The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [80]
“Who has muscle aches?” Again, the vast majority raised their hands, this time more quickly.
Then he began asking countless other questions:
“Who wakes up fatigued? Whose hair is falling out? Who feels his mind is always racing? Who worries about problems that have yet to happen? Who feels like he’s always hanging by a thread? Who loses his temper over the tiniest of problems? Who has wildly fluctuating emotions—calm one minute and explosive the next? Who’s afraid of what the future will hold?”
Most never lowered their hands. They had all the symptoms. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I rubbed my eyes and asked myself, “Aren’t these society’s elite? How can their quality of life be this terrible? Aren’t they the ones who drink the best wines and champagnes? Don’t they dine at the best restaurants? Why are they so gravely stressed?” I was shaken.
My mind wouldn’t reconcile the two images. The rich traveled in luxury cars, but they were paralyzed by their stress. They would go to their beach houses, but their emotions didn’t surf the waves of pleasure. They slept on soft mattresses but lacked the mental comfort to sleep at night. They wore the finest suits but stood naked against the worries in their lives.
“What insanity!” I thought. “Where is the happiness the system promised these people who’ve reached the top of their professions? Where is the peace for those who’ve accumulated riches? Where is the reward for competence? They take out insurance on their homes, their lives, their businesses, even against kidnapping. So how can they be so insecure?” The system, it turned out, crushed its leaders.
Midnight in the Garden of
Broken Dreams
THE DREAMSELLER’S QUESTIONS IN RECOLETA CEMETERY sent our heads spinning. I had attacked the business elite for years on end in my classroom, but I realized I needed to reexamine a few concepts. I began to understand that the system betrayed everyone, especially those who nurtured it most. It even affected celebrities, not just because they lost their private lives but because their success was fleeting. In this society, it was easy to become insignificant overnight.
In the name of competition, the system sucked out their last drop of mental energy. They expended more energy than many manual laborers, and were constantly fatigued from an overload of thinking. They were victors, but they didn’t carry away the ultimate prize.
The stress was even greater for companies who specialized in production. There was an international price war, distorted by government subsidies that contaminated the value of products, and could crush companies on the other side of the globe. Now, add in the taxes on products coming in and out of the country, the disparity of wages paid to workers in different countries and the fact that some firms lowered their prices below the cost of production to corner the market. Survival was a hellish art.
It took its toll on everyone involved. Thirty-five percent of them had heart problems or were hypertensive. Fifteen percent had cancer, and some of those wouldn’t live to see the New Year. Thirty percent suffered depression. Ten percent had panic attacks. Sixty percent had marital problems. Ninety-five percent exhibited three or more mental problems and most of those had as many as ten different mental issues.
Yes, the proletariat were still being exploited across the globe. But in developed and emerging societies, where labor laws were just and human rights were respected, the ones who were exploited were the those engaged in intense intellectual work, like managers, directors, business magnates, professionals, professors, journalists.
The oppression was so devastating that many executives took their problems home with them, even on vacation. Workers who had a decent salary but weren’t in a position of leadership or management had time for friends, food, relaxation on weekends. They could go to bed and wake up without being suffocated by worry. But for the business leaders those simple pleasures were luxuries. In the