It is easy to think that “The more- the better”. It’s easy because it is the consumerist message that surrounds us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Have more…. more storage on your cloud, more vitamins for your body’s health, more power for your computer, have more friends on your Facebook page, buy more, consume more, and be…. happier.

These guys are wealthy- in human values. They are a part of a natural brotherhood and emanate a strong sense of Fraternity.

I am not saying that they would not like to have “more”. Having more is not a bad thing in itself. It is just not enough. And even more important, “having more” is not the ultimate solution to misery.

The main issue, in my opinion, is that we confuse between “to be” and “to have”. Life is about being, not about having. Our real and deep identity does not depend on what we have or what we lack. It is based upon who we are, upon our heart and our ability to act like human beings and not like consumerists.

Material comfort is a trap, because it confines us to the illusion that if we should advance, if we take the risk to quit our so- called material security, we would lose what we have gained. So, we stay in an artificial inertia. There is always a risk in life, and the fear to lose our comfort is killing us. The drama is, that by not accepting the risk of being alive, we lose the most precious of all gifts: the opportunity to share and experiment, to discover, to innovate and to create.

The fraternity between these workers in the photograph is not fake. It is not “fake-news”. I believe man to be naturally inclined to empathy and generosity, even if we are told that egoism is a natural, basic instinct. Is it so? Well, in this case we should fight this instinct, because it awakens the “animal” in us rather than the human.

It seems we have reached a crossroads, where we need to choose between separation and union, between destruction and creativity, between the meaning of life as human beings, or a meaningless life, acting as consumerists.

What shall we choose? Only to have… or mostly to be?