I'm at an age where I question, a great deal, the world I find myself in, and the choices I've made because of it. I've heard that 50 is the new 40 is the new 30, etc, so evidently I still have plenty of time to work this over in my mind, distill it, ruminate, pontificate; bellow. At some point it'll all become clear.
I'm not buying it.
It's all the other stuff I've bought, and bought into that concerns me, and if I'm honest; has for some time.
Capitalism. Individualism. Consumerism. Rubric of our present existence. You make money doing what you want, without unwanted government or state interference, collecting a surfeit of goods that define your time on our blessed mortal coil. If you're lucky, fortunate, driven to succeed; in the right place at the right time, you may well become a captain of industry, leaving your mark on history, employing many, and advancing the quality of life for those who follow you. All well and good. For the rest of us, for whatever reason, who do not obtain that lofty status, we still benefit from the innovations, inventions, and advancements.
I've done my part. I'm reasonably educated, have a decent job, which pays well by most standards, and have done my share of consuming, be it homes, or cars; furniture, vacations, electronics, music, the arts, and all the other miscellaneous dross I might come across and covet. I've periodically culled the pile, donating the usable, and tossing the junk. Occasionally I've been roped into the Sturm und Drang of the proverbial yard sale. At times I marvel at all the stuff I've accumulated over the years and wonder at the idea of this multiplied by the millions. All the stuff we build, buy, replace, and throw away. That's our existence. A not so inconsequential byproduct of the fact that a good many of us in this country do not have to concern ourselves with basic subsistence, being surrounded by more than we could ever need or use ( this obviously is much less so by those caught in the maelstrom of our current economic woes or the truly sorry fact that there are still those in this country who want for enough to eat ). We are inundated with commercials and ads, sirens calling to our desires and greed; with products and services on which to spend our hard earned pay or readily available credit ( again mostly, depending on your all important credit rating, assuming you have any credit left at all).
So we devote our life to consuming, cradle to grave, with the endpoint being what? How much stuff we have? The quality or worth of it? So you have something to leave to those you leave behind, survive you, or those to whom you may bequeath? Do you consume for others? For those who need or want? Is it any better or worse than devoting yourself to others rather than yourself? To deny yourself the trappings of any particular lifestyle in the American tradition, be it rogue, salary man, suburbanite, artist, bum, politician, salt of the earth, farmer, cowboy, entrepreneur, feckless automaton, malcontent, laborer, or anger white guy ( there may some classifications I've missed ). Maybe I'm missing something.
I know, this is the world it which we live. In many other parts of the world, life is a struggle to survive. A struggle most of our ancestors spend their lives dealing with. I can love it or leave it. I can not worry about it; over think it. It is what it is. I guess if you're happy with what you do, and don't see the point in over analyzing the every detail of your existence, then go f**k yourself!
Sorry; cheap laugh.
None of this is to say that I wouldn't like the house of my dreams; well appointed to my tastes. A nice car, and the wherewithal to live whatever fantasy life I might dream up that day. I have no real desire to be an ascetic. Nor am I fool enough to think that times were better in yon days; maybe if you were wealthy, but disease still killed off plenty of them as well. Mostly it's the total bombardment of the consumer lifestyle; the inculcating blast furnace telling , cajoling, amusing, demanding, inferring, inciting us to buy, buy buy! And we did buy, buy, buy; whether we could afford it or not. People played to their avaricious, greediest impulses to squeeze every possible dollar out of us; legally, ethically, or otherwise.
Does it ever stop?
Makes you hope for reincarnation just so you can go back and buy what you didn't get to the last time.
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