Pretentious twit laments that Europe is so much better than America because hardly anybody works, and most people get to spend their time in posh cafes sipping coffee and reading.
Whenever I go back and forth between Europe and the States, a curious set of facts strikes me.
In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentary by an academic, the BBC’s Blue Planet, or a Swedish crime-noir. I think back on my day and remember the people smiling and laughing at the pubs and cafes.
In New York, Washington, Philadelphia, I do the same thing, but it is not the same experience at all. I take broken down public transport to the cafe — everybody’s been at work since 6 or 7 or 8, so they already look half-dead — order coffee and a croissant, both of which are fairly tasteless, do some writing, pick up some mass-produced groceries, full of toxins and colourings and GMOs, even if they are labelled “organic” and “fresh”, all forbidden in Europe, head home — people are still at work, though it’s 7 or 8 — and watch something bland and forgettable, reality porn, decline porn, police-state TV. I think back on my day and remember how I didn’t see a single genuine smile — only hard, grim faces, set against despair, like imagine living in Soviet Leningrad.
Everything I consume in the States is of a vastly, abysmally lower quality. Every single thing. The food, the media, little things like fashion, art, public spaces, the emotional context, the work environment, and life in general.
First of all… New York, DC, and Philadelphia are basically the branch offices of Hell on Earth, so no wonder nobody there ever smiles. Second, Umair Haque is a pretentious little bitch. Who TF cares what you think, pretentious little bitch.
There’s this thing that the middle-aged white women who run our culture want to catch on. It’s a Danish concept called hygge. It’s pronounced Hoo-Gah, so right off the bat you see it isn’t even spelled properly. What it means is, being snug in your home reading and burning candles, or maybe having a few friends over to drink tea or cocoa by candlelight, cocooning yourselves in heavy sweaters and blankets and feeling great because that’s what life is all about. And supposedly, hygge is this really terrific thing that makes Danes and Scandinavians happy and wonderful.
It isn’t. It’s pretty much the only activity you have left when the Government is confiscating 60% or more of your income to fund the welfare state (plus a 25% Value-Added-Tax on all goods and services). You can’t do anything fun because you don’t have enough money. So you are left with the lifestyle socialist white women would want you to have; and now they are telling you that you should enjoy it. Who needs fun stuff like video games or snowmobiles, when you can be drinking cocoa under a blanket watching Swedish crime-noir or British documentaries.
If Scandianavian countries are ‘the happiest places in the world’ as leftists contend, why do they have the highest rates of anti-depressant usage in the world?