The price of our happiness.
Karamatzov Brothers strangely come to mind this morning…-- And even more strangely, of all the themes and the dilemmas suggested in the book I only think of one of them…If you could cure all the evils of the world and secure happiness by killing a child, would you do it...?
The puzzle has already been solved… it's me, you, and all the others around us who are already doing it. We have simply found an easier method, which erases and avoids the possibility of leaving any traces of culpability in our consciousness. The act is no longer painted by the brutal nuances generated from the ghastly idea of killing a small child. Nowadays we do things more conveniently…we exploit; with the full knowledge that we ourselves might be exploited the same way we exploit those behind us.
Take a look at yourself, notice the labels on the clothing that you are wearing…its ok we all fall prey of labels. Me…-I’m wearing a pair of banana republic pants, and then let’s see here is my shirt that says “express”, my shoes say “nine west”, my watch says the same thing, and my purse says “kenneth cole”…No, I’m not trying to show off at you, and I’m not trying to advertise either…My point is that if I were to omit the labels from these pieces of garments it would make them of no value, they would look like anything else…So why then do we so proudly wear these labels, and find ourselves always asking for more and for better? Don’t ask me…because even if I understand that the purchase of these goods whose costs greatly exceed the benefits and whose prices greatly exceed both the cost of manufacture and the price of other goods which fulfill the same function, I still fall prey of them.
Let’s get back to our fine clothing…after having looked at what you are wearing do not calculate their cost (it has no real value ; the money is gone), but do calculate the amount of work submitted by all the people that were exploited in the process of producing them (in the long chain of the assembly line, you will even find that small child that I was talking about early on, perhaps he/she is the replacement of the other child who we killed…), consider here all the other things that you own in your life, and then finally tally all the costs to our “happiness” in an excel spread sheet…How sad, for the knowledge of this exploitation is what makes our lives valuable… Yet, for some people all this material abundance has not resulted in an abundance of happiness.
… the price of our happiness…or wait…wasn’t there someone who said there is no price tag on happiness…mmmmm
Karamatzov Brothers strangely come to mind this morning…-- And even more strangely, of all the themes and the dilemmas suggested in the book I only think of one of them…If you could cure all the evils of the world and secure happiness by killing a child, would you do it...?
The puzzle has already been solved… it's me, you, and all the others around us who are already doing it. We have simply found an easier method, which erases and avoids the possibility of leaving any traces of culpability in our consciousness. The act is no longer painted by the brutal nuances generated from the ghastly idea of killing a small child. Nowadays we do things more conveniently…we exploit; with the full knowledge that we ourselves might be exploited the same way we exploit those behind us.
Take a look at yourself, notice the labels on the clothing that you are wearing…its ok we all fall prey of labels. Me…-I’m wearing a pair of banana republic pants, and then let’s see here is my shirt that says “express”, my shoes say “nine west”, my watch says the same thing, and my purse says “kenneth cole”…No, I’m not trying to show off at you, and I’m not trying to advertise either…My point is that if I were to omit the labels from these pieces of garments it would make them of no value, they would look like anything else…So why then do we so proudly wear these labels, and find ourselves always asking for more and for better? Don’t ask me…because even if I understand that the purchase of these goods whose costs greatly exceed the benefits and whose prices greatly exceed both the cost of manufacture and the price of other goods which fulfill the same function, I still fall prey of them.
Let’s get back to our fine clothing…after having looked at what you are wearing do not calculate their cost (it has no real value ; the money is gone), but do calculate the amount of work submitted by all the people that were exploited in the process of producing them (in the long chain of the assembly line, you will even find that small child that I was talking about early on, perhaps he/she is the replacement of the other child who we killed…), consider here all the other things that you own in your life, and then finally tally all the costs to our “happiness” in an excel spread sheet…How sad, for the knowledge of this exploitation is what makes our lives valuable… Yet, for some people all this material abundance has not resulted in an abundance of happiness.
… the price of our happiness…or wait…wasn’t there someone who said there is no price tag on happiness…mmmmm
