Forum Post: is there anything more depressing in america than the mall?
Posted 10 years ago on Oct. 16, 2014, 7:37 p.m. EST by elf3
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A vast wasteland of corporate sleeze ...a red light district of its own where stupid people flourish and waddle around like programmed robots ready to buy any new gadget or fad that enters their field of vision....their brains are overflowing with the remnants of television and chemical laden bad food. They speak marketing...drones repeating phrases they hear in commercials and they feel totally at home in the disgusting filth amidst a world of cheesy slogans and gaudy decor. Pet shops holding puppies in display cases having stress attacks in their confines eating the flourescent lights while smiling onlookers ooh and ahh like its so cute failing to notice the creatures distress and thinking nothing of throwing down money to perpetuate puppy mills. I avoid the mall like the plague but every now again venturing out to see if it has changed i leave depressed thinking this country is doomed and wonder...Where are my people?
"Capitalism was born to eat itself." Words of rapper M-1.
Maybe more depressing is the fact that student loan debt now surpasses the credit card debt that has been largely amassed on shopping trips to these malls.
We need deep and lasting change to our ethos, to what is important to us, to what our priorities are. We need a society that is run by and for human beings, not corporations.
I would agree. Corporations have shifted our culture...these family values spouting ceos and elite businessmen who pay psychiatrists and marketing firms to figure out how best to manipulate the masses bringing out the worst in society while causing us enough strife and struggle to make us vulnerable. How can one climb a ladder when the ladder doesn't exist or one that keeps moving and so we think we are failures because " everyone knows there is a ladder, what are you stupid or lazy?" Life becomes an impossible paradox and we are defeated. By default. It should be illegal for doctors to consult in how to manipulate and destroy people with their training. It certainly goes against the hippocratic oath. I think the first shift is for people to realize the manipulation. Learn to question rules and authority , learn when someone hasn't got your best interest at heart, realize when you are being lied to. Question people who promise they have you at heart while simultaneously pocketing your cash or benefiting from your labor. There is an edge between paranoia and trust. Blind faith in idea ( like wealth or status brings happiness) or in a government or party or person is nonsensical and drone- like, it is giving yourself over for someone else to control ( and possibly destroy) This is mentally unhealthy, to hurt and labotomize ourselves. It effectually hurts and labotomizes our whole society. What can cure it?
America needs shock therapy ...we need a complete financial and spiritual meltdown for people to really see that these old ideas have run their course. People will only follow ws so long as they believe the american dream is the same one as wallstreet's...when enough time goes by or the struggles get harder or they realize that wealth couldn't change them and they still feel hollow... people will start to awaken from their stupor and see: Shopping is not the answer and neither is God. The answer is within us the spark that brings our brains life...that little voice inside your head telling you who you are... and what you are has dignity. It can't be bought like a two dollar whore or replaced over with some UGG boots or Mercedes...it is the spark of life that spreads to others and fosters and cares for it because we are not killers or competitors or haters. We dream, and we aspire, and we breathe and we love for something inside us that even gods or psychiatrists or marketers can't know...wallstreet can't buy and sell that. They can buy and sell our government, but they can't really buy us or change who we are inside. Wallstreet is just an idea...and that idea has faded. With no more drones, we will see boycotts of monopolies and war, the afterglow fading ...an america ready to get out of bed , take our baths, get ready for a new idea and begin a new day.
"...when enough time goes by or the struggles get harder or they realize that wealth couldn't change them and they still feel hollow... people will start to awaken from their stupor and see: Shopping is not the answer and neither is God. The answer is within us the spark that brings our brains life...that little voice inside your head telling you who you are... and what you are has dignity. It can't be bought like a two dollar whore or replaced over with some UGG boots or Mercedes...it is the spark of life that spreads to others and fosters and cares for it because we are not killers or competitors or haters. We dream, and we aspire, and we breathe and we love for something inside us that even gods or psychiatrists or marketers can't know...wallstreet can't buy and sell that. They can buy and sell our government, but they can't really buy us or change who we are inside."
Thank you, elf. One of the best comments ever on the forum. :)
"..a red light district of its own" lol yes.
Also, most of it is bought with credit, so people are actually jeopardizing their future for minor, material things.
As Kunstler says:"Nothing matters,anything goes." Hopefully the Elf is correct and This Too Will Pass.It surely is an utterly repulsive Zeitgeist.That's why I love the Millennials.They ain't buyin' it.
Walmart is worse than Malls. People impulse buying every shiny thing they see. I don't know, maybe it's human nature. All the junk for sale overwhelms to senses. The US really is the land of plenty when it comes to the amount of useless trash for sale.
When we go very far back in history, we see that people have always enjoyed "stuff" and the higher up on the power chart, the more stuff they had. Look at all the riches from the previous empires kings and queens, and the commoners always wished to have what they had.
We seem as a species to always value material wealth more so than mental health. Even cultures such as the native americans you can see a fondness for things that served absolutely no purpose at all. Granted they did a better job of utilizing things to their fullest, the desire for "stuff" was still there.
Perhaps we have figured out how to take care of all the very basics to the point where stuff is now the next priority.
At any rate, mother nature will get rid of us as soon as we become too much for her to bare. I honestly dont see a way for 20 billion anything to inhabit this planet, especially humans.
Filling the emptiness from living in a defeated, labotomized society with stuff. That was ws's plan right? But it isn't too late to change it. Runaway trains not only have an emergency stop...they go in reverse too. I've felt it that draw...to feel normal. To feel part of society to give in, forget all this Occupy thought...ride the train a while pretend I'm not stuck. But the things don't make you feel good ...being part of something that says they mean something feels even worse...and you realize the puppetry and even I have strings that can be manipulated. Our strings are dangerous we hold on to them for safety and we are afraid if we cut them off we will cut ourselves apart from society or what is normal. Ws has taught us there can be new normals. We can cut ws off and still be connected but now to something deeper and lasting. To spread dignity. It starts with ourselves each one of us. Then we can pay it forward.
The people are drinking Kool-Aid(TM) in the food court of the Peoples Temple.
They have nothing left but that cup o kool-aid..they gave up. We can show them more but we have to break the ws spell. Deprogram.
Do you mean letting the already gorged Wall Street rats waddle through the food court lapping up the people's last drinks? It is an interesting idea but who will clean up the mess afterwards?
Where are my people?
Mine are on another planet. Yours were on vacation there but they just left. They did have a nice time, though.
There seems no relief from the confounding contradictions of what we term humankind. Which is an oxymoron in itself outside the mall as well.