"we should think hard about whether or not we need that new thing." Word. The past 8 years have been a super interesting life lesson for me in regard to the whole hierarchy of needs. Living on 85 acres that's a good half hour from the nearest town (and even then, "town" is a bit of a misnomer. Great place to taste mediocre wine, a decent lumber yard/hardware store, but none of those places that sell 3-packs of shirts or stackable plastic bins) has dramatically adjusted the way I spend money, and the way I think about purchasing anything. I used to "need" to go out for coffee, to eat dinner out several times a week. I used to "need" enough different clothes to show up at work looking slightly different each day. I used to "need" a lot of stuff that just doesn't compute nowadays.
Societally, there's a lot of pressure (both overt and passive) exerted on us to buy stuff, to consume. The economy must continue to grow! We are thought of more and more as "consumers" before we are considered "citizens", because if the wheels of commerce ever slow down that is considered a very bad thing by the people who have all the money. So eventually, it feels like most of us tend to fall into step and dutifully consume as much as we can afford without too much extra thought.
By "most of us" I mean everyone except the astute (and subtly attired) readership of this fine site. Obviously.
Feb. 25, 2023, 8:39 a.m. - Mike Ferrentino
"we should think hard about whether or not we need that new thing." Word. The past 8 years have been a super interesting life lesson for me in regard to the whole hierarchy of needs. Living on 85 acres that's a good half hour from the nearest town (and even then, "town" is a bit of a misnomer. Great place to taste mediocre wine, a decent lumber yard/hardware store, but none of those places that sell 3-packs of shirts or stackable plastic bins) has dramatically adjusted the way I spend money, and the way I think about purchasing anything. I used to "need" to go out for coffee, to eat dinner out several times a week. I used to "need" enough different clothes to show up at work looking slightly different each day. I used to "need" a lot of stuff that just doesn't compute nowadays. Societally, there's a lot of pressure (both overt and passive) exerted on us to buy stuff, to consume. The economy must continue to grow! We are thought of more and more as "consumers" before we are considered "citizens", because if the wheels of commerce ever slow down that is considered a very bad thing by the people who have all the money. So eventually, it feels like most of us tend to fall into step and dutifully consume as much as we can afford without too much extra thought. By "most of us" I mean everyone except the astute (and subtly attired) readership of this fine site. Obviously.