Headline : "China - Growth may not equal happiness"
And this: "China's middle class vents anger"
Why does the media (and everyone else) always seem surprised with these headlines about shit that I have known in my heart and soul since I was twelve years old?
I'll take it a few steps further - "growth" and "development" and "more/good/better/best" not only don't equal happiness, THEY ARE ACTUALLY BAD for the human condition and humankind, mother nature, and all the cute little plants and animals. This applies all over the world, in every country, for every government, dictatorship and democracy alike, every ideology, everywhere, under all circumstances.
Growth ≠ Happiness
Happiness = Good
Growth + Development = Sprawl = Not Sustainable = Not Good = Bad
I'll put a positive, hopeful spin on it with this caveat - "unchecked, rampant" growth and development. Were we smarter about it, less motivated by greed and more motivated by good as a species, we could have built a sustainable Utopia over the past two hundred years.
We still can.
He stops typing, and mutters under his breath..."I need some tango, quick, someone give me some tango".
[Stay tuned for my next post - "De Luxe :: Luxury, something we deserve or a disease that infects us?"]
2 comments:
Alex. I totally agree with you. Big is not beautiful. It is dumb, boring and damaging. I am living with this 6900 sq ft. house now that is in previoiusly quiet little world of tiny houses and gardens. It is on third acre of pavement due to all the sidewalks and the sport court. I really have bad feelings about these people and they are really in my face.
Hi Miss E,
It really should be illegal. On the bright side, perhaps this home, and your neighborhood, could be an example to the world of what's wrong, how *not* to do it, and be the impetus to start making changes in our "dwelling units".
It's not all about money, pomp and circumstance, keeping up with and surpassing the Jones', nor conspicuous/austentatious consumption.
The trophy house long ago replaced the trophy wife as de riguer among the high net worth elite.
No one, and I repeat NO ONE, is talking about how what we have been building for the past 60 years is total crap, energy inefficient, bad for the environment, and bad for the human condition.
To make matters worse, we're still building the same old crap, using the same old materials and techniques from 100 years ago.
Crap crap crap.
The isolated pockets of hope need to become the mainstream, plus we need to start talking about retro-fitting the existing 107,000,000 dwelling units in the U.S.
Now there's something that would stimulate the economy.
Hang in there...
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