I am tempted to write about the most important human feature that guide us whether we like it or not. Emotions turn us do things, make us crave, want, desire, act in a way that makes difference in the world that it cannot be ignored. Doesn’t advertising, movies, music, food, our existence in the world make an emotion, make us emotional or indifferent. How does the indifference happen must be some kind of overload of glitter having made an impact and stuff that has been keeping pouring over us in a speed that makes us reject. Still there is no end to what glitters is gold ideology. It is as if we exist to feel and want not to think and consider, at least if one follows entertainment and how it builds meanings as layers and behind those shells there may not be a pretty picture nor a happy story (but we all know this, we just like to kid ourselves and like to see someone fall) images that the viewer might want to attach to oneself also to be somehow better than what one is. Togetherness, similarity, attachment and belonging, our need to be accepted and wanted is exploited as any human weakness and we somehow like it because we are weak in our constant yearning. Why else would the industry be there to greet us with bright colors and something to buy so much so that we choke. How much our decision-making is due to emotions to me seems to be quite a lot. We think we know when we don’t know but we must act like we know because a connoisseur is respected especially if one can present a bag of shit well and sell it. We trust the first impression and the sight in front of us telling the whole story which is not the way to get to know anything as any grown-up knows deep inside but what can we do when we like quick answers and trust salesmen and our true buddies.
Feelings arise in a world like this. Feelings of frustration
Where do we go from here?
Plastic world is a threat. The fact that we are already in trouble what comes to the amount of waste still seems somehow too far away to deal with for too many. We enjoy the massive production of goods far away cheaply with materials that are often reasons for bloody conflicts and shady business, but we like not knowing about such atrocities, less to let them affect our behavior. Consuming habits are unsustainable even though there is plenty of information and research provided all the time for us to change what we do, which would be reasonable. Such reasoning is beyond every day. It is easier not to bother. Waking up happens when things already are on the wrong so badly there is nothing to do but to change our ways of doing, thinking and making. ‘Treehuggers’ have been doing the waking up for decades. Childish term for people who are concerned for a reason. Markets guide our behavior and we are the market, strangely enough. Thinking we deserve our standard of living, our goods manufactured cheaply, new gadgets every year discarding those that don’t please any more, holiday trips abroad, meat and dairy products daily because we are used to such diet and to question any of these habits brings out outrage and instant denying.
Where am I getting at with the same old critique against our way of life, we are doing what we can, aren’t we? Um yeah, kind of, up to a point and there is clear division between people: there are those who are interested and then there are those who do not know and do not care that much for various reasons. It hit me at Aalto-university, a place where they educate people who design goods, packages and visuals in the future. If at a university the critique against unsustainable production, against consumerism and exploitation is nonexistent what hope is there? If university is that unpolitical and quiet about flaws in our system then I am truly concerned. If critique is being offended by not seen as appropriate and vital for system to evolve it also an intellectual crisis we are having.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-world-re-ordering-and-neoliberal-transnationalization/5453352 “Left-wing ‘foreign policy’ should not be limited to security; rather it must also include social, economic and environmental aspects. How should we assess the current geo-economic changes? Which issues are currently gaining in strategic importance? Moreover, what might constitute an appropriate left-wing response?”
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid“As Northwestern University professor Laura Kipniswrites, “Emotional discomfort is [now] regarded as equivalent to material injury, and all injuries have to be remediated.” Hurting a student’s feelings, even in the course of instruction that is absolutely appropriate and respectful, can now get a teacher into serious trouble.”
When your feelings are too much to take, as are your actions, how do you look at yourself?
To feel bad only when exposed, that is something. But it is too late. It is too late to mourn how bad you feel. To feel bad for the exposure of yours and to have thought you could go on forever unaffected, unharmed, righteous, privileged as such knowing what you know is all and everything there is to know. What to examine in you what you thought was unchangeable and therefore good. That you are perfect and you look at the imperfect, in comparison to you what there is, is all to improve.
Feelings arise in a world like this. Feelings of frustration, anger, hate, anxiety, sadness, distress. Such emotions are considered negative and not to be publicly shown if anywhere. They are if wisely used material in understanding oneself. Thought is and should be why do I feel this way. Why do I hate so much that I feel like smacking that person I do not know. If one is grown into these feelings from early on without possibility to learn to understand them, they will eat you alive. If the environment is landscaped with negativity, depression and future does not look too bright how can a person begin to understand patterns of human behavior, why things happen as they do, what is my purpose in all this. How to avoid cynicism, grow a healthy self-esteem or healthy caring relationships?
How to understand how we make culture. Where does it come from, what does it do, how does it evolve, what is my part in all this. What do we call culture, see as worthy cultures, how does worth begin? Why am I asking these questions is because there is a need for conversation every day to go through what can I do, what can anybody do and what is creativity for anybody. Conversations with myself and with others. My task is to find different kinds of solutions and channels to be creative. Where do we start, how do we evaluate ourselves and how does that impact on what we do and what we can do.
I measure myself from a perspective that I put myself into and I am put into. It is a curious installation-performance-act of daily maneuvers and assumptions. Mind game kind of play that goes on in terms of how I should be, how I see myself and how do I want to be. I have a strong feeling that even though I very much decide what I do, I’m not fully in charge. I unconsciously and consciously censor myself. There is a terrible need for others, people who do not even know me, put person like me in a certain place and frame. It is terrible, because I think it is common, very much a norm behavior to be a controller of others. It is an atmosphere of not much needs to be said, but we know what is normal, how things should be done. Expectations and all that. It is a solid foundation to begin a change of attitudes and behavior towards each other. This is basis to my subject revolution, when is it and what is it.
Majakollektiivi Timanttimetsä 