Our dearly departed George Carlin has such a good point. We are all obsessed with stuff. Not all of us are obsessed with the same stuff, but we all have stuff that we consider absolutely necessary to get through our lives. There are people in this world that are so obsessed with collecting stuff that they are diagnosed with a mental disorder known casually as hoarding. Those people have so much stuff they can't live without that their houses could be literally falling down around them, and yet they still can't part with any of their stuff.
I think there are two main points to make here. The first is that the advertising industry has found a way to dig deep into our primal gathering instincts to convince us that we need, no MUST, have more stuff. Even if we have some stuff that is kind of like the other stuff we already have (Seriously, who needs 8 bottles of body lotion?). Second, the fact that there are not one, but two television shows that air regularly about people with hoarding issues says something about our voyeuristic tendencies here in America. When the world of reality television collides with the world of mental health issues in a society that says we need more stuff, this is what we get: A television show telling incredibly anxious people that they have too much stuff.
Excuse me while I go through all of my stuff and donate some of it to charity. Lord knows they are te only ones that really need more stuff.
Its very true that many people today hoard things, even things they don't need or will even ever use. Further, people today rely on so many things to get them through their day such as cell phones, computers, or television. Our world is so dependent on outside resources, we have started to lose sight of what life is all about and we begin to lose relationships and form new ones with inanimate objects.
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