Thread by @caitoz

Finding Meaning Under A Meaningless System

"You find meaning under a meaningless system by working to destroy that system."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/finding-mean…

How many of people's mental health diagnoses are really just them struggling to function in a capitalist system that is amoral, destructive, overwhelming, overbearing, unsatisfying, and bereft of meaning?

It's worth looking into. How many people end up consulting with mental health professionals because they find themselves psychologically unable to keep up with the frenetic corporate pace that's demanded of them in order to "earn a living"?

How many people are pushed into mental illness by our current system? How many people suffer from depression or anxiety arising from the pressure to keep churning out pieces of landfill in meaningless jobs which serve no purpose other than to turn millionaires into billionaires?

How many people simply collapse under the weight of financial insecurity, food insecurity, housing insecurity, employment and insurance insecurity, combined with the effects of desperate attempts to self-medicate the stress?

How many of these stressors are exacerbated by being psychologically pummelled with mass media propaganda day in and day out, artificially twisting your mind into the belief that this is all normal, and that if you can't keep up, you're the problem?

And how about the capitalism propaganda known as advertising? How is our psychological health affected by a nonstop barrage of corporate messaging informing us that we are deficient, and that there are things we lack which we must obtain in order to become whole?

I'd venture to say this all has a major impact on our minds. You can have anxiety without being poor, but you can't be poor without having anxiety.

Our competition-based model uses the stress of potential homelessness and death to keep all the slaves turning the gears of the machine, and that stress is now interwoven into the very fabric of our society. It's so pervasive you have to take a step back just to see it all.

So how best to respond to this depressing situation? How best to avoid drowning in the tar pit of a soulless, nihilistic political and economic paradigm? How to find meaning under a meaningless system which squeezes your psychological wellbeing in order to power its batteries?

Well, that question is much easier to answer. You find meaning under a meaningless system by working to destroy that system.

Do whatever you need to survive, up to and including taking psychiatric medications if you need to, and with whatever remaining time and energy you have left, throw sand in the gears of the machine.
caityjohnstone.medium.com/throw-sand-in-…

Do whatever you can to upset the status quo. Engage in activism. Join a union. Start a union. Start a podcast. Start a Twitter account. Above all, work to spread awareness of what's really going on in our world, because that's the weakest point in the machine's armor right now.

The loose transnational alliance of plutocrats and government agencies which comprises our real government works so hard to manufacture consent because they require it in order to rule; we greatly outnumber them and we can oust their rule if enough of us decide we don't consent.

In a western society which must try to at least appear to support free speech, the best front on which to attack such a power structure is on the front of information.

So help wake people up to the injustices of our system, as many people as you can by whatever means you have access to. Wake them up to the abuses of capitalism. To the abuses of imperialism. To the abuses of mass media propaganda.

Learn as much as you can about the madness of our current system, and share what you have learned with as many people as possible.
caityjohnstone.medium.com/how-to-defeat-…

All positive changes in human behavior arise from an increasing awareness of the underlying dynamics which give rise to them,

We absolutely do have the ability to move away from this competition-based model and replace it with one in which we collaborate with each other and with our ecosystem toward health, beauty, and thriving. If there is meaning to be found in our world, it lies in that direction.