The idea that everything is disposable, transitory, uncertain, has imperceptibly moved from the consumption of goods, where it started, to personal relationships, professions, institutions, politics and culture.

And with the idea that everything is one-time and temporary, came the feeling of tiredness, overload and tiredness, the lack of horizons and the crisis of referents and values. And the belief came, more and more widespread, that projects are for today, and that, at the first stumbling block, they must be archived, because more than projects, or routes that each person has mapped out, they are momentary whims, daydreams of the moment… And, by the way, there was a growing prejudice that perseverance, responsibility, commitment, loyalty were old nonsense. All this with the usual exceptions.

The great absentees

The culture of waste fills rivers, beaches, seas, in short, blues nature and destroys institutions. And most seriously, it begins to pollute people’s souls and heads: garbage from frustrated relationships, unfinished projects, “bread for today and hunger for tomorrow”, fashion that passes, books that are not surpassed, information that replaces each other, insignificant novels, speeches that don’t penetrate, faces that don’t last.

Spiritual garbage that prevents the persistence of memories and the persistence of undertakings and memories, that deprives individuals and families of arguments and reasons that connect the past with the future, and that enable others to recognize themselves, to think forward from the background and build on solid ground.

Last afternoon with Octavio Paz

Someone said that ours is a “liquid society”. It’s true. No stability, no solidity. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is exempt from the possibility that the day after a purchase or event it will become waste, useless and obsolete garbage. Almost nothing is safe from the infestation of the transient and conjunctural, to become a show that comes, ends and is forgotten.

(…) it penetrated society and turns it into a precarious space, without institutions, without obligations…

Politics is a notable example of the validity of the precarious, the accumulation of waste and the impossibility of remembering. The society is more and more like a spectacle that instantly attracts, arouses excessive enthusiasm, fills itself with shouting, soon empties and leaves the stands and track full of garbage. And from loneliness.

Yes, loneliness, because after the party there is nothing left, or very little: maybe a hangover and a growing emptiness. Loneliness that conspires against the individual because it makes it difficult to exercise rights that have gone unnoticed: the right to build trust and lasting relationships, reasonable families, friendships, that is, space for humanity and the possibility of having a safe and predictable country. The right to believe in something solid and pure.

The culture of waste has penetrated society and is turning it into an unsafe space, without institutions, without permanent obligations, without the necessary security, without any trust. No illusions last. (OR)