SNF Dialogues: Connection and addictions in the era of social unease

In a world that prioritizes the satisfaction of desires, understanding the identification of needs, the ability to define needs, and the skills to evaluate what is most important are overlooked.  The speed at which desire itself changes often overshadows the fundamental, constantly creating new needs. The speed of change generalises meanings of constant variability – in the form of goods, in the search for innovation, in the glorification of the new, in the devaluation of the old – establishing the search for the ever-new as a natural reaction. And as long as the novelty is maintained, it offers the satisfaction from its acquisition, because we have it; here and now. Also, we see ourselves taken away by a way of life based on consumerism, not only a material but a spiritual one, reflecting our superficial connections, our tendency to throw away and disengage instead of fixing and correcting.

In this spiritual vertigo, which has the deceptive form of a smooth transition on rails, we often forget that the route has a predetermined course and destination. And we forget that this confining structure educates us and forces us into specific attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. Thus, we consume to satisfy needs that we fabricate, chasing desires that are often deceptive, serving the volatility of pleasure. By any means and often at any cost, dancing to the eternal rhythm of the prophetic "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." 
From this point to the experience of dysphoric despair, the distance is short. But the tools available for relief vary. In this provocative adventure of consumption in which we find ourselves immersed, it is crucial  to explore the value and cost of our choices: how we connect, how we commit, how we get sick, how we recover, how we fall in love, how we love.