The contemporary world is but a glimpse of reality, a vision controlled by others, filled with appearances, fallacies, uncertainties, and fantasies. We find ourselves in a society consumed with fear, with cameras dotting the landscape, and there is no way out. We live under the false pretence of conspicuous consumption, purchasing the latest fashions, and exposing our most private and emotional moments on social media. We pretend to be happy; when we want comfort, we simulate sadness, and everyone buys it.
Our bodies are covered with commercial brands as if they were inked into every inch of our skin.
Companies have tapped into our desire to belong and at the same time be utterly unique. We want to showcase the beauty of our bodies by adorning them with the most beautiful outfits that specifically come from a brand. We criticize everyone and live happily under a routine where people’s socioeconomic status is put to the test on social media. We see them buying the objects everyone craves, upload it to Facebook, and forget about it.
We live in a reality similar to the dystopian fictions we hope we never emulate. The most beautiful young women turn their eyes to filthy rich older men to fulfill their material wants. Real happiness and emotional wellbeing have been displaced because emotions are now centered on appearance. We show what we are not, and we want what cannot have. Forbidden desires push us to think exactly like the rest of the world.
We have all been molded and our chests are branded with the word “consumerism.” We move towards the inevitable uncertainty of not belonging and being excluded if we do not have the material advantages to fit in.
The world has become prefabricated, like clothes, TV shows, and tinned goods. Our very vision of the world is as governments, politicians, and the overall system dictate.
We no longer live to care for others or nature; we live for ourselves. We seek out riches, and we crave absolute power that will make us stronger than the rest.
Our resources are diminishing, and it is hard for us to understand this premise. We seek instant gratification; our society revolves around this. Our culture is that of eternal luxury and ephemeral passions, just as Lipovetsky would say.
While the world diversifies and changes its appearance, everything remains beautifully packaged, and Western standards of beauty are imposed by technologies like Photoshop. We look at the most beautiful places on earth through Swarm, enjoy landscapes through Instagram, and long for luxury products on Pinterest.
We believe ourselves to be educated and informed because we indiscriminately scroll through Twitter and all the media that is dictated by our friends and celebrities. We yearn to be like them, and we repeat the worn out stereotypes of hipsters, hippies, anarchists or metrosexuals.
The sex industry has become the norm, and it dominates the market to an extent that it is embedded in all media.
We seek more curves, sex, penises, vaginas, and breasts. Relationships are disparaged, and it is no different having sex with a stranger than with someone known. We plan dates, sexual encounters, or simply physical touch through phone apps. Nothing surprises us, and we are unfazed when real sex occurs in movies.
Poems are vacuous and literature now needs a sexual component in order to triumph. If you add the word erotic or sensual to a phrase, you know it is bound to be a guaranteed success.
While faith diminishes in some people, in others it is exalted. Thousands flock to places of comfort because the large religious institutions are lacking. More rehabilitation centers that promise salvation, glory, and a new life are opened daily. Religion has turned into an industry of dreams, experiences, and adventures. Men continue to play a fundamental role as healers, gods, priests and spiritual leaders. On the other hand, women are relegated to less rewarding roles: inciters and nuns that can’t even officiate a mass. This male chauvinistic religion from the middle ages has taken different shapes across the ages, and its presence remains undiminished.
Medicine is no longer at the service of saving lives, and instead the patrons and multimillionaires of the pharmaceutical business wield it. In many ways medicines have enslaved the sick, making them lie in wait for the next scientific cure and be skeptic of the more natural alternatives. It is an infinite game of medicines that ultimately lead to our deaths, leaching what little resources we have, and leaving our families bereft after our passing.
Mankind is stripped from its rights and turned into victims of discrimination
Women exalt their femininity in incorrect ways and are goaded by the government to do so. We become rigid and our minds are closed with the need to only give answers and never ask the right questions. We live in the typical rectitude of dictatorial governments that still cling to the illusion that they are able to make a difference for women. There is no feminism. There is only feminine dictatorship.
Women are no longer victims of the unreachable standards of beauty that the media and fashion runways spew forth. At least they have opened and accepted their imperfections as a sign of strength. The debate between the ideal and the real continues to rage on. The glossy magazines and runway shows would depict sophisticated women with bodies that set a trend. Men would die for them, and we in turn would seek to look like them to have them die for us as well. We do not realize that these women are but a minority, and that most of us are graced with curves, prominent hips, and breasts.
