There are many names we use for the countless possessions we have. Things, materials, objects, figures, and my personal favorite stuff. Stuff here, stuff there, people have stuff everywhere. When you ask someone these days what's important to them, the answer I usually get is their stuff. As the late George Carlin once said " That's all you need in life is a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place for your stuff." As funny as this is, the sad part about it is that people are obsessed with their stuff. Whether it is a new BMW car, a brand new pair of Puma shoes, or the next IPhone to come out, people need stuff. And why do they need stuff? People need stuff because it's much easier to build a relationship and feelings for your stuff than to build one with any other human being,
Gone are the days where people actually go out to spend time talking or playing basketball or exercising. These days all people want to do when they go out is play with their Iphone while sitting in front of each other and their new sport is shopping. I know this because I have seen it happen right in front of me, and I still don't believe it. Friday nights my friends invite me to go for a coffee so we c an talk, and all it ends up being is all of them taking out their Iphone or smart phones and just showing each other what their phone can do. Then I hear the usual comment " you should get one, where in the 21st century!" We might be in the 21st century and supposedly are connected more than ever with Facebook, email, and texting but all this has done is driven us apart.
In addition to this lack of communication as a result of stuff, owning and consuming has also destroyed our society. To get some more insight lets look back at what George Carlin had to say on this topic, Consumption. This is the new national pastime. Fuck baseball, its consumption, the only true, lasting American value that's left." If people would just open their eyes and look around them, they would see that George Carlin , as controversial as he was, could not have been more close to the truth. A good example are my friends. I ask them why they bought the new IPhone 4 when some of them already had the Iphone 3 and their response? " I wanted it." We have been programmed in North America that we have a right to everything our heart desires. Actually it is more of us being programmed to have to buy everything because that's what keeps the economy running.
Now up to this point you might think this is just another essay against consumption. But it's not, it's deeper than that. The world is going out of control and we are to blind to see it. People are using stuff as a replacement as away to fill holes in their lives. Who needs a friend when you can have an Xbox and play with people online? You're still interacting with people right? People have developed emotional and, to be more specific, strong emotional attachment to inanimate objects. Just last week my friend got so angry because his jacket ripped. A jacket... I repeat a jacket. It's not as if someone close to him got hurt, or a friend died, no his jacked ripped. I thought to myself, would I ever get that angry over a jacket? The simple answer is no. That kind of anger, I reserve for more important things like when a person in my life gets hurt or when the love of my life breaks my heart. But not for stuff.
I look at the world around me and I
can't believe it. Humans, for all the praise we give ourselves for being
intelligent, must be the dumbest species on earth. Nothing has shown me
otherwise. When people kill each other for the stuff they have, when people
burn friendships over a broken car of phone, or when people spend money on
their stuff rather then donating to a charity, you can't expect me to believe
that there is any hope for this society.
Image source: Flickr
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