One can buy a lot in the supermarket, but not hope!
A thermometer in the proverbial mouth of society would measure a high temperature. We are all feverish. Psychiatrist Dirk De Wachter calls our society 'borderline'. Are we aware of a kind of collective delusion? 'Hypermarkets', that offer up to 30.000 articles, have increased their turnover greatly, have multiplied it. A good and strong pupil who perfectly meets our economic model of better, faster... and always more.
The supermarket is a temple of consumption.
Every product cries out to be bought. With an aggressiveness that borders on hysterical, our advertising boys try to convince us that margarine produces a more harmonious family life and that coca cola creates friendships. They shamelessly use insights of psychology to encourage people to consume. And they do not spare anyone, not even children.
The energy that is required of human beings to produce 30.000 articles, to distribute them and to sell them is colossal. This whole chain mobilizes gigantic forces and realizes this with such passion, that it betrays the conviction that to produce and consume material things will give us what we are looking for.
Does it still surprise you that we are drawn into consumption with forever stronger stimuli, at the cost of other things?
It is a kind of psychological materialism that makes that we are more preoccupied with 'having' than 'being'. If there even is time for 'being'. Recently a study with 8000 students at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium has shown that 1/7 has serious emotional problems: fear, depression, suicidal thoughts. Philosopher and author Hein Stufkens said in an interview:
"People that think about suicide, do not really want to stop living, they want to stop living 'in this way.' They want to live differently. They are looking for real life."
These are hard facts that we are strongly ego-centric. Isn't it high time that we look beyond the borders of the ego? One can maybe buy a lot in the supermarket, but you do not buy friendship there, no hope and no trust. Just like it is impossible to buy happiness, which is a good thing!
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