The way many people are....
From Johann Hari's "Chasing the Scream", pp 180- 184:
Human beings (mostly) only become addicted when they cannot find anything better to live for and when they desperately need to fill the emptiness that threatens to destroy them.
The need to fill an inner void is not limited to people who become alcoholics and drug addicts, but afflicts the vast majority of people of the late modern era, to a greater or lesser degree.
A sense of dislocation has been spreading through our societies like a bone cancer throughout the twentieth century. We all feel it: we have become materially richer, but less connected to one another. Countless studies prove this is more than a hunch, but here is just one: the average number of close friends a person has has been steadily falling. We are increasingly alone, so we are increasingly addicted.......the modern world has many incredible benefits, but it also brings with it a source of deep stress that is unique: dislocation......being atomized and fragmented and all on your own.....
And then there is another kicker. At the same time that our bonds with one another have been withering, we are told - INCESSANTLY, all day, every day, by a vast advertising-shopping machine - to invest our hopes and dreams in a very different direction: buying and consuming objects.......the whole economy is based around appealing to and heightening every false need and desire, for the purpose of selling products. So people are always trying to find satisfaction and fulfillment in products. This is a key reason why we live in a highly addicted society. We have separated from one another and turned instead to things for happiness - but things really can only offer us the thinnest of satisfactions......
How do we start to rebuild a society where we don't feel so alone and afraid, and where we can form healthier bonds? How do we build a society where we look for happiness in one another rather than in consumption ??!!
Cut off from one another, isolated, we are all becoming addicts - and our biggest addiction, as a culture, is buying stuff we don't need and often don't really want.
We all know deep down is does not make us happy, to be endlessly working to buy new shiny consumer objects we have seen in advertisements. But we keep doing it, day after day. In fact it occupies most of our time on earth. We could slow down. We could work less, and buy less.......but we do not do it, because we are isolated in our individual cages......in that environment, the idea of consuming less fills us with panic.........all this stuff is filling a hole where normal human connection should be !!
Human beings (mostly) only become addicted when they cannot find anything better to live for and when they desperately need to fill the emptiness that threatens to destroy them.
The need to fill an inner void is not limited to people who become alcoholics and drug addicts, but afflicts the vast majority of people of the late modern era, to a greater or lesser degree.
A sense of dislocation has been spreading through our societies like a bone cancer throughout the twentieth century. We all feel it: we have become materially richer, but less connected to one another. Countless studies prove this is more than a hunch, but here is just one: the average number of close friends a person has has been steadily falling. We are increasingly alone, so we are increasingly addicted.......the modern world has many incredible benefits, but it also brings with it a source of deep stress that is unique: dislocation......being atomized and fragmented and all on your own.....
And then there is another kicker. At the same time that our bonds with one another have been withering, we are told - INCESSANTLY, all day, every day, by a vast advertising-shopping machine - to invest our hopes and dreams in a very different direction: buying and consuming objects.......the whole economy is based around appealing to and heightening every false need and desire, for the purpose of selling products. So people are always trying to find satisfaction and fulfillment in products. This is a key reason why we live in a highly addicted society. We have separated from one another and turned instead to things for happiness - but things really can only offer us the thinnest of satisfactions......
How do we start to rebuild a society where we don't feel so alone and afraid, and where we can form healthier bonds? How do we build a society where we look for happiness in one another rather than in consumption ??!!
Cut off from one another, isolated, we are all becoming addicts - and our biggest addiction, as a culture, is buying stuff we don't need and often don't really want.
We all know deep down is does not make us happy, to be endlessly working to buy new shiny consumer objects we have seen in advertisements. But we keep doing it, day after day. In fact it occupies most of our time on earth. We could slow down. We could work less, and buy less.......but we do not do it, because we are isolated in our individual cages......in that environment, the idea of consuming less fills us with panic.........all this stuff is filling a hole where normal human connection should be !!
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