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Haig, Matt - Reasons to stay alive - 03 Life is the people who love you; no one will ever choose to stay alive for an iPhone
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023185
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Matt Haig - Reasons to stay alive
THE WORLD is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn't very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more?
How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.
To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.
Yet we have no other world to live in. And actually, when we really look closely, the world of stuff and advertising is not really life. Life is the other stuff. Life is what is left when you take all that crap away or at least ignore it for a while.
Life is the people who love you. No one will ever choose to stay alive for an iPhone. It's the people we reach via the iPhone that matter.