Light and darkness

It's quite common to compare things of the past and the present. At the same time we had breakthroughs in medicine, in technology and in the achievement of respect for minority or historically repressed groups (women, homosexuals, black people, handicaps), it seems that society haven't evolved that much in the way of thinking. The critical thinking, that is not that complex once you see the positive and negative points of the things, it seems more as a “gift” than an ability that may be developed since one's childhood.

Maybe the excess of information generated by television media and internet has atrophied our brains or we lost focus on what's worthy to know. In order to absorb all, including useful and useless, literary works were ruminated for those who are lazy to think. Besides, the “opinions leaderships” still exist. Instead of listening to who have a cause knowledge (professors, experts, researches), many are based on the opinion of tendentious or sensationalist journalists and controversial celebrities, interested on the maintaining of the status quo.

We progressed here... we regressed there... Its like walking on a treadmill: we walk and keep in the same place but, if we stop, we'll fall. We can compare the society along the years with water in its different states of matters: water, vapor, ice... At the same time it changes its shape, it doesn't change its essence: it remains water, the same water of ever. And at the same time society changed in the last years, decades, centuries, it seems it behaves similar. The critical sense is an ability developed by few people, while many still venerate fame, money and power.

The problem of its lack of good sense is that almost everything seems to be divided only into “right” and “wrong”. This duality always exist, as if both, apparently antagonistic, couldn't coexist, or then, a third, forth, fifth way of thinking. We see this philosophy mainly on YouTube, news websites comments and in people's day by day talk. For a group of people, being humble to admit you don't know many about a certain issue sounds like a “certificate of lack of culture”. In order to not be out of the “well-informed” people, some convert themselves to clichezism. Among them, there's a desperate necessity to show off: if one is not handsome, hot and even nice, he tends to convert to clichezism to sounds intelligent and wants to pass the impression of being cult and having a strong personality.

And so, people start having a generalized vision of everything with it's two opposite currents, as well as stimulates ignorance and the reinforcement of several kinds of prejudice. When talking about things of Brazil, we have the chauvinists (in a few number) that blindly love their country and the pessimistic that thing that anything about Brazil works or is good. In politics, there's still a childish fight between petistas and tucanos, that try to defend their beloved parties speaking about Mensalão to not to talk about Cachoeira and about Cachoeira to not to talk about Mensalão (as if corruption was restricted to only one political party). When one speaks of religion, the bigot religious fill public institutions with crucifixes and defend the moralism to embase their prejudices. Atheists are used to be as bigot as religious are when attacking religious as a way to fight back. While some people are right and sincere, others are nasty and false. These are some examples of this cliche and immature thinking, as if everything were obvious and simple to be understood and with a already created formula to solve them.

That's why its disappointing for us to be already in 2012, 21st century, in an era that used to be imagined as that that men would stop with wars and think of the common good, and we notice that society changed not that much in its essence. Many still behave a selfish and irresponsible way: money is our modern god, a basic and finite natural resource (water) is still wasted, consuming keeps strong and alive destroying the natural resources for some people to feel better in having material goods that others can't afford, lots are still dying in traffic violence because of alcohol and etc. It's disappointing to see that with so many information available for anyone who wants to access it, clichezism is getting stronger and discouraging the critical thinking, without meaning to be rude or alienated to a narrow-minded view that everything has to be divided into light or darkness.

An amazing life

We are subjected to several kinds of dictatorships in our society. Many of them are imposed in a subtle manner, but very present. There's no one putting a gun against our heads pushing us to do a certain thing. It's the society, the culture who put this invisible gun. But the hand that shots never is theirs, but ours. The choice is ours.

One of the dictatorships is the happiness'. It doesn't mean that happiness is a bad thing, obviously it isn't, but you just can't concept it. What makes one happy, may make another one unhappy. The happiness dictatorship doesn't take it into consideration and establishes a standard. And this standard seems to be accessible only to those who have money – lots of money.

Happiness is having a big and comfortable life, having an imported car, being able to go abroad, having a pretty skin, a pretty hair, a pretty body, a nice job, going to best parties and eating and drinking the best the money can provide you. Fame, power and money: if you have the three, you would be happy according with the dictatorship.

But we know that the rich people also cry. What's the point in having these stuff if people approach you by interest? How is it possible to be happy living surrounded by safeguards and living in a fancy prison? Anyway, few people perceive this dictatorship. Few people think critically, maturely, wisely. Many prefer to live in the bubble of their ignorance, happy with their convictions and carpedienzist lifestyles.

In order to be happy, you have to think big, fly high. Happiness, then, stays attached to things that are usually unreal or inaccessible to many people. In the seek for the dream, people live in the future and forget about the present. And in the seek for “big and better” things, the smallest ones start to be ignored.

Following the happiness dictatorship is not enough, it's necessary to show it off. By behaving in this way, we will be contributing to the guns to be put against people's heads, perpetuating the cycle. We need to assure others and ourselves that this dictatorship brings happiness. Who's out, is treated as someone unhappy and influenced to believe he's really unhappy, starting to question his self-esteem.

In order for us to be happy, we must have an amazing life. We should feel ashamed of ourselves of doing simple and worthless things, specially, talking about them. We must have horror to the trivial, to the routine. And we must, of course, practice the exercise of self-affirmation. Everything must have be great, in the contrary, it's despicable and deserving of depreciating adjectives carefully chosen, because it's necessary to destroy the self-esteem of the people for us to feel better with ourselves.

But the truth is that almost anybody lives a Hollywoodian life. Almost anybody lives the life so intensively that causes good envy commentaries: “Wow! What a Carpe Diem well-followed!” We are driven to treat the celebrities as gods and foolishly believe that money brings all the material stuffs, that brings fame, that brings success, that brings love and finally happiness. And in this blind search for happiness, we leave the life pass away because we were always living in the future, never in the present.