Materialism

The concept of property has inadvertently caused, all together now, the fall of civilization, the erosion of society, death in the millions, and the corruption of every generation that flourished ever since we evolved enough to be more intelligent than a sabretooth tiger with a cranial injury.

What is it that compels us to seek out property, items, materials? Is it the fact that we need to have things to feel comfortable with ourselves? Has pride of ownership sunken so deeply into us that it is akin to racism? Do we just want to look pretty in our new skirt or intimidating in our new car? A combination of all, to be honest.

This concept of materialism isn't necessarily a negative or limited to just humans, those flawed bastards that I hate so much. Lions and hippopotami are extremely territorial, komodo dragons will share their carrion so long as that carrion is YOU, and chimpanzees will fling their poo at any passerby. Point is, animals are as capable of altruism as I am capable of having sex with supermodels. It's an evolutionary instinct, to seek comfort with what you have. Hell, I can't sleep unless I have my huggy pillow.

But there's a fine line. There's a difference between getting what you need and what you want. And like the wise philosopher Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want." And I find that to be pretty wise, even if it's coming from a Rolling Stone. Sure, we need a bed, cars, computers, cell phones, TVs. But come on people. There's a limit to how much shit you need. You have a perfectly good TV, Samsung DLP, 42 inches, capable of 720p output. Do you really need to consider updating it to a 58 inch LCD 1080p Bravia, just so you can mount it? Is that shit really necessary? You have plenty of nice shirts, do you really need more? We as a species find comfort and happiness from the things we buy, from the glut of unnecessary bullshit we have. And once the newest bullshit comes out, we trash what we bought earlier in favor of the newest shiny device.

How can we help it? Evolutionary instinct, let's say. Sure. That's plausible. But everything around our society revolves around owning more. Capitalism at its finest - what we want to accomplish is to achieve wealth through business. And what do we do with that wealth once we attain it? Exchange it for goods and services. That's what the American Dream is! Come over to the Land of Opportunity from a dirt-poor nation with absolutely nothing to get a lot of money and then spend it! This goes back to God knows when, probably back to when Grug decided that he needed a new spear to kill a Mastodon with. The media's constant barrage of telling us "You need this new product" merely exacerbates the problem.

But would I honestly call it a problem? Sure, if it's all we can think about. If we're raised believing that the entire point to life is MORE STUFFS, that's materialistic to say the least. If you want me to say more, the words "fucking retarded" and "collapse of society" come to mind. We want more stuff, sure. Acceptable fact of life that everyone wants to buy more shit. But when it becomes a value, a virtue, and something to strive for all your life, you're a slave to plastic, to cotton, to metal. And who wants to live like that?