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“I am forever denouncing this therapeutic obsession that governs our modern society, scared of living and haunted by death. We must protect ourselves from everything, heal from everything. Nowadays, food, music, painting, hiking… everything is repurposed as a method for healing, for keeping fit, for keeping healthy, when these activities are first and foremost opportunities for pleasure, desire, gratitude, knowledge, wonderment, and bonding with others. Our entire culture, as well as politics, imposes on all citizens this endless and nagging preoccupation with mental and physical health.”

“The social standard this culture offers is one of controlled, placated solitude. Its narrative often insists that you’re surrounded by toxic people who are trying to hurt you, and the only way to ever become the person you’re meant to be is to cut them all off, retreat into a high-gloss cocoon of talk therapy and Notion templates, and emerge a non-emotive butterfly who will surely attract the relationships you’ve always deserved — relationships with other “healed” people, who don’t hurt you or depend on you or force you to feel difficult, taxing emotions. And finally, your life will be as frictionless and shiny as you, alone, have always deserved for it to be. (A frictionless life is your reward for hard work, by the way, and people who don’t work hard don’t deserve good things. DO NOT google Protestantism.)”