This is what the staircase in our house looked like last Sunday. The guy who delivers the pile of advertising brochures twice a week has apparently been out of control. There were more of them lying around the floor, but someone either threw them in the trash in the yard, or grabbed it along with them to read during dinner, before I got the chance to take a photo.
I like to think that the mailman was making a statement. It's not such an unlikely idea. I noticed that his post is vacant now. Perhaps he felt like he wanted to say what he really thought about his job, at his last round of work.
Perhaps he was tired of handing out enticements to buy a new identity every season, allurements to shop til you drop in the name of the national economy and temptations to make body, soul and mind (and the mobile phone, the home and the car as well) a project that can and should be ameliorated and updated infinitely.
Perhaps he's an example of what Sorbonne professor Michel Maffesoli talked about at the ISEA. He's noted some turning points in our society. Two of these are political and social. According to Maffesoli, we've reached a saturation of unifying the society. Maybe our mailman tried to favor consumption at the local market hall or market place in town, instead of consumption of global wares from global companies. Another new feature in our society, observed by Maffesoli, is the return of the emotional in social life. Perhaps this outburst of emotions, expressed by throwing papers around the staircase, was a way of rejecting the contemporary society, characterized by cold figures, rationality and productivity. Maybe he was taking up the cudgels for more amusement, spontaneity and joy in life.
Or maybe, just maybe, am I reading too much in to what probably was a prank by a bored young mailman. Although I hope I'm right regarding the enchantment part. I think emotions are coming back into fashion, because it's hip to be in touch with one's feelings, to explore one's inside and develop as a human being. But this is something that one should do and perform in the spare time, at weekends or so. Never at work, or in "public". I'm tired of the logic and rational, and I long for affections. If I were to chose between the Matrix and Shrek, I'd go for Shrek anytime!
Well, today's Wednesday, and my mail box is usually stuffed with advertising on Wednesdays and Sundays. I wonder where I'll find it today, if I get any at all!
2 comments:
Emotions and inner experience and feelings are ( or should i say have always been ) important to human beings. But, with the age of indutrialization and rationality, we forgot all about this.
And now, there is a new need of emotions, but the leisure industry and advertising are making this a hype.. but it should not be taken as so.
( i hope my english is clear )
PS; I left a comment in french .. was it difficult to understand ?
Yes, the advertisers weren't late to catch on. Probably as it's easier to sell things if you appeal to one's feelings and emotions than to one's reason.
Et à propos de ton message français, je l'ai bien compris. Il m'a fait plaisir, donc merci! Plus de ça, s'il te plaît. Ca fait quelque temps que je l'ai écrit, le français alors. C'est triste parce que j'oublie tant de choses! De temps en temps, je lis le Monde sur l'Internet pour suivre des actualités françaises, et pour maintenir le langage. Et j'aime bien Edith Piaf :) Mais, inévitablement ma connaissance du français se dégrade pour que je ne l'emploie jamais. Maintenant, par example, je lis la version suédoise, au lieu de celle en francais, de Madame Bovary...
Est-ce que cela est compréhensible du tout?
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