We are living in an era where consumerism dominates over our present society. We seem to have been too consumed by our ever growing lists of wants and needs. We tend to forget that “Wants” and “Needs” are not the same things, they’re two completely different words that lost their meanings to consumerism.
In this article, I’m going to put two things on the table. The first one “necessity”, a fundamental human instinct that applies to every person that chose to live in modern civilizations. The second one is “consumerism” an economic phenomenon that ruled over the majority of populations here on earth.
Definition of terms
Want (noun) - a lack or deficiency of something
Need (noun)- circumstances in which something is necessary, or that require some course of action
Consumerism (derogatory) - the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods
Necessity - the fact of being required or indispensable
From the definitions I gathered above, I will try to my very best to clarify and communicate effectively my own understanding and perceptions of each of the significant words that we need in this analysis. More specifically in layman’s term.
Wants - these are the things that we admire but don’t basically need. Things like fancy vacations and dream cars. Things like expensive clothes and gadgets, the ideal life, the ideal partner, etc.
Needs - these are the things that are essential and necessary for survival such as shelter, clothing, food, water, air, love, communication, etc.
Consumerism - This is when we are too caught up from the things we want because giant corporations are overtly producing and feeding it to us, plus fancy propaganda and expensive adverts as baits, society ended up in a corporate rat race and a moshpit of greed and social class struggle. We then developed that “never-ending needs” attitude that left us miserably wanting for more.
Necessities - generally these are the things that we need physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, etc.
To get us started, I will discuss how I see the big picture as a whole.
Generally, the human civilization has constantly been evolving. One of the biggest factors in this phenomenon is Innovation. As humans, we have the tendency to innovate. We have always been wanting to make our lives easier. For example, the “Wheel” was discovered and invented by some ancient inventor guy from some distant hundred centuries ago. From that day on, the wheel as a simple machine, has been helping humanity until today . You can see wheels basically everywhere. From your optical mouses, to your rolling drawers, to your office equipment, to your vehicles, to your giant machines, etc. The utilization of this simple machine actually all rooted from our need to make life easier.
Flash-forward to the present day, we are being told that we are living in the future and that this life today is no doubt, a lot better than the abandoned past. I disagree, I have seen a glitch in this picture. If you ask an average person today if which generation era he/she would prefer, he/she would more likely want live in the “now”.
But why? I’m not gonna explain this one to you, I want you to think for yourselves.
Life has and always been life. Life will always be life. Regardless of fashion trends, innovations, mediums and aesthetics. Life in general, is the only thing that never changed. Our wants and needs may be constantly changing and growing but that’s just how it has been for our ancestors too.
Now moving on, we often confuse what we want from what we need.
Example scenario:
“I need an orange juicer”
Analysis:
Why do I need a orange juicer when I have a perfectly working knife and perfectly working hands to squeeze orange slices to extract the juice?
Hypothetical Conclusion:
I want to make my juicing easier, faster and more efficient. (XD)
Our dependency on technology and innovation flooded our heads with worries and drowned our hearts with greed. Thanks to the corporations that utilized consumerism to make us kiss their asses. They seem to have found a way to control what we have to want and what we must need. For example, in the middle of 420BC, shampoos didn’t exist and society ended up fine. A few centuries later, a giant corporation introduced primitive shampoos, society still ended up fine. Now we are savoring all of the best things that were conceited by the past generations, we have the most high-tech and ingenuous stuff we need to get by each day yet we still complain.
Question:
Why do we still complain by the way?
Answer:
Because we generally tend to want things to be even better.
Again, we are quite vulnerable in this tendency so corporations used us as economic gasoline. Our desires fuels the machine that is consumerism.
Bottom line:
Our “wants” fill for our emotional needs, but emotional stability is still a basic need. The ending? A never-ending cycle. I’m afraid there’s no end to this.
Personally, I don’t have any idea on how to address and end this dilemma, simply because I don’t want it to. They’re there and will always be there no matter what. They are what makes us human. Life is surprisingly binary, everything’s just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. Instead of drowning in endless misery, let’s try to focus more on mastering universal balance and learn how to play the game that is life. Nothing is certain. If else, then one still has to make a move and choose whether to quit or to continue. More specifically to choose between 1 and 0. Either way, one still has to make a move. Let’s keep on moving.
Ganjhot Champloo
Communicator
USTP
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