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Society produces excess and then must channel it, either into conquest or religion, or conspicuous wealth. This frivolous expenditure, this blatant waste, undermines society’s stability. (The “peasants” become angry.)
In the face of revolt, society must find a new collective means to channel its excess, perhaps a means that decries violence and lot in the name of peace.
Those busy making peace would consume the surplus.
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Everyone is supposed to find their purpose for happiness, fulfillment, or well-being.
Most are Judeo-Christian ethics, which means our purpose aligns with societal influence: we want to be “good” people. Your purpose is commendable but is it yours?
Give up on being a good person, and accept yourself as a person. By shedding as much of the societal pressure as possible and following your passions, you stand a chance to find your purpose.
It is odd that you must give up trying and drift into your purpose: seeking it leads to mimicking other people’s purpose.
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Memory is redundant: its repetition makes remembrance more significant.
Perhaps you only see something once, yet its oddity makes it significant enough to multiply, having an inflationary effect that drowns out other details. Our memory is captivated by intensity and novelty, shaping our remembrance further with the weight of excessive repetition.
(inspired by Italo Calvino)
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When you become wealthy you can claim it as merit or luck. If you become too wealthy you become separate and must attribute it to something: the meritorious lean into hard-nosed grit, while the lucky become progressive altruists.
However, neither will give up wealth to re-test their political ideology.
The lucky realize the odds and mouth platitudes to alleviate guilt, while the meritorious secretly realize their luck but have tied their identity to competence.
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The authority is in the theatrics of the architecture.
At the bank, hospital, DMV, receptionist, or supermarket, we are channeled and herded by flimsy partitions, confronted at the moment of interaction by a translucent plexi shield.
When attempting communication, notice we bow our mouths toward the small money passage. In this posture of obeisance, we petition, propelling our very breath as an envoy of intent.
Despite the pervasive systemic manipulations, we need our humanity to pass through and compel the empathy that reintegrates the divided into solidarity.
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Do you ruin a dinner because somebody won’t recognize school shootings or climate change facts?
Our politeness is the glue of society, but it is also the neutrality that allows idiocy to perpetuate unchecked.
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We went from a loving Father to the Protestants’ God from whom we could not earn salvation (we were all sinners reliant on his grace). As anxious souls unable to control our destiny, we channel insecurity into work: visible virtue.
Excessive work accumulates wealth, so we flipped the signified and signifier to claim “wealth” as God’s favor and our status through materialism (not spiritualism or kindness).
Our insecurity drove us into the arms of a more capricious, uncaring, and taxing God: Money. The comfort of the trade is the objective measure of our salvation, which proves most of us unworthy once again.
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Some situations are like having a pimple inside your nose.
They are painful, your nose turns red, and you either look like you have a cold or you’re an alcoholic. You randomly sneeze or have snot dripping down your enflamed proboscis, and you suffer it.
Eventually, it takes care of itself, and there is such sweet relief in returning to normal.
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The promise of utopia is based on more happiness. But, the master planner’s conception of happiness is an abstract wish in the distant future.
Instead of focusing on the potential positives, Karl Popper suggests we look to falsification to prove and solve problems we have today concretely.
It is not as glamorous as a holistic sweeping change, but it avoids today’s idealistic hubris for steady improvement.
