Sat May 10 2025

An exploration of material

Material and tactile provides very little for the cheap price of attention. Meaning, what is given up so easily—our attention—should not be wasted so fruitlessly in material. Thoreau describes the new man arriving for work in his new outfit. This outfit, to the modern world, is symbolic of his status of newfound success. But yet in reality, take the clothes off the man. Dress him in clothes that people would view as stereotypical of the bum or the hobo, and see how new he is.

Most importantly for the man himself, see how new himself is. Does the outfit or the man bring newness? I think upon further inspection, the outfit is only a reminder of the identity. We superimpose our identity onto objects, and those objects we hold so dear as though they are fragments of the self. And sadly for us, material does not sustain. I say this like a broken record. But truly, think of the newest thing you bought a year ago. And ask yourself how new that feels to your identity. And I would be more than certain, there is no more superficial attachment. There is no spark in the mind when you hold it or interact.

This experiment of sorts does two things: it shows the fallacy of being surrounded by material, and it exposes to the self what flaws this system holds for our own internal value balance.

For this system, the person is not at fault. The people are at fault. The people hold the person. Without a people, no person would make any person do what we deem personable. Take a baby; does this baby survive without a mother? Does this baby know to drink and eat without a mother? No, it does not. So in the same way the baby drinks and eats through its mother, we drink and eat the knowledge of the people. And sadly, a generation of contrived social media posts about money and individual reward has produced fruit in the form of people buying what society sells. This is generalized, but this extends further than just what you hold in your hands or decorate your spaces with. Your life experience becomes a space for individual reward.

We, as Zizek put it, will be a future of Starbucks symbols stamped on faces. The space we inhabit and exist in is often overtaken by things bought. This consumerism surrounds us and is often used as conversation starters. Often times you’ll get the question, “Where did you get that?” And so we further indulge each other in the food of consumerism. And by no stretch is everything bought wrong.

The question is more: was it wrong to not buy and consume?