The End of Discontent

The kids are in bed…all three of them. The house is dark. I am listening to Arabella (R. Strauss) while trying to keep the “z’s” and “y’s” apart as I am typing away on a German keyboard.

I am too tired to get up to make my way over to the light switch. It wouldn’t help much anyway since regardless of how much I can actually see, my left pinky will jump to the “z” when the “y” is what I really need.

I still haven’t been able to load my pictures on this computer so there will be onlz (see what I mean!) “bla” for a while. Sorry! But I hope that by February, once we will have settled into our new home, womayyle (wow, cute!!) will be back to its original format.
In the meantime, you’ll have bear with my ranting and raving to keep you entertained…

Here is a brand new thought: Capitalism sucks!

In its unabated, unbridled form it’s a far too simple concept to achieve either excellence or fairness. In fact, not only does it fall short of creating lasting greatness it also contributes to the deterioration of many aspects of our lives:

Cities are growing uncontrolled, coastlines are being eaten up by private property, industries keep producing while mountains of trash keep growing, and resources are being depleted.

But all of that is hardly anything to raise a heavy eyebrow over. I would like to venture instead into what capitalism does to us and, inevitably, what it will be to our next generation.

Smothered by products from early on we (and our children too) get used to a world that caters to our most whimsical needs. What may be a box of heated wipes in the beginning becomes the latest electronic device by the time they are seven.

Children are turned into little consumers with a well-developed ego that will predispose them to become social automatons: Human beings who will seek contentment in consumption, who will prefer quantity over quality, and who will ultimately prove to be unable to compromise. A lonely life and a meaningless one as well.

It’s something that other systems didn’t achieve in their time. While just like in any other given socio-economic order capitalism produces its share of starving children, sick children, undereducated children, abandoned children, victimized children, and child victims, children living in a capitalistic society are faced with a foe that is greater than all the others taken together: meaninglessness.

Most parents I know are trying to dampen the sweet call of consumerism in their homes. But somehow human beings are lured to consumption like a fly to a pile of steaming …uh…pig guts? That’s why we ultimately came up with the free-for-all thrill.

After all, let’s not forget, consumerism is not some godly order – we invented it because to consume is what we want. Whether it’s food, stuff, or entertainment. The acquisition of products – the more, the better – gives us a sense of achievement: We won’t die today.

But we may die sooner than we want to realize because a life based on denial is a life doomed to failure. And a society that nurtures instant gratification will ultimately leave nothing more that a pile of…garbage.

Somehow, I think, early in life children have a keen sense of what really is meaningful: Relationships, team work, and personal accomplishment. But for every attempt that parents make to keep that sense alive there is a product that will promise a cheap substitute. And just like the laws of hydrodynamics dictate, we humans will end up choosing the road of least resistance…downhill.