This is the first of a series of essays taken from this blog/.
Our modern society is heavily based off the belief, the requirement, that its people will consume; in this consumerist economy, society needs people to buy, people to spend, people to go shopping, people to dine at restaurants, to buy houses, cars, furniture, land, and almost anything to which a price tag can be attached.
But is this beneficial? That question can only be answered depending to whom it is asked. If you ask the government whose existence relies upon the people’s creed of spending and consuming, the answer would be a unanimous, “Yes”. However, if you were to ask the children in Africa who drop out school to mine coltan, a metal we use for cheap electronics, or if you were to take a look at our beloved planet earth that is being ravaged of its natural resources for our personal gain, or take a look at the pollutants that are spluttered out of factories in factories we outsource for cheap labor, you might receive a different answer.
Consumerism is the direct result of materialism. Materialism, sadly, is a part of our human disposition, it has been woven into our character so tightly that we have not been able to rise above it. Materialism is the misleading, almost childish, belief that the more one possesses, the more he or she owns, the more power one has. In this perspective, we are no better than our prehistoric counterparts, even after millennia of evolution.
I am optimistic that one day we will rise above this primitive instinct and learn to control our desires. No one will ever attain true perfection, but that does not give reason to deter us from striving for it. Detaching ourselves from material objects and possessions is just one step toward the ultimate goal of perfection. You can never touch love, feel friendship, nor pick up family; those things are immaterial.