Upside-down world 27-12-2024

Second version, with the camera from a different angle of the same scene

In this work, I encapsulate years of reflection, so I turn on my beloved Commodore Amiga to give free rein to my thoughts! As always, I use Lightwave 3D 5.0 to shape the objects in the scene. The car was downloaded from the web in OBJ format and converted using 3D Object Converter (Windows), but then adjusted, as several parameters, especially in terms of textures, had to be completely rearranged...

Rendered on Apollo Vampire V4+ Standalone (Coffin r63) this time, in about 38 minutes at a resolution of 1280x1024 pixels with maximum antialiasing. As can be seen, I activated the Glow effect on the globe and the streetlight (which also includes a lens flare).

Using Art Effect 4.0, I deliberately flipped the image (Flip effect) to highlight the theme of the upside-down world we live in!

Context:
Today, people who could 'have' live humbly, while simple-minded individuals engage in excessive purchases purely for appearances, to show off something that doesn't exist. However, getting into debt is like making a pact with the devil, and perhaps the current cultural level is too low to grasp this simple concept!

I increasingly notice among the people around me that life is all about appearances. Everyone lives for themselves, without doing anything that leaves a mark. Nobody strives to create something lasting, something that changes the course of events. Days go by in pursuit of purchases made without any real purpose—just for the sake of possession. Everything is about having rather than doing, about showing off rather than being.

People change cars to alleviate frustration or, worse, merely to show their new purchase to friends, without any actual need. When they see an acquaintance arrive at the ‘usual bar’ with a better vehicle, they become even more frustrated. Living to consume—this is the role of the average, simple-minded person! Today, anything can be bought merely for appearance, using dangerous loans that often lead to years or even a lifetime of debt, living beyond one’s means. And when work conditions deteriorate, disaster looms.

This scenario increasingly resembles the American model, where unemployed people eventually end up ‘under a bridge’ with a cart full of their last possessions, losing everything else… Simply for having ‘bitten off more than they could chew’!

Even worse are those who live in illusory comfort by spending the savings inherited from hardworking relatives. I believe inheritance should be abolished since it allows individuals who have done nothing—except being born into the right family—to enjoy wealth without effort...

This is an upside-down world where poorly educated people fall into the trap of consumerism at all costs, despite working simple jobs and trying to enjoy a false sense of glory by showing off possessions that don’t truly belong to them.

Since the 1980s, a new era of marketing has begun, where the economy must 'keep moving,' and mediocre individuals engage in absurd purchases, falling into the system's trap—a system that doesn’t help but subjugates. Throughout history, only people distinguished by some virtue had access to luxury goods, but today everything is reversed.

The question is: "You, with your fancy car, latest-generation phone, designer clothes… what have you actually done to change the lives of countless people? What is your real usefulness in this world? And if, by some paradox, you disappeared tomorrow, how many would still say your name ten years after your passing, despite all your possessions bought on credit or inherited money?" Probably very few!

Meanwhile, people of true value live humbly, without falling into the economic traps of a system that lures ‘prey’ with the opportunity to appear wealthy through expensive objects—offering visibility to so-called ‘empty shells.’

Instead, those who start businesses, give lectures, write books, publish articles on various topics… These individuals don’t need to buy objects to make themselves interesting; they are enough on their own! Their admiration comes from their being—from their ability to create and accomplish.

In this upside-down world, where ‘houses of cards’ collapse at the first gust of wind after a lifetime spent acquiring objects for pure vanity.

I feel deep pity when I see people showing off what they own rather than what they do…

Download IFF image computed on Real Amiga: HERE, HERE2

Some shots of the Amiga computer at work: