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Our society is teaching us to seek money, power, intelligence, beauty, bodily satisfaction, all of which will never satisfy us. “If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”
― David Foster Wallace, |
Generally I think this is what the advertising world relies on to push consumerism on the public - just buy this product to make yourself more attractive, to get money and power and respect, and if your life is miserable, here is some junk food and alcohol for a brief mood alteration, although it will damage your health, but that's okay, since health care is a profit center and without sick people to feed into it, well, profits would fall. Round and round it goes, generating sick depressed people who fill their homes with useless junk ordered on Amazon.
Breaking out of this mindless consumer cycle is among the best things one can do for one's mental (and physical) health - even if it may 'hurt the economy'.