The Pursuit of Happiness

  

   
    

What’s your goal in life? Most would say, “I want to be happy”. In the world we live in, "Happiness" is all round us. We see it in all kinds of advertisements and sometimes other people. I believe happiness is a word used in other to express power. Power is widely understood as the ability to do as you please, to do what you want. To an extent, we only desire power in order to be happy. Some people work jobs they don’t like in order to financially afford life styles they believe will make them happy. Because being happy is the ultimately a form of power, and feeling powerful makes us happy. If your not happy therefore your power less. Hegemony is a power struggle. The influence people, states and governments have over another. The ability to influence and essentially control others.

Power Consumer culture

Before you can understand the world around you, you must first understand yourself and the role you play in it. In a consumer Market the consumer is the most important factor. Without a consumer or an audience, there is nobody to buy things. And without an audience what’s the point of buying something we don’t necessarily need. As a consumer you poses the “power” of consumption, you make the decision on what you choose to buy or consume. This creates a power struggle between consumer and the producer. If you posses the power they don’t have the power over you. So it’s in their best interest to influence you as much and as constant as possible, in order to get you to perches their product. Ultimately the decision on what to buy belongs to you, but there’s sure is loads of outsider influence.

 Pedagogy and Consumer/Consumption.

Before we can begin to engage in a consumer market, we must first have to be taught how to buy and why. In order to maintain a consumer market, producers need constant consumption from the consumer population. Without anyone to buy their products, they have no business. Therefore, they need to bend the consumer perception of “happiness”.  “Happiness” is what we all strive for, to wake up and firmly say, “I am happy”. Producers have to sell the idea that their product make happy. But before they do that they must first make you believe that you are unhappy and that buy this will make you feel happy. Therefore you have to conditioned and taught that part of happiness can be purchased, we are tough to measure our happiness through our belongings. Therefore creating the concept of materialism, in which people become superficial and high affectionate towards their material belongings.

Illusion, Ways of Looking, Perception, Object, spectacle.

These are all ways in which the concept of Instant Gratification is displayed. The feeling you get of “joy”, “happiness”, that big smile on your face when you just bought something new. We believed that we have become happier now that we have these new shoes, clothes, tv, etc. We can’t wait to go out and wear them, we are now happy. But soon enough, you’ll get tired and bored of your new shoes and will soon want something else to make you feel happy again. That’s instant gratification for you. These short burst of happiness that slowly goes away until you no longer feel “happy” anymore. These are all tactics used in advertisements in order to make us believe that we are unhappy and that their product will grant us this happiness.

Sexism.

Lets keep this short and sweet, straight to the point. Sexism is an example of categorizing and placing things in hierarchy. Placing things into categories make it possible to separate things based on certain differences. This then allows us to place them I a hierarchy based on importance or how much we like or need them. This form of hierarchy is displayed through sexism, the belief that males are superior to women, a power struggle.  Being or expressing sexism is a form of insecurity.

Happiness.
We have been tough that happiness can be achieved through the things we own. So were thrown into lives we don’t want to live in order o fill the void we feel in our lives. Consumers pray on this and make us believe its because we are unhappy. And they are right, but its not because we don’t have their latest line of merchandise, but because we are not content with what we have. In a capitalistic /consumer market we are tough to buy, buy and buy, never allowing to find comfort in what we already own. I personally believe that happiness comes from what you feel, what you experience. I believe people bring other people happiness, not martial items we buy in order to flaunt and display. In the pursuit of happiness, you must first be satisfied with what you already have before you can be “happy” at all.