Then I realized I could be happy and fulfilled without trying to fill the void. I also realized that, in fact, there is no void. Nothing was missing. I was fine without the “latest and greatest,” more at peace settling for less than “the best.”

Self-improvement is about stripping away needless layers, not adding them on. But there’s no money to be made in taking away the layers. Money can be made, pile after pile of it, convincing people that they must have something they really don’t need and then selling it to them.

The demand goes up and the corporations will go to all ends of the earth to take/steal materials from Third World Countries to fill our demand. Consumerism run amok is the first step towards imperialism. And—make no mistake about it—this United States of America is an imperialistic nation. For the sake of our happiness, we must live with less. For the sake of the world, we must live with less. For the sake of our souls, we must live with less.

Every cog in this machine is at fault. And though some cogs are less aware than others, I do not believe that diminishes culpability.

Posted by: JohnnyC9 at 17:49 | link | comments

Where do we think the support for our extravagant lifestyle comes from? Do we ever pay it any mind? Do we care? We’re screwing the rest of the world out of their natural resources and billions of dollars just so a few wealthy people can make a lot more money and we can continue living our lifestyle (high on the hog), burning through the resources essentially stolen from Third World Countries.

Is there nothing altruistic about our country? About our people? Must everything come with a catch or the chain of servitude?

Live simply so that others may simply live. What if instead of grabbing at everything (having to this, can’t live without that), we take what we need, decrease the demand that moves this corporatocracy to take everything from the poor so they can sell to the greedy at a ridiculous profit? We are stealing from others so that we might live our lives in luxury and these others go without the most basic needs. No one is looking out for them. We are culpable, all of us. We drive the corporatocracy by our insatiable demand. And even though our demand is affected by advertising, media, the Joneses (gotta keep up with 'em), we actually have the ability to say "enough!"

We eat like pigs, drive like assholes, and live by a creed of greed that is simply mind-boggling. Small-minded Americans ask: “How did I ever get by without a cell phone?” or “I simply cannot live without my palm pilot.” Bullshit distractions, all of it. Anything to keep their minds off the real issues; anything (and everything) to fill the ever-expanding void. Consumerism run amok. The media/advertising tell you what to think, what to buy, what is beautiful, what you cannot live without. What a fucking crazy-ass culture we live in! Does anybody ever stop to ask—what with all this shit we have to fill the void—why so many Americans are so unhappy, so empty, so hell-bent on one course of suicide or another. Spiritually, this country is a wasteland. What is employed as spirituality in this nation is either a money maker for some corporation, a sedative, a justification of lifestyle, or another distraction.

Posted by: JohnnyC9 at 17:48 | link | comments

Wednesday, 14 March 2007

We're the King of the Castle

Congrats, America. We’re the King of the Castle. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Just like we see in those movies where the selfish king who doesn’t care a lick for his starving subjects outside the castle walls, we live high on the hog at the expense of others, most notably the Third World.

Our greed is the key to all of this. The media, the airhead heiresses, the advertising whiz-kids tell us what we want, what we NEED and we demand to have it. We NEED these luxuries, we deserve the very best. “I don’t care how I it gets here as long as I get it!”

American corporations are happy to serve this greed. They hop a jet to a tropical Third-World locale, make a deal with the Richest of the Rich over there (who don’t care a lick about the welfare of the remaining 99.98% of their countrymen), and the American consumer will soon be sated. And if the 99.98% are upset by this, the American Government is happy to step in and “smooth things over” in support of American enterprise. (And Americans wonder why we’re so hated by the rest of the world. They don’t hate us because we’re free. They hate us because we take what does not belong to us.)

Yes, America, we are the King of the Castle. But let’s not be too quick to rejoice in that. Cuz kings can get lazy. (And heaven knows we’re lazy.) Kings do tend to get fat and out of shape. (And heaven knows we’re fat.) Kings do forget what it’s like to go to bed hungry. And while the king is asleep in his warm, comfy bed there are poor, hungry, and very angry peasants out there plotting to storm the castle walls. They feel quite justified in this action as it seems the king has lost his way and does not care for their welfare.

Our greed makes this so. Stop demanding that you simply MUST have this or that, that you NEED this obvious luxury. Do we really NEED certain things? Is it possible that we could live without them? That our lives might actually be livable (and maybe more enjoyable) without them? Things never fill the void for long. And then we’re on to the next “necessity” dictated by the media, pop culture, etc.

It’s ridiculous, a joke that stops being funny when you realize who’s getting hurt. Our souls suffer. They really do. I’m not saying this as some Fundamentalist Christian or New Age freak. This is based on observing sad, lonely, disconnected people whose pursuit of happiness is grounded in having the latest and greatest, the best, the most luxurious and expensive stuff available. The ads on TV show people gaining complete happiness by acquiring this stuff, but nobody in the real world seems quite as happy when they get it. Is a Blackberry really addressing your basic NEED? Is a camera phone filling the emptiness inside?

And not only do we suffer, the folks in the Third World suffer, but they feel it in a more basic sense—lack of food, shelter, and REAL necessities. Their natural resources, that they could use to better their lives, are sold away by the elite of their nation, bargaining with Americans who have just as little concern for the REAL needs of their own countrymen.

My solution: Americans should wake up to the BS around them. If they don’t want to care about the plight of the Third World, fine. Don’t let concern for your fellow human beings be your motivation. Be selfish if you’d like. But make it the right kind of selfishness. You should want what’s good for you, what’s healthy for you, what will make you happy. The advertisers don’t want to give you that, don’t want you to want that, because it’s free. They can’t make money off you when you want something that’s free. They don’t want you to know that you can be perfectly happy without wanting—NEEEDING—all the stuff they’re selling.

STOP paying attention to the media, to the admen, the pitch people, the low-wattage heiresses, the magazines, all of them. They’re not looking out for your best interests. They want to sell you distractions from what will truly make you happy: being in touch with reality, sharing the company of family and friends, reading, writing, singing, thinking. (God forbid you start thinking!) They want to tell you what you NEED, and what you NEED is whatever they’re selling. And what they’re selling will make you happy. Just spend your money on this product, on that product, and you’ll be happy. It’s ridiculous, it’s crazy, and it’s futile.

Not to mention the harm it’s doing to the American people. They’re being lied to—about what they need, how it’s acquired for them, who is being hurt by this consumption.

Just STOP.

Wake UP!

Understand.

We’re the King of the Castle, but we can be a good ruler. We can set a strong example. We can bring down the walls and change the world.

Whoever heard of a revolution beginning from the inside of the castle?

Maybe it’s time.

We can ask for less, live with less, and—remarkably—be happier with less. Despite what the admen tell you.

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