The Nauseating Toxic Positivity on 21st-century Consumerism
Mugs with quotes like the ones we see in Mr. Wonderful give me hives. Self-help books paradoxically take away a lot of toilet paper from the poor who need it.
Is that really helping? I don’t think so. Actually, these authors do not lie: these books are self-help, but because the only ones they help are themselves. This happens if they manage to deceive enough customers to benefit financially; something that, much to my regret, is not difficult at all.
My dog could write a self-help book, and probably without the barrenness of the contents that comes from those books. Worse than that, I have no dog!
If self-help books are called that way, it is, in any case, because they help the author who benefits from the naivety and boring of the clients, who drop their money on this pile of pages and ink hoping to quench their thirst for self-comfort (unsuccessfully, of course).
These misnamed “motivational phrases” do not motivate, but stimulate stupidity, and appeal to conformism and incompetence. Instead of a possible “Don’t worry, everything will be fine” -Mr. Wonderful isn’t a realistic quote without hypocrisy better like “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” -Nietzsche?
The aggressiveness of the market economy is built on a great paradox: hypocrisy and a lack of scruples. Hypocrisy, on one hand, because to lie (to lie well) meticulousness is required; but in the other hand, apparently and inconsistently, there is no scruple in the art of deception.
Could I be a devil’s defense? Of course, who does not cheat? The human condition is too perverse to categorically deny that in the motivations and interests of the other there is not only good form, but also good content.
So what is it worth to me to open a front with so many writers wallowing over the monotonous subject of “happiness”? Where has this mercantilism led us, to sell as many ideas as even “happiness” itself? Self-help books have served to solve the problem that the IDEA OF happiness could not be packed for sale to the customer: they have become the means through which the customer acquires the feeling (not reality) that you now have one more tool to make your life a better one. And yes, I highlight “idea of”.
I could a big hypocrite as well though. And you, what do you think I suggest? Well, if you have any self-help books at home, don’t spend money on napkins, toilet paper, kitchen paper, or newspapers for the dog to shit and pee on; it is not the fault of the trees that we are stupid enough to sell ourselves the false idea of self-consolation. Are we really willing to allow ourselves the disgrace of being sold nice phrases hoping for a better day?
Well, I can tell you, I’m sure many of us would be more pleased to boycott them. Not long ago I spoke with my parents about how sad it was not to have been able to go this summer on vacation -my grandparents became sick and the family’s economy, although it was not lacking, nor was it left over.- My father then replied with his common pseudo-compassionate and pseudo-comforting swear: “There are worse things.”
What a great quote! What a great and deep thought! A guru! But, he knows that the summer has been shit! Can’t you maybe spare yourself the hypocrisy and say yourself…
“It’s a f*cking piece of sh*t.” -Javier
¡It’s okay to say it! But no one will look at you badly! If the summer has been shit because we have a family relatives with a disease and we are poor, then that’s it!
Oneself comparing to poorer is actually the poor-ish thing you can do. For example, what if our country were compared to underdeveloped countries in central Africa in terms of health or education?
To compare oneself with equals or inferior is, therefore, the great symptom of true incompetence. We cannot hope for anything better if we do not try to compete with better people, even if we do not have the same advantages and resources as them. More work at a disadvantage has merit and a result that, once one can afford to work under fair conditions, yields more and better.
Just because something makes you sad doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be of lesser value to you. If it makes you sad, there’s a reason. If a thing is a shit, you say it! The lie is a lie, and there’s no need to embellish that shit with pretty ideals, please.
