A Race to the Endless Goals of Our Times

The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having: human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed.

-`Guy Debord (1967)

The Society of the Spectacle

 

Evolution is a continuous process.  Man cannot seem to stop discovering things; and along with the sense of discovery, the need for the sense of recognition gets redefined.  Man used to crave for recognition on the basis of physical endurance since that was how strength was defined.  In the modern times when almost everything seems to be a-click-of-a-button away, strength gets constantly identified on certain terms --strength is power, strength is fame, strength is money.  Modernity seems to be measured by economic power and particular economies rely heavily on the population’s power to consume. 

            Almost every modern person’s concern is to have things --if each society embodies economic power, each person’s goal is to become a part of the ruling ratio of that value.  People have pursued, and are continuing to pursue, careers to be able to acquire the power to consume and to purchase along with attaining that very much vied position of certain powers.  Labor is equated to dollars and the money is equivalent to certain goods.  If in the beginning all a person needs to survive are food, shelter and clothing, in this day and age it is rare to find someone who will be able to survive without a mobile phone and an American Express. 

We all work hard to have it all.  While we were young it is quite sure that our parents somehow pushed us to become ‘successful.’  But how do we define “success” these days?  Success stops at what we accomplish; it gets heightened at what we have and what we can get.  Imagery has become a great factor for the modern society to determine what a ‘good life’ is.  Despite what the tabloids and reality TV say on the downside of merely having things, none of these stop people from wanting more.  People will not stop wanting until their desires cease to exist. 

There is a price to pay in exchange of the image of a good life.  Aside from the stress one gets at the workplace and the professional ethics one has to overlook in order to climb up a couple more rungs in the career ladder, people tend to miss the fact that once we develop the craving for things and power it is hard to make it stop.  An example is that acquiring objects also mean spending money on it.  A big house and a flashy car require maintenance and insurance.  Technology changes practically everyday; therefore, the need to upgrade becomes regular.  If we thought that certain acquisitions solve certain problems, think again.  It opens new opportunities and needs to make another purchase.  The necessity to consume evolves with man.  It is the time when who you are becomes what you have.

Given the circumstances, we forget our personal purpose because it gets overshadowed by the initial instinct to earn.  We give up our passions just to be able to work in a job that gives us a better paycheck, and the emptiness gets filled by substituting it with material and unnecessary things.  Relationships suffer, too --relationships with other people and even with our own selves.  Stories are told about people who have it all, but hate themselves.  There is always that tone of regret in those stories because at the end of the day, we do come to grasp that our desires and wants really end when we realize what we have really been missing.