Candles with Peace and a Price Tag

Candles with Peace and a Price Tag 🔖

After an exhausting day at the corporate office, I reached out to a friend, feeling the weight of overwork. I expressed that I felt drained, disconnected, and perhaps even alienated. In response, my friend offered simple advice: "Light a candle, play some music, and create the right atmosphere around you. You’ll feel better." Taking her words to heart, I decided to follow her suggestion, hoping to restore some peace to my chaotic day.

At first, it seemed like a small act of self-care—lighting a candle, letting soft music fill the room. It was a moment of calm in an otherwise busy life. But as I continued this routine, I began to notice something troubling beneath the surface: this peaceful practice, meant to reconnect me with myself, was part of a broader system where peace comes with a price tag.

Aesthetic Capitalism

I turned to Spotify to enhance the atmosphere, only to be confronted with a reminder: "Premium account required for uninterrupted listening." What was once a free tool to curate my mood now demanded my payment to continue providing the peace I sought. This small action—creating an aesthetic environment—had become entangled with the forces of capitalism. The serenity I desired was only accessible if I paid for it.

As I played my favorite songs, I noticed pop-up messages from different apps , telling me to "chill my mood" and embrace the "aesthetic" of life. The message was clear: tranquility, peace, and beauty could all be purchased. It wasn’t about personal experience anymore—it was about buying into an idealized version of life, packaged and sold back to me, with an implicit promise that these emotions and states of being could be attained with the right products.

One Dimensional Man in the Stage

Herbert Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional man in his seminal work One-Dimensional Man critiques how capitalist societies have created a form of consumerism that reduces human beings to mere consumers of commodities, where individuals are alienated from their true desires and potential. In this framework, capitalism shapes people’s needs and desires by creating false needs—things that people believe they need to be happy or fulfilled, but are actually designed to serve the interests of capitalism itself. This idea can linked to aesthetic alienation, where the pursuit of peace, tranquility, and beauty becomes commodified, as individuals are encouraged to buy into packaged experiences of serenity. Just as Marcuse argued that capitalist societies create a controlled, one-dimensional form of existence by manipulating human desires, the modern consumer culture has commodified even our emotional states—such as loneliness or peace—by turning them into marketable products. We buy products and experiences that promise to fill emotional voids, but in doing so, we reinforce our alienation from our true, unmediated selves, trapping us in a cycle of consumption that pretends to offer satisfaction while maintaining the structures of power and control.

Decorated Room of Alienation

We decorate our room, but the 21st century tells us to decorate our alienation, our loneliness. In an era that promotes individualism and self-care, alienation is no longer seen as an uncomfortable experience to endure but as something to be curated and beautified. We are encouraged to embrace our isolation, not as a natural state but as a lifestyle choice to be perfected with candles, music, and minimalist decor.

By accepting our alienation as an aesthetic choice, we inadvertently perpetuate a cycle where our most intimate emotions are commodified. We buy into the notion that our feelings of loneliness and isolation can be alleviated through consumption, whether it's purchasing the latest self-care product or subscribing to a new wellness app. This acceptance of aesthetic alienation reflects a deeper societal issue: the commodification of our personhood.

To break free from this cycle, we must recognize the ways in which our emotions are being marketed and reclaim the authenticity of our experiences. True peace and connection cannot be bought; they must be cultivated through genuine human interactions and self-awareness. Only by rejecting the commodification of our feelings can we hope to find true tranquility in an increasingly alienated world.