Well here we are, once again in the midst of the period when the illusion goes even crazier. Having struggled all year with such problems as heating your home, feeding your kids, and due to the cuts in social services, you are running ragged caring for your ageing parents. Now all your anxieties, fits of depression, loneliness and loss of confidence, can be sorted. It is just a matter of the right perfume, shower gel, super razor, or getting rid of your dandruff. How foolish of you, you didn’t realise that happiness comes in coloured boxes, the more boxes, the more happiness. Your job prospects are enhanced, if you would just pick the right four-wheel drive car. Your self esteem will grow, your sex life will be more exciting, and your standing among your peers will know no bounds, if you just run out and buy that new outfit. Yes, it is the season of the grand illusion, our society has found the secret of happiness and fulfilment it is to be found in coloured boxes.
Gone are the thoughts of those 58,000 homeless in England, up by a third since 2010/11, a large proportion of them working, the 3,400 families with children living in B&B’s, steadily increasing since 2011, and those 3,600 people sleeping rough in England, (a low estimate) up 30% since 2014. All lost in a mist of tinsel and coloured boxes, and illusions woven by that babbling brook of bullshit. I guess their problem was that they didn’t buy enough coloured boxes to enhance their lives. I have no doubt there will be a splurge of consumerism in search of happiness, and come January, the old anxieties, depressions, insecurities, loss of confidence and loneliness will return. They’ll be fuelled by the usual realities of this capitalist system, zero hours contracts, low wages, increasing prices, benefit sanctions, job insecurity, and wars and turmoil across the planet. The answer to our problems doesn’t lie in coloured boxes, these are the paracetamol of the system, an attempt to temporally relieve the pain. The answer lies in changing the system, away from the a greed driven capitalist system, to one of mutual aid communities.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
