Materialism

[original PM]

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family.
Choose a ******* big television, choose washing machines,
cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers.
Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance.
Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter
home. Choose your friends.
Choose leisurewear and matching luggage.
Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f**king fabrics"

When do you stop hankering after the next big purchase?

I found that those who worship material goods in their own hearts know it is because they are emotionally stunted and can never find peace.

[BlasterBates]

The non-materialistic human species variants died out because the materialistic humans were more successful.

Fate of evolution I'm afraid.

But to be honest I'd rather spend an evening in front of the telly watching a film with a beer than jumping around trees looking for bananas.

[vetran]

a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

I like nice things (quality tools & fittings) however I only have a few and I don't pursue them beyond reason. There are many other things in life.

I feel good when I pick up a nice bit of cookware or tool but I don't have cupboards full just the essentials.

[vetran]

There you go Doodab, I suspect this will tickle your fancy:

IoT Enabled Egg Tray

[sasguru]

There's not much one needs, once a good paid-for home has been achieved.
I like cheap but fun cars - other than that my biggest expenses are books.
I'm lucky that the missus is also very unmaterialistic like me.,
And now that the sprog has grown a bit - we will resume travelling a lot.
Life is about ideas and experiences, not things.
Given my background, I know many very rich people, but beyond a certain point, money and things become superfluous and can be a real curse.
An elegant sufficiency is the goal.

[Ticktock]

My wife got some Amazon vouchers for her birthday from family members, as she hadn't been able to think of anything she really wanted, but reads a lot of kindle books.
She got so many she decided to splash out with them (and twice as much in cash) on a new hoover. She's very excited by it, so hopefully the house will be cleaner now. To be fair the old hoover was wearing out, overheating so often it took hours to do the house, but it's still an odd choice to buy yourself for your birthday.

I feel very lucky now to be in a position where neither my wife nor I can think of anything to ask for when it comes to birthdays / Christmas. I don't really do frivolous spending. If I need something I'll buy it, and depending on what it is I'll pay as little as I can (e.g. clothing), or pay a bit more to get something that is decent and / or will last a bit longer, and I'm able now to buy those things when I need to, rather than having to wait and ask for them for my birthday / Christmas.

[Gibbon]

There's not much one needs, once a good paid-for home has been achieved.
I like cheap but fun cars - other than that my biggest expenses are books.
I'm lucky that the missus is also very unmaterialistic like me.,
And now that the sprog has grown a bit - we will resume travelling a lot.
Life is about ideas and experiences, not things.
Given my background, I know many very rich people, but beyond a certain point, money and things become superfluous and can be a real curse.
An elegant sufficiency is the goal.

Agreed. Also having a curious interested mind, it keeps the boredom away which leads to craving other things for stimulus.

Just spent two days grappling with Plato's Myth of Er for an OU assignment, feck my head hurts but it's very satisfying when things click. That there is Logos in Mythos is not as contradictory as it seems!

[doodab]

Life is about ideas and experiences, not things.

Indeed. I'm not really craving things in themselves, I don't actually want a new computer for example (in fact I have a few I'm trying to get rid of), but I want to build a really powerful new computer for the sake and enjoyment of building one. If I had the budget I'd like to build a proper clustered supercomputer with 8 or so compute nodes just for the sake of doing it.

The music thing is a bit odd. I'm not that interested in making music per se, but I like tinkering with all the gadgets and building something complex that works.

I think part of the problem is that this tendency to acquire things because I want to play with them or know how they work has gotten out of hand and I have too much clutter. Even after my recent eBay exploits I still have way too much stuff and it's actually burdensome.

I have spent quite a lot of time writing up physics notes in Mathematica lately. Still struggling with getting some of the notation just how I want though. That has been quite satisfying.

[MyUserName]

There's not much one needs, once a good paid-for home has been achieved.
I like cheap but fun cars - other than that my biggest expenses are books.
I'm lucky that the missus is also very unmaterialistic like me.,
And now that the sprog has grown a bit - we will resume travelling a lot.
Life is about ideas and experiences, not things.
Given my background, I know many very rich people, but beyond a certain point, money and things become superfluous and can be a real curse.
An elegant sufficiency is the goal.

If it they are that much of a curse, send them to me!

[vetran]

If it they are that much of a curse, send them to me!

if only Walter had something of value, he is being evicted from his council bedsit.