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| A world of emptiness in a sea of Plenty |
Friday again. My last post was Friday...a week ago. Time flies when you are busy. It's been an interesting week too. I've been seconded to our help desk for a few months which meant I had to move desks a move to the top floor. I joked that I'd finally made it to the top of the company!
But it was yesterday as I was waiting for a train home which really got me thinking. Normally, I read a book or do a Sodoku puzzle, but yesterday, my mind started to wander. I had been thinking about things. I mean literaly things. Posessions, all those mp3 players, mobile phone , computers , 10 foot plasma tv screens and so on. The outpourings of our consumer society. We all desire things. We might have a perfectly good mobile phone, but I challenge any to deny that they wouldn't trade in their old phone for a nice smart iPhone or Nokia. Who doesn't want the latest laptop with 50 Gb Ram and 2 Terrabyte harddrive with a cpu so fast that only speeding light can beat it. Of course we all do. But do we really need them. Do they make our lives any better? Do they make us any happier or content?
I pondered these things, I mused on the machinations of the corporate world and their efforts to help us give them our hard earned cash for their trinkets. Trinkts which in12 months will be out of date and 'so-last-year'. Whatever happened to keeping something and having it repaired if it when wrong. What happened to having a favourite item that would give years of service and still function the same way it did when it was first manufactured. How have we become such a throw-away society where nothing has any real value any more.
I used to have a valve radio (tubes I guess for Americans). It wasn' stereo, it wasn't a fancy digital DAB radio, it was a plain old early 1950's valve radio that took a few minutes to warm up and be ready for use. I had that radio for many years. It had short-wave, medium and long wave band. I got most radio programs that I wanted to listen to. It had a warm woody sound that made listening a pleasure. Yet if I was to give that radio to someone today I think that they would probably throw it out as quick as possible. It had a lovely wood cabinet. A large glass front with the stations and wavelengths printed a large volume and tuning knobs. It felt individual and not massed produced. It was made to last. It was made to go beyond it's first or second year of life.
Consumerism is exactly that. Consume. We consume these goods, spit them out as soon as the next version comes out. Even if don't use half the facilities on it or indeed if only use the same ones we did on the device/object we had previously parted with. We've spent cash on something that glitters but underneath is not gold. We seem to have lost sight of something. A something I can't quite put my finger on. Something that western society once had but in the mad rush to consume we've lost or misplaced.
I look at the senior managers at the comapny I work for. I look at them putting in the long hours and wonder if they are any happier than I am for working those extra hours. Certainly they get more mony than I do, but what time to do they really get to spend it or enjoy the benefits of it.
Then I think of those less fortunate than myself and think are they happier than me even though they don't necessarily have the 'things' I have. Some societies, especially in Africa and the far east have maintained the extended family and the style of living that brings with it. I can see for myself that they are happy, well rounded people even though they don't have a washing machine, or the latest Jimmy Choo shoes (for the women at any rate!). Aren't they actually richer in wealth without having the trappings. They have wide circle of friends, an extended family for support and supporting community.
Is it time for us to ditch the multi-national conglomerates and corporations and get back to small businesses and co-operatives. Should't we be treasuring items for their longevity and their reliablity rather than squander money and resources on the latest gizmo or toy?
What you do you think. How do you feel about it.
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Posted by ignominius on 2009-07-17 09:59:09 | Rating: | Views: 23
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