That little thing called more

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We want more, more, more all the time, never satisfied with what we have and this is what is destroying the world.

more, more, moreGreed is another name for this constant desire, driven by advertising nowadays, for more.

In the old days this was often the case for fortune hunters going abroad, and amongst those were the slavers and slave traders, as well as the gold diggers and the carpet baggers.

Today it is everyone, almost. We want more, more, more and we want it now, this very instant and many, if they cannot get it immediately, arte prepared to kill for it. Not that that is anything new.

We are being bombarded, if one does have a TV or reads the newspapers, or goes on the Web without an adblocker, bombarded by advertisements for this and that and it is being suggested to us that we must have this or that in order to be part of the in-crowd and to be cool.

In the 1980s it was the Fila sportswear range that every juvenile was after and then it was another range and then another and kids thought that they were deprived if they did not have the right label clothes or sneakers, for that was indeed the message of the advertisers.

Before that things were not that bad. Or, at least, I never found it to be thus. But then again that may have to do with the fact that designer labels were not something that we had time to be concerned with. We were too busy trying to survive and to have clothes on our backs.

People today have got a new iPhone only say six months ago and the new model comes out and they queue for hours at the Apple store when the new model comes on sale so that they can have the latest one. That despite the fact that there is nothing at all wrong with the model that they have.

The same we can see with so many other things. Be that people wanting ever bigger TV sets when they come out regardless that they may not even have the money to buy it at that time. So they rather get into debt to have instant gratification even though that their previous TV is still very much working.

We need to change our lives and simplify. More, more, more cannot continue and should never have begun, to be very honest, but then I am old-fashioned. It is not good for our wallets and it is especially bad for the Planet.

© 2013