I was taken aback again that we are in the next century. When I was in the 5th grade we had a big discussion about living to the year 2000. It seemed SO far away then, remote, improbable even.
Things have changed a lot, but in other ways they are just the same.
We have a lot more stuff. We are in need of the same basic things, food, shelter, clothing, love. But oh the piles of consumer goods that surround us!
When I was growing up, if you wanted some wind chimes for your back porch, there were exactly two kinds. The glass ones that looked like slides from the lab held together with red string. And the brass kind with the little pagoda shaped top. That was it.
Now, I bet if I went on a search of just my own town, I could find 75 different kinds of wind chimes. Who needs this many choices?
And here is the really bad part about it. All this variety in ALL consumer goods, makes us picky.
Picky, picky, picky.
And I include myself in this condition to my embarrassment and shame.
Add to this the constant message from all sides to Buy! Buy! Buy! It’s awful. It tends to make you discontent. I fight it, but at times it trips me up. What do we have to feel discontent about in the material world?
It’s stupid. Even the most humble of us in the developed countries of the world live like kings and queens compared to our ancestors.
And all this stuff also makes us less able to be creative with what we have. Impatient when things aren’t “perfect” and reluctant to take on some project unless we have exactly the right “stuff” to do it with.
It dulls our imagination too.
So what you get is a picky, discontent, impatient, unimaginative dullard.
Does this sound like someone you want to be?
Hummph….. grumph, bah humbug.