Is football and alcohol our own soma?

Clcik here to enjoy the very first pages of this novel

Soma, the comforting drug that the civilization from "Brave New World"  consumes on a regular basis to overcome depression, to vanquish the blueness that we all experience for the mere sake of having to exist. Though there is not much need of it because anyway, every inhabitant of this happy world have been conditioned to accept their life without resenting it. They know their place in the world and they do not aspire for anything else, because everyone is an important grind in the mechanism; even the semi-moronic midgets from the lowest caste: the Epsilons. Everyone does their job for seven hours and a half every single day, and then spend the rest of their lives engaged in mindless sexual activities and all types of entertainment. Everybody is always surrounded by members of their own class, fearing solitude, because being alone is dangerous; being alone is an opportunity for thinking, and thinking is not desirable in this perfect society.

"Brave New World" is a classic. It is one of the three greatest dystopian novels written in the 20th century and the one that sounds truer to our eyes and ears these days, though it was actually the first one to appear. The other two dystopias I am talking about here are "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and "1984" by George Orwell. "Brave New World" tackles the topic of totalitarianism, but it does it in a rather subtle way, one we can actually identify with our reality. Most people feel the world is perfect the way it is and think our mission is just to be happy, but what is happiness anyway? If happiness is doping yourself with soma and surrounding yourself with people just because it is unbearable to be alone, then I guess I might not be too happy in this "civilized" society. "Brave New World" explores the negative aspects of an ostensibly successful and stable civilization in which everyone appears to be content and satisfied. However, this stability and happiness have caused humanity its ability to be critical and self-contemplate. It is a brave new mediocre world in which everything is done for the mere sake of keeping the world the way it is, forever.

This is the perfect book for a technophobe like me. A book that explores the dangers of technology and mass-production. Technology does not have the power to save us all especially if it distracts us from what is really important. I am not saying that we all now have to renounce to our most precious belongings and embrace a life of contemplation in a mountain far away from the biggest urbanizations. I just want to emphasize that if we want to survive as a species, it is important to be self-critical and develop the capacity to contemplate and understand what we are living through. This "Brave New World", title taken from Shakespeare's masterpiece The Tempest, is a world with no conscience, a world in which we all are supposed to be equal, where humans are mass-produced like electronic appliances in a factory. Human creation is based on eugenics and embryos are separated into different castes since their inception. There are no mothers, no fathers, no families, no Gods, everyone belongs to everyone else, supposedly. However, in the end; all castes are just minor pieces in the machinery, they are just "another brick in the wall", powerless in a society that does not want to change. Although, there are no political parties, or an omniscience big brother like in 1984, the way of controlling the population in "Brave New World" is actually more intrusive. Since humans are embryos, they are destined to play a role and conditioned to say and "think" (if there is any thinking remaining) what they are expected to do. Almost no one protests, because everyone accepts their role diligently and when they feel down and frustrated, there is always going to be soma to make them feel better.

"Brave New World" rings a bell in me and makes me think of the modern world where we live in. At times I wonder if the same strategies used for the characters in the novel are used with us, too. After all, the alarm clock buzzes early in the morning and we all rush to our jobs without giving much thought to what we are doing. At work, you know you have to be smart, but not too smart because that would actually be counterproductive. We have to learn to accept our role in life and if we feel too frustrated by the end of the week, there is always going to be booze, and women or men, and all kinds of mindless entertainment to keep us distracted, to show us that life is still worth living and that we all (or at least most of us) should feel thankful for our situation. God has been good to us, some even dare say. We have to be thankful because we have got a job and we are doing something useful. Therefore, most of us learn to pretend. We all play the game of doing something meaningful, "for the good of mankind" we boast; yet we do not really stop to think for a while, because thinking is too tiring, too boring, and too dangerous for our own good.

In conclusion, "Brave New World" is the kind of novel you will enjoy and re-read if you feel there must be more to life, if you believe there is something inherently wrong with the system. It will provide you with a moment of reflection to think who we are and what our purpose in this Brave New World of our own is. Colombia usually appears in the top ten list of happiest countries of the world. A country where most people lack the basic needs, but you will always see people content, smiling, with a (literally and figuratively) broken smile in their faces. You just have to experience the unbearable lightness of Colombians' joy to understand the stupefying state of happiness in which we all live. Bogotá is a big party on Fridays and people drink as if there were no tomorrow. A few miserable beggars come down from the poorest slums in Bogotá to flood the stadium every weekend and engage in a ritualistic fight with the supporters of the enemy team. They proudly scream at the top of their lungs, bragging their love for a piece of cloth representing a football club. Whenever I have to see all these clownish representations of happiness, I cannot stop thinking that all this insanity is our version of soma, and its power on us and the way we perceive ourselves and our miserable land is omnipotent, eternal, mindless.