21-12-99
Everyone has so frequently analyzed the anxieties of our times and the reasons that generate them, that merely mentioning them now constitutes a new source of anxiety in itself. Yet, amidst novel ecological threats, frenetic life rhythms, new existential questions, unstable human relationships, pressing professional insecurities, and so many other stress-inducing conditions, I suddenly felt the presence of yet another threat and source of anxiety, which I might have even considered a blessing until recently.
It's about the endless variety of choices offered to us. Wherever I turn around me, everything is "playable." From the chairs I can buy for my dining room or the covers for the sofas, from the coffee maker or the stereo, from everything by Solomos to the tourist guide for Ceylon, from the good grocery store and the Italian restaurant, the performance of Bach's liturgy, the magazine specialized for my hobby, the café where I'll have my espresso, everything is possible, everything is offered to me, and I can always choose between many similar or almost similar versions. The problem, however, is that while someone has given us the gift of endless variety, they removed or did not provide us with the corresponding criteria for choice. The threatening and perpetually violent advertising simply complicates the problem, as it does not try to shape criteria but to generate dependencies.
The cause, or one of them, may lie in the fact that variety is born in our era for the sake of variety and not for the sake of a substantial distinguishing difference. The absence of a real need to create an additional alternative does not take the form of a new outlet but rather of another deadlock. And we find ourselves with a supposed ability to choose in the middle of a labyrinth, each turn of which seems the same as the previous one. Anxiety is born and intensified through the effort of choosing and the continuous doubt that accompanies it, even after its completion. It is indeed an anxiety difficult to address because it is composed of and arises from many minor reasons, which do not make its presence obvious and intense.
In the face of this already established threat, defense is only possible through personal fortification. By creating strong criteria for each of us, based on as clear personal bases as possible - practical, functional, philosophical, aesthetic, ethical. After all, a person wants to be free only so much as to have the ability to set their own limits and bonds. And only in this way can one find the way out of every labyrinth.
Plato Rivellis