“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?”… Henry David Thoreau.
These lines were written while Thoreau was living in hut at the edge of Walden pond near Concord, Massachusetts, between 1845 and 1847. Even then, this individualist philosopher recognized the problems of society’s materialistic value system.
It seems no one listened as we see the beginnings of the twenty first century with the “Corporate Alien” dictate of “desperate haste.” Companies go in and out of business, they merge to form bigger companies and exert an ever growing influence on the general public. Products come and go as there seems to be an ever growing need to innovate.
Marketing dictates our entire existence: from politicians and statesmen, whose campaigns cost millions to ordinary citizens whose lives are being entirely led by the commercialism of today’s media. The few that have acquired large amounts of wealth are setting the standards for the rest of us so that their wealth would continue to grow at our expense.
It’s not enough for one family member to earn a living...