World · CrimethInc. · 1970-01-01
How do you get what you want?
Deutsch (original) · Auto-translated to English
What do you really want most in the world? More money, a new stereo system, a vacation? Wasting 20 euros an hourly wage to get home from your job on time so that you don't miss your favorite series? Or is it perhaps something more than all that? Something much harder to describe?
Maybe you gave up on always pursuing the realization of your real dreams and instead threw yourself into trying to achieve smaller things in your life that seemed easier and more realistic to achieve. Or maybe you've simply never asked yourself whether the goals you're striving for are actually the ones you want to achieve in your life. Or maybe, like so many other people, you just feel compelled to chase these things, as if your life doesn't really belong to you but is following a plan prepared for you. How often do you think and feel like this?
We have a tremendous utopia: Everything you do in your life, you should do it because you want to do it. And when you make plans, you should base them on the most exciting and joyful life you can imagine, not on “success” or “security,” the consolation prizes for the weary and hopeless. What could be more radical than basing your actions on how enjoyable they are rather than how moral, how responsible or how socially tolerated they seem? Have we not tried to serve every master and mistress except our own desires? Haven't we fought for every reason, no matter how stupid, except for ourselves? Where has all this got us?
Chasing your own desires does not mean blindly following your own impulses, wherever they take you. It means, first of all, to be clear about what you really want: to go through your desires and decide which are real and which are illusions, which are stronger and which are weaker and which will ultimately bring you the greatest possible fulfillment. It means taking control of yourself and your life again so that you can pursue as many dreams as possible (because there is no guarantee that you can fulfill them all at the same time). It means prioritizing your desires and analyzing them. Is painting your nails already the fulfillment of your desires or could this urge also be part of your insecurity? Maybe you love nature. Would it then be enough for you to buy a few acres of land and live out your life there while the rest of the world gradually becomes encased in concrete?
Pursuing your desires also means transforming society. Each of us is the product of the world in which we live. And yet this world is also the product of our work and our creation. To transform yourself and your life, you must also transform the world that creates and shapes us. And that's why you'll need everyone's help. If we want to pursue our happiness, then we must take responsibility for this world we are creating and work together to ensure that this world becomes a world that means pleasure for all of us. But doesn't doing what I actually want mean I have to fight other people? No - rather, it must force us to work together because the greatest and most difficult efforts cannot be accomplished alone. They require the participation of other people, including entire societies. Most of us want community and friendship more than anything else in life, to feel safe and free together. We need each other to achieve all of this. In order to build a community in which everyone can enjoy their own lives to the fullest, we must all allow ourselves to pursue our dreams and be free and creative. Otherwise, we're just kidding ourselves. This is the secret that the boring "me generation" ignores: after a certain point, greed and arrogance always set in. And sure, it will be difficult to avoid it. Especially at the beginning. Nothing is more difficult than always sticking to being honest with yourself and demanding the most from yourself and every day of your life. It will turn us against the prevailing order.But which fight, if not this one, is actually worth fighting? It is a battle of the great potential that we have within us and the even greater potential that we all could have together against everything in the world that is meaningless, irrelevant and dull... The alternative, of course, is to be content with what we have today and never question that there can be anything else in life.
Remember the most important day in your life, the day you first fell in love or heard your favorite song or went on an adventure... when a thousand new doors opened for you and the world seemed so much bigger than ever before. In that moment, suddenly nothing was impossible for you.
Well... On the one hand, this is because we live in a society that makes it difficult for us to clearly recognize our innermost desires and pursue them. Whatever the talk of “freedom and finding our joy” is trying to convey to us… our society is full of confusing entertainment and restrictions to the point of absurdity. We're all so busy trying to cope that we can't really remember our dreams, let alone fulfill them. And each of us feels too exhausted to understand that the world we live in is actually only the product of our own work, our own actions and our own actions. Our species completely shaped this planet into what it is today. Is the one we have created the best possible of all worlds?
If that's not the case, then why don't we end this way of designing and introduce new ways of living and working together so that we can build a new, a better world that can be more enjoyable for all of us! What else should we work towards other than pleasure and joy?
Have you ever fallen in love and it felt so good that it seemed downright dangerous? Being in love means actually wanting to live in a different world: a more exciting world, a more beautiful world, a more joyful, carefree world. A world in which everything has meaning and nothing is ever dull or boring. Why shouldn't we start creating this world right here and now?
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Source: CrimethInc.