"People are fundamentally greedy."
This was one of the comments on my last post. I disagree. I believe, yeah, there's greed in us but there's also much more. But, right now, the few with the higher capacity for greed are manipulating us, bringing that greed to the fore for their own gain. Pushing the view that we should be greedy.
Almost all advertising is telling us that we should have everything we want. Not we as people. We as the one individual watching and just that individual. Because you're worth it. Don't worry about everyone else - it's you that matters and why the hell shouldn't you have everything you want? This message drives consumerism and also lands people in money traps. To use an old cliche, it creates wage slaves.
Some people even apply the bullshit 'trickle down' theory to happiness, saying if you are happy, that will rub off on other people or it's all about getting the individual happy and, eventually, you'll get to everyone. Like economics, the flaw is that the people at the top are doing their damndest to make sure not a shred trickles down. That's the greed.
Most self-help books are about blinding yourself to the shit in the world and convincing yourself you're happy in your own little blind bubble.
That's bullshit.
I don't believe any person on this planet should be happy as long as one person suffers. But, as it happens, people do walk around in their blind bubbles. I guess they have to. If we were always consciously aware of the hideous things going on with other people, we'd drive ourselves crazy. But that's being taken too far and people are cashing in on that. Diversion tactics, nurturing and feeding that greed, and a bombardment of information to create confusion. And we're falling for it.
So, yeah, aliens observing our planet would have a hard time finding something good.
But I believe this is just one part of us that is currently being exploited. I believe we're so much better than that. I believe we also have generosity, compassion, love and other cheesy emotional stuff inside us and I think that's just as strong as the greed. But those in power, as power itself draws the greedier people, are manipulating the negative.
What's worse is the apathy that this is creating. People are fundamentally greedy. Andy I'm going to call you out and say shame on you. By accepting the negative and just getting on with things, it allows them to happen. People hear of atrocities and think, well, that's people for you, eh? Rather than, we should be better than that. If it's taken as a given that we're all a bunch of assholes, how could we possibly be any better? It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Well, I say fuck that.
I want those hippies back. I want to unite the world in love. I don't want anyone to rest until every single person on this planet is happy. I want us to be better. I want us to be some kitsch vision of the future where we wear white sheets and flowers in our hair. I want us to take baths of course and I want us to be beautiful. Because that's what we can be.
Let's be beautiful. Then we can really call those occupants of interstellar craft.
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