"Got you thinking that buying is rebelling" was a lyric from a Rage Against The Machine song I remember from I think it was the ninties, I always rememebered that, buying is a lot of things to a lot of people though and I wonder if its just the nature of life that its impossible to escape the consumer fix, retail therapy and self-actualisation as just another or a series of purchases? What do you think?
I know that I myself have experienced that idea that the things in my Amazon shopping cart are more desirable than the things I already own or have in my house when each of them are books which I've not read, I cant figure out what happens that its gold when I'm buying it but lead when it arrives in the mail and its like a kind of reverse alchemy is at work.
When eating I've noted that the availability of the necessities of life has lead to them being less valued, when I was a kid and got choclate on big occasions like Easter or Christmas or a birthday party it was something else, now that I can just buy it its a different experience altogether. Although the same as books I probably over consume, food in general I mean not choclate.
My working life started at sixteen and for the vast majority of my life up to that point I didnt have any money, like I mean I didnt have a wallet or coin purse, didnt actually have change or notes or anything. I remember vividly a miserable episode in my childhood when I spent almost ten pound on penny sweets because I went to buy a newspaper and had been told every week up until that point that spending the change was fine. I was financially illiterate. On the other hand I appreciated money as precious, I've got good saving and spending habits now which I attribute to back then. It wasnt much fun not to have money, trips to the cinema or anything like that were very infrequent and we spent most of our time just walking around or walking across fields were people only went to walk their dogs. Although I'm unsure if either I or any of my adult, working peers, could put in as much time and be entertained with there being some casual cost to it, should it be buying coffee (and sometimes I think its less the beverage than the social space you're spending the money on).
Part vent and part topic, what do you think? I'm unsure that religion, philosophy or any of the modern political ideologies have really got to grips with the good and ill of consumerism and its norms really adequately or is this all a post-scarity muse by a spoiled bourgousie anyway?
I know that I myself have experienced that idea that the things in my Amazon shopping cart are more desirable than the things I already own or have in my house when each of them are books which I've not read, I cant figure out what happens that its gold when I'm buying it but lead when it arrives in the mail and its like a kind of reverse alchemy is at work.
When eating I've noted that the availability of the necessities of life has lead to them being less valued, when I was a kid and got choclate on big occasions like Easter or Christmas or a birthday party it was something else, now that I can just buy it its a different experience altogether. Although the same as books I probably over consume, food in general I mean not choclate.
My working life started at sixteen and for the vast majority of my life up to that point I didnt have any money, like I mean I didnt have a wallet or coin purse, didnt actually have change or notes or anything. I remember vividly a miserable episode in my childhood when I spent almost ten pound on penny sweets because I went to buy a newspaper and had been told every week up until that point that spending the change was fine. I was financially illiterate. On the other hand I appreciated money as precious, I've got good saving and spending habits now which I attribute to back then. It wasnt much fun not to have money, trips to the cinema or anything like that were very infrequent and we spent most of our time just walking around or walking across fields were people only went to walk their dogs. Although I'm unsure if either I or any of my adult, working peers, could put in as much time and be entertained with there being some casual cost to it, should it be buying coffee (and sometimes I think its less the beverage than the social space you're spending the money on).
Part vent and part topic, what do you think? I'm unsure that religion, philosophy or any of the modern political ideologies have really got to grips with the good and ill of consumerism and its norms really adequately or is this all a post-scarity muse by a spoiled bourgousie anyway?
