I don't criticize political or electoral freedom, but capitalism's perversion of the concept: the illusion that I hold the power over my own life.

Freud also said we choose our own neuroses. Capitalism is the neurosis of humanity.

I don't criticize political or electoral freedom, but capitalism's perversion of the concept: the illusion that I hold the power over my own life.

We can live a more relaxed life. We can accept that our decisions aren't rational, that we are always conditioned by society; that we lose something every time we choose something else, and that we can't truly control the consequences of our decisions.

I do have the power. I can decide for myself what I want, even if the thought stresses me out.

A friend, who's a psychologist, told me about a patient once: a woman who was well educated, had a good job, a house and a loving husband. "I did everything right in my life," said the woman. "But I'm still not happy." She never did what she herself wanted, but what she believed society expected from her.

Sigmund Freud already discovered that suffering gives us pleasure - in a strange masochistic way. The tyranny of choice exploits that weakness. Consumer culture exhausts us. We suffer. We destroy ourselves. And we just can't stop.