As usual on a Sunday morning I’m writing my Sunday ramble when I let all my thoughts hang out. Today’s picture is one I took in the local Victorian Art gallery. I wanted a picture that would conjure up thoughts of opulence, because the sons and daughters of the super-rich are being struck down with a strange malady. It’s hard to be sympathetic, but we should try to be understanding.
Freud
During Victorian times the wealthy young daughters of the super rich came down with mysterious maladies and Freud thought it was a good way of making money to try to understand them. In fact he made quite a good living from it and went on to describe these poor young rich girls as neurotic. There were some strange treatments for mental illnesses in those days and some people think things haven’t improved much.
Perfection
It seems the daughters of the super-rich in London and other trendy cities have done all they can to appear perfect. With their made up faces that look so Photo-Shopped, designer clothes, manicured nails and coiffured hair. They can do no more in their pursuit of perfection. They have done their best to become the perfect sex object and it’s still not good enough. They are becoming obsessed with perfection and this is leading to mental health problems. Perfection anxiety is one term being used to describe this new mysterious malady. The skin is never clear enough, the eyelashes never long enough, the breasts never big enough and the lips are never full enough. The poor little rich girls are at their wits end. They have no skills and so what can they do with their lives if their appearance isn’t good enough to find the right husband or become a super sex model? They are used to daddies’ cheque book solving every problem, but they can’t admit to mental illness. Reputation is everything. They live for reputation, one doesn’t want to be seen going to Harley Street to see a psychiatrist. What would people think? It’s easy to ridicule these girls, but their brothers are even worse off. They too have to look pretty, but how can they do that without looking gay? We shouldn’t scoff, we should try to understand. No they wouldn’t understand if it was the other way around, but we have advantages that they don’t have. We live in the real world; we have coping skills. We understand the reason for our existence and it’s not to just about procreation.
These poor people are turning to drink and even illegal drugs to cope with this new phenomenon. What can their rich parents do? They made them the way they are. Give them more money? Send them on an exotic holiday? The rich have forgotten the reason for their existence and now their children are suffering for it. Our reason for living is quite simple, we are driven by anxiety to survive. We should spend every minute of everyday trying to survive. If we don’t, we start getting bored and then we start worrying and then we start getting anxious. Food is a part of survival, that’s why people eat when they feel anxious. We can eat and drink so much that it threatens our survival though. Survival in the modern age is more complex, we need skills that are learnt not just our natural survival instincts. Who will teach the poor little rich girls?
Survival
We poorer people know more about survival and I’m a bloody expert at it. Some research suggest that primitive people were a lot happier. They didn’t think too much about the past and so didn’t get depressed and didn’t think too much about the future and so didn’t get anxious. Then somebody invented the calendar and they started getting anxious because spring was late. Before, spring was whenever nature decided, now they checked calendars. The invention of the clock was the downfall of mankind, making us always struggling to be on time for everything.
I’ve just had a thought. Some of those poor little rich girls aren’t so beautiful; in fact some are pretty ugly. I needed to say that, just so I could get two oxymorons into one sentence!
That’s it for today. I’ll be sharing more of my strange thoughts next Sunday. In the meantime, please use the comments box to share your thoughts. If you’re one of those sex obsessed poor little rich girls, share and get it out of your system…
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Filed under: education, philosophy
