David Bowie, Eco-Psychic
Today’s post is inspired by THIS ARTICLE in the Sunday Sun. Apparently, the man who may well be my all-time favorite musician (he battles for the top spot with Sylvester “Stone” Stewart, Prince and Nick Cave), is something of a prognosticator. Check out the lyrics from his incredible song, “Five Years,” which was written over thirty-five years ago. In them, Bowie clearly sees the repercussions of a consumer culture that was already out of control:
Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
I saw boys, toys electric irons and t.v.s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought Id need so many people
On to the song. Please, do give it a listen. It’s a perfect Sunday afternoon listen.
Tags: Plan B
In response to your post on “consumer culture” and “dying earth”:
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
,b>Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
Fast visuals/ words make slow emotions extinct.
Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys emotional circuits.
A fast (large) society cannot feel pain / remorse / empathy.
A fast (large) society will always be cruel to Animals/ Trees/ Air/ Water/ Land and to Itself.
To read the complete article please follow either of these links :
PlanetSave
TheHolisticWheel
sushil_yadav
Suhil Yadav - Boy oh boy… these words are worthy of a whole new post. Dead on the money. Beautiful, in fact. However, as the article continues, it delves especially into the first Buddhist noble truth (life is suffering) and posits that intelligence is the root of all destruction. These assertions are ripe (I think) for generalization and misunderstanding (not that I claim to have a toehold on understanding this life). Intelligence is destructive, but like many swords (or all true swords, if one wants to be a sword nerd), is double-edged. In fact, it takes a type of intelligence to recognize the destructive power of intelligence, thus negating, through employment as a tool to guide one to non-thought, any stance that all intelligence is evil.
Thanks for dropping by.