THE FAKE GENERATION

This is the 3rd day of my pre-christmas-holiday. I have to stay in work this year during the whole days of festivities, x-mas, new year's, whatever. So I got one week off before the whole shenanigans start. This is the 3rd day. Monday I had three phonecalls from my office and then I had to attend a meeting with a customer in the afternoon. Yesterday and today I had two phone-calls a day from the office, where people wanted something from me. One hell of a holiday. Last week I worked 60+ hours again. I'd really like to get a good nights sleep.

Today I have been on the main shopping street in this town watching the people run around, hurrying to get christmas gifts in time. I'm glad I have all that done and ready behind me. I went into that big-o media-chain and listened to about a dozen CDs without even intending to buy one. I just went through the rows and rows of music, grabbing whatever looked up at me and then listened through them. Then I spent some time playing race-car-games on the PS2-stations they installed there. What do I need a PS2 for? Then I went into some fashion-stores and looked at the cool, stylish suits, the sharp shirts and ties and matched colours and textures for about half an hour. Yeah, really look sharp in your brand new suit. Since I already own several suits, I left soon enough. Then I was handed some tokens for snacks, for mobile phones, for rave-parties, and I pocketed them. Might come in handy, though I don't think I'd go to a rave or buy a new mobile-phone. The snacks, well... Finally, I went into a comic-shop and read through some new comics from the US, which were as bad as I remembered them, wondered why "From Hell" by Alan Moore costs 45 Euros and why the store calculates 1 Dollar to 1,25 Euros. Then I went home and ate frozen pizza and put on an old record. All in all, I thought to myself, I spent a nice afternoon without spending a cent.

The Yuppies wanted to spend money, no matter what. The new generation has learned to chose between various synthetic and artificial idols and consumer-articles. Dragon Ball or Tony Hawk-Skater-clothes, they know it's all a hype to get them to buy stuff, but they find a certain cool or a authenticity in fake and media-hypes. They know reality is just a fake and fake can be just as good. Maybe in a dozen years or so, they'll all break down, because as far as a meaning of life or a sense of existence is concerned, they don't have the slightest idea where to look. The older generation has no clue either, but they know that there was such a thing.

Maybe we should take a larger point of view. Two-thousand  years ago the king (or pharao or sungod or whatever) was the central point and focus of any society, and everyone knew his place in this society, his possibilities and duties. There was no difference between political power and religious power, because both were unified in one person. Then science and mercantilism developed. It is hard which one came first and but it is a good guess to think that they intercoincided and depended in each other. Private enterprises could rocket a man up the social ladder like never before. So, slowly religion started to become less and less important, political power faded from divine, personalized authority to an ideal of governing, which was mainly led by economics. Today, economics has taken over the power. No matter how much we hide behind democracy and the fact that there are still churches everywhere is of no importance whatsoever. But people have lost their focus, they have become individuals. Their main focus is themselves, because this is also what capitalism tells us - the dishwasher come millionaire-principle. But this only works for a tiny minority of people. The rest fails, so they have to look for other things to give them meaning and sense, but there isn't anything anymore. People in Western countries are fascinated with Eastern philosophies, but this is also an artificial blanket, that might keep them warm for a while, but what will fade away quick enough. A few hundred years ago a farmer knew why he was tilling the land - because he had to provide food for his king and the people in his vicinity. Nowadays we work for money, because money is the medium they tell us will lead us to fulfill our dreams, but it is not true.

Money might have that possibillity, but that is not what capitalism wants us to do. Marketing has been leading the word for a few decades now and marketing along with its evil twin advertisement is here to produce desires in us. Desires, which will never be fulfilled no matter how much we buy or consume. Because as soon as we have bought that one item, everybody seems to tell us is so important for our life, a new, better item with added features will come along, which we will have to buy, and so on. Capitalism works on the principle that people keep on spending money for better and better stuff. In theory, this provides people with better and better stuff, thereby providing society with progress and making things better for everybody. But people are looking for meaning in their life, not more and new things. Even though clever marketing directors find ways to make people believe that the meaning of life lies in more and newer things, more and more people are starting to look through this scheme. And question it as well as their own behaviour. And they realize that if you don't spend any money, you don't have to earn any money.

Maybe I am thinking to much. Maybe when my 60+hours workingweek crawls back into my life, everything will change. Maybe then I'll get the knack of celebrating myself with a 500-Euro-suit and a pocket full of DVDs every month. Sure, money gives you that freedom, but what is the price you pay?