If I read another aspirational blog by some young net savvy pretender to the Anthony Robbins throne I will eat my laptop. I won't advertise the chief troublemakers but I am talking about those guys (they are always guys, pumped up with natural steroids and Starbucks triple expressos) who write ebooks on how to win everything, get motivated, get girls, awaken the power within or be a millionaire in 7 seconds.
The combination of these twits and the Hollywood storytellers, or rom com writers like Richard Curtis are doing humanity no service except to froth us all at the mouth with the idea that we are not good enough and that everyone else is having all the fun and we are only a book away from being George Clooney, Lady Gaga or Steve Jobs.
While we are all frothing at the mouth at the possibility that we can change from animals into mythical powerhouses by page 7, I do wonder where we think we are going in this sprint to perfection.
I see that there are now books entitled How to be a Perfect Human Being (you know who you are). As if we are born to be crap until we get our hands on a copy? This reminds me of the seed of the protestant work ethic, Original Sin, which is the order that we are all sinful by nature and there is nothing we can do about it but endlessly apologise and atone by being slaves.
There is NOTHING human about these so-called positive aspirations. There is nothing in nature that needs endless positive aspirations in books, sites and post-it notes stuck on the fridge. We only need these worthless soundbites to get through each day because of the poverty of our beliefs, and the poverty of the political world that shapes our beliefs.
The single currency of sentient beings is feelings - either good or bad. Orthodox success and ambition, and all that goes with it, is not index linked to the currency of feelings. We are just educated to believe that this is the case.
It is no longer even legal to be human, and it's certainly too expensive!
Modern life is clearly here to get in the way of LIFE ITSELF, to trip us up with so many minor problems that even some of those with a great vision are in no position to enact it.
Julian Cope
