We Need More Community and a Different Kind of Self-Care

Fair Observer

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October 09, 2024

Roberta Campani

Communications and Outreach

Dear FO° Reader,

We live in an era that glorifies self-care. From cosmetics and diets to yoga and meditation, ice baths and even surgery, we are encouraged to perfect ourselves. We shape our bodies and minds like they were clay, and most of the time, sadly, we do it to comply with some external standard. Self-care is one more consumer product in an economy that chases infinite growth and ever more profits. Meanwhile, the world outside of Instagram is burning. Will these rituals save us?

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Medieval monks and mystics valued the soul at the expense of the body and even the mind. More modern thinkers like Michel de Montaigne and Jean-Jacques Rousseau revived the ancient Greek idea that self-care should include all aspects of the person. With the rise of modern medicine in the 19th century, self-care became more focused on hygiene, disease prevention and, later, public and social health. So, self-care gradually shifted from the interior and personal to the external and public. As such, it became the concern of public institutions. But what does such institutional responsibility mean when those same institutions are bought and paid for by transnational companies whose game is precisely to dissolve responsibility?

In recent decades, self-care has been heavily commercialized, often reduced to wellness products and cosmetics that look good on social media but do little for us otherwise. This trend isn’t stopping soon. We can bury our heads in the sand — or old classic books. But ignoring reality will not fix it. Unless we take control of our destiny, someone else will control it for us.

The other day, my 13-year-old daughter blurted out, “You know that rainwater is no longer safe to drink anywhere in the world?” I didn’t know this, and hearing it from her it felt like a stab in the chest. I thought of myself at her age, carefreely bathing in Alpine lakes after a long hike. We are mammals, meant to be with the elements, in spaces that nourish us — not in concrete towers or cities collapsing under their own weight.

The planet that supports our existence grows more fragile by the day. An anti-aging cream will not stop the seas from rising, nor will a facelift save our children from civilizational catastrophe. French scientist and poet Aurélien Barrau says the problem is even bigger than climate change. It’s a structural problem with our very worldview, our Weltanschauung. He suggests that poetry can help because it deals with knowing the rules and breaking them. I like this idea.

The problem is that, in the face of existential threats, we are distracted. Social media has become an opiate, wherein vanity masks the disquiet that ought to drive us to search for deeper meaning. Still, under the surface, discontent grows. We see it in the protests in France, Bangladesh and Venezuela. People gather, not in search of perfection, but justice: fairness in a world that’s become profoundly unfair. In many countries, the far right is rising because institutions like the courts, healthcare and education, have failed the people.

How can the top 1% of people worldwide own more than the bottom 95%? It’s not only unjust; it’s a grotesque distortion of what it means to be human. So, where do we go from here? How do we shape a future where our planet can thrive and where happiness and health are not just luxuries for the few? How do we lift people up instead of watching them sink in poisoned waters?

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Let’s talk about it,

Roberta Campani
Communications and Outreach

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