Celebrating Without Meaning

On Saturday October 1st, the Grand Final contest between the two AFL teams in Melbourne, finally took place. The mass media portrayed “the electrifying atmosphere”. The enthusiasm of the people was obvious by the colourful clothes of the fans, their laughter, singing and shouting, and particularly by the parade on the day before through the streets of Melbourne, attended by thousands of people. Victory went to the Western Bulldogs and the joy of players and their fans lasted for hours, and with the hard core of fans for days.

The whole affair celebrated a sports game, where its aim was victory-defeat, without any other meaningful purpose, such as a significant social, patriotic, religious or artistic event, which fills one’s inner self with a feeling of pleasure, peace, soul satisfaction or an uplifting experience. Sport is now a dominant feature in the life of many people, which they follow with great dedication, and in so doing consider themselves sportspersons, people of healthy habits, physical well being, and clean living, even though they themselves do not play any of the sports they are supporters of and not a few come to imagine themselves as one or more of the sports heroes they admire – what is called in psychology, a process of projection. Their idols eventually become incorporated into their own personality, an imaginary experience which they enjoy!

The above event portrays more or less, what happens in many spheres of the life of our society. We pay attention to values and events of little or of no consequence for our lives. Sport of one form or another is looked at as important by many, as it acts as an emotional stimulant in the mundane life of most people. Other items include fashion, dressing according to the occasion, having our photos printed on the social pages of our newspapers, showing off our wealth, beauty, social standing, our power in some aspect of social life, making public scandals of our personal life (domestic problems, divorces, new attachments, etc), accompanied by the flowery descriptive language of the columnist, which make them appear as playful and light hearted matters.

The real problems for the majority of us are ignored, or passed over lightly, without any attempt to offer a meaningful solution. Consider the matters of youth suicide, drug use, delinquency, alcoholism, domestic violence, school problems, and many others. And as though these were not enough, we are now faced with a tsunami of social engineering, “Marriage Equality” and “Safe Schools”.

The solution offered by politicians on the one hand, and those working in the field on the other, is the same: provision of money, more funding, more personnel and better organisation. No one makes an appeal to the inner person – to morality, personal responsibility, honesty, higher principles, faith, God! When will we understand that there has never been a society that survived in the world without morality and spiritual values. Are we leaving ourselves and our children in a rudderless boat, travelling in the ocean of the future to an uncertain destination?

Source: Lychnos October / November 2016