You may have read it, but French garbage collectors are striking to protest the retirement reform. As trash piles go higher and higher, this is a perfect allegory (or metaphor) for our global situation. Our Earth is full. The most affluent of us are producing humongous amounts of waste and it’s killing us all by polluting our air, our water, our soil.
Our over-consumption societies are just selling us more and more stuff, but to what purpose ? Growth ? It’s certainly not selling us stuff to make us happy given how anxiety and depression are rising… As the most affluent of us have everything they need and could possibly want, our economic systems are now resorting to selling us multiples of everything. We have way too many clothes, we ditch our pefectly fine laptops and smartphones for newer ones at an alarming rate, we are travelling more often and farther than ever before…
This can’t go on and something will have to give in : our economic systems based on over-consumption or the livability of our beautiful yet fragile planet.
As I am moving places and changing jobs – more details on this soon – I am impressed, shocked and even ashamed at how much stuff I have accumulated in the past two years, and this despite being careful of buying as little as I can. Have I really accumulated this many clothes ? Magazines and books ?
This reminded me of Charlie Chaplin’s speech in The Dictator in 1940 and how it is still eeringly relevant today:
I shall return soon with more content, so stay tuned !
Photo credits : me, myself and I.
Taken a week ago on my walk to home.