My life, and all of our lives here in the “first world” are obsessed with, organized around, and circumscribed completely by the three words that make up the title of this post: me, here, now. Nowhere is this more true than in the United States, where we are famous for our collective national amnesia, and [...]
Large Houses
By the second quarter of 1999, 17 percent of new homes constructed in America were larger than three thousand sqaure feet, the size at which a house generally becomes unmanageable by the people who live in it. By the fourth quarter of 2005, this had become almost 19 percent.
Why exactly have so many people crossed [...]
Baby Boomer Psychographic Shuffle
Baby Boomer Psychographic Shuffle
Normal Rooms Around The World
Normal Rooms Around The World
You Can’t Rape The Injection Molded…
You Can’t Rape The Injection Molded…
Playing at Identity
Some of us like to think that we define ourselves by what we do, or by what we own, or by what we consume, but in reality we define ourselves by how we define ourselves. We take one half of our composite identity, our social identity, and internalize it; making the other half, our personal [...]
The Satisficer’s Manifesto
Modern life is organized around economic principles and the current dominant principle is consumerism; in which the act of accumulating, not the object, is supposed to create satisfaction, and is based on the assumption that one can (and should) have the best of everything.
Oh, What A Difference A Year Makes
I have been musing, for the last week or so, on how incredibly different our lives are now, as opposed to a year ago. Hardly any aspect of our lives has been left untouched in that year, and I believe that I can say that the changes, as wide and as drastic as they have [...]
A Cynical Look At “Lifestyle Amenities”
There has been, since the mid 90’s, a trend towards companies offering more and more on-site amenities. From day care to car washing, coffee bars to game rooms and massage therapists, companies, especially IT firms, are falling all over themselves to provide these types of things “to attract the best talent”.
Have you ever stopped to [...]
My 95 Theses
Following on from yesterdays post on choice…and with apologies to Martin Luther…
Modern life is organized almost exclusively around economic pronciples.
The most virulent economic principle in operation right now is consumerism.
Consumerism is a perversion of materialism, in which the accumulation, not the item itself, is supposed to create satisfaction.
Consumerism, as so defined, is not a positive [...]
These are the ramblings of 