On Happiness and Modern Society

Earlier in the day I fell across an interesting article written by a BBC entertainment journalist about what happens at an X-Factor audition.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8209429.stm

The article confirmed the feeling of disgust, sadness and discomfort that I feel when watching the early stages of The X-Factor (and, to a lesser extent, the later stages). I didn't watch it last year, and don't intend to this year, because of my increasing feeling that the makers of the program are both reflecting and contributing to Britain's deeply unhappy culture.

For those who are genuinely talented and are purely looking for a "big-break," The X-Factor is undoubtedly a useful tool. I'm not a fan of Leona Lewis, but I appreciate the incredible range and tone of her voice and enjoyed watching her rise to fame. I don't know her personally, but from her story it seems to me that she was always a reasonably happy, well-rounded individual with a few normal self-confidence issues.

However, there are thousands of sad, deluded individuals who audition each year and are mocked and humiliated in front of millions of viewers as their human need to be loved and adored is crushed. This is, I think, because people in our sick British society today feel that they need to be famous, beautiful and talented to be loved and adored, and are looking for love and adoration from people they don't know rather than those closer to home. A religious figure recently said that he felt social networking sites are detrimental to society, because people now feel that having 1000 friends on Facebook is more important than having five friends in the real world.

Try explaining this observation to your average viewer of The X-Factor, and they will probably shrug and respond: "They put themselves up for it." Yes, of course they do. It's a choice. But would they make that choice if society was not infected with the pressures of fame and fortune? To laugh at these "freaks," to mock their pathetic attempts to become "the next Michael Jackson," is to laugh at our society, and to accept the way our country has become.

People "choose" to have boob-jobs, "choose" to mimick specific celebrities, "choose" to become glamour models. "Isn't it wonderful," people say, "We are free now. Sex is no longer a taboo, women are free, we can choose to dye our hair how we like, we can do what we want!" People are obsessed with shaping their own identities in the way they look, sometimes distorting their bodies, rather than letting their personality and inner beauty shape their personality.

The reality is, that freedom and "choice" is an illusion. People are slaves to fame, slaves to fashion, slaves to everything that makes someone unhappy.

REAL choice is a beautiful thing. Choosing to put two fingers up at our X-Factor culture, choosing to search for real happiness when the rest of the country is walking straight into its own misery, choosing to love those who may not find acceptance anywhere, and believe they can find it in fame.

OK, I'm not the perfect advocate for this! I'm not a saint. In my life I've done my fair-share of laughing at X-Factor auditions and wishing I could be adored by the general public. I'm ashamed to say it, but I know that I'm not totally free of the scars of our society.

But I do realise, and I think many people don't, that money and wealth and fame and beauty and fashion don't make you happy. "Money doesn't buy you happiness" is, of course, an age-old proverb, but no one takes it seriously. Even though there is much proof around, everyone believes that they will be an exception to the rule. Studies show that Lottery winners, once they have got over the initial rush of apparent well-being and excitement, return to their prior level of happiness or unhappiness within a reasonably short time.

An individual's freedom, an individual's choice, an individual's happiness, is a beautiful thing. But fake freedom, fake choice, fake happiness is threatening to extinguish the light that is in every human being.