You Must Buy This Now (The Culture of Want)

Once upon a time, you were content to listen to music on the radio. When you went for a walk, you were content to listen to the birds and enjoy nature. When you got in your car, if you had a radio, you were happy to have whatever was on. A Saturday night might find the family listening to a radio program while eating dinner and cleaning up.

Wouldn't it be cool, though, if you could listen to just the music YOU like and not the music everyone else likes? Dig it, daddy 0. No one would talk to you either, and if you like you can play it over and over again until you are quite sick of it. Ah, the popularity of the record player just grew and grew until everyone had one. And then everyone had the stereo - you know, a record player, a tape deck (or 8track), and a radio in one unit. So you could...tape things and play them back later. Impossible! Astounding! Amazing!

Suddenly that silence on your walk doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore. Wouldn't you walk faster if you had your own tunes to walk to? Maybe something with a good beat, or a catchy chorus, something thumpy for your evening run. Oh! You can make a mix tape for that little Walkman you got for Christmas! Just the thing!

Now technology has made your records obsolete. Their replacement, the compact disc, also obsolete in favor of digital music (the music industry might protest, but the death knell for their existing business model tolled way back when the real Napster first made it's debut). Now we have phones, and satellite music, and ipods, and burners, and can make our own music if you like.

And all along, we got sweet talked into buying all this stuff that we never really needed. You didn't need a record player; someone made you think that you wanted one. You didn't need a walkman; someone made you think that you wanted one.

Isn't that a summary of our contemporary culture? We spend ourselves into debt buying things we do not need and yet oddly feel that we want. It is the same phenomenom that leaves you disappointed when you hit that big sale at Macy's only to leave empty handed.

Sometimes there are just times when you realize there is nothing worth spending your hard earned money on.