When Émile Durkheim wrote on the concept of anomie (expanding on Jean-Marie Guyau`s work) in his 1897 book Suicide, he spoke of one end of anomie: a society with too much rigidity and little individual discretion causing a destructive mismatch (moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations).
This is happening in the XXI century world, in many countries: those totalitarian (military or religious) societies where the social rule, expectations, and repression conform a cage around individuals, deposessing them of their individuality, their aspirations, subtly (or otherwise) imposing a social corset where the individual can not be itself, concentrating only on breathing, surviving.
As I walk towards my office, I see an ad that makes me sick (as a matter of fact, I see many, but this one points to something other that the consumerism-sexism-excess that we are so dangerously getting used to).
The ad says “Turn now into memories”. How wrong is that?!!
Now is now. Now has to be now. Now should be now. Now has to remain now.
When you strive to “turn now into memories”, you are missing out on the real now.
Today, at the gym`s lobby/reception area, a man was sitting waiting for his wife to come out of yoga class. When she does, he gets up to greet her, feels dizzy, and passes out, falling to the ground, and hitting his face on the floor.
Two men who were on their way out, walk over this man. They do not bother-care-ask what`s wrong. They do not offer assistance.
Finally, his wife (who witnessed the whole episode, paralyzed in fear) reacts, wakes him up, and makes sure his eye socket bleeding is not too profuse.
Seeing certain color combinations, associations are sure to fly into anybody`s minds.
Usually, red and yellow will bring to mind things like flags (of Spain, Catalonia-Valencia, R, Security, and adding some shapes you could even think of Macedonia or China).
Beyond flags, Axomil, sunset, fire, peppers,tullips, ballons, ketchup and mustard, Flash, soccer referee cards, Superman… there are SO many options.
But when you consider the hue, tone, context, memory, and further additional information, then those options start to get reduced.
See in Scientific American:
“I could not survive without a ballpoint pen in my back pocket. It`s invaluable for scribbling notes on the front of my hand (my version of the PalmPilot…) to remind me to do things I used to be able to remember unaided before my age converged with my IQ while traveling in opposite directions.”
_John P. Moore
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City_
