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Materialism

LightSun

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 9, 2009
Messages
1,106
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
#9
In order to make changes and make this a more viable planet to live upon what do you think about the topic of materialism?



"We as a society pursue wealth, fame and beauty. In spiritual beliefs these are all illusionary qualities. It's been well documented succinctly that after a modicum of a healthy life style [$85,000} any more than this does not raise the 'Happiness Quota;. Instead of us being united and focused on the human experience, we instead chose, blindly I must add (Unconscious, societal, parental and media expectations) to procur material goods in an effort to attain staus for one. The other reason we may think having or possesing these items will lead to increased happiness.

This is not true for true for happiness comes from within. Society produces mixed signals which makes it more difficult to find one's true self. We end up chasing these pointless mirages as in some desert instead of directing our energy, money, time and resources into enhancing humanitarian virtues.
The result is mankind's future and children are forgotten or fall by the wayside.

We should endeavor instead on focusing on humanitarian ideals such as taking an interest in the plight of our fellow man, children, education, health care and closing the exorbitant gap between the super rich and the destitute. It is this quality of life which makes life worth living by establishing one's inner gifts and giving back to our world. Something that gets me about our celebrations is the notion of gift giving. This adds to a lot of us having a lot of 'junk' that we don't need. What about instead of material items we instead focus on gifts of service and focusing on our interpersonal relations.

Some people have so much material possessions that they must rent pods to hold and store their material goods. Here is a question, do we own our possessions, or do they own us? The more we have, the more precious time is needed to take care of our precious possessions. This instead of fully living, breathing, discovering, and exploring reality.

Both our inner world experience as wel as the beauty of the external world are beautiful and precious. This is certainly more so than material goods. It wouldn't be so bad if our material goods actually made us happier and more fulfilled people. I think how materialism and a materialistic society helps to destroy the resources and splendor of Mother Earth. This goes from having animal products of furs, bones and animal parts to cutting down trees of the environment to sustain our insatiablee appetite.

Overt materialism to me is only helps to destroy the planet for we take but do not give back to the cosmic web called life. Apparently we need stimulation. This means new knowledge, new sports, new clothes, and new stimulation. This entails getting new products, which entails taking it from the environment. It gives an initial 'fix' but it is only temporary.

It is like a drug addiction. It has to be constantly replenished, re-stocked for us to get re-stimulated. This is unsustainable as we pile up on material goods. We have to then clean and care for our possessions which ultimately, seemingly possess us. What if we as a society, chose joint shared (1). New experiences versus new possessions. What if we chose creating and getting in tune with our inner nature instead on focusing on material goods to make us happy?"
 
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Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Mbti encourages materialism.

Materialism is based on our own desires, and mbti plays to our own desires.

The first step away from materialism is to start analysing our own desires and fears, the second step is to evaluate our desires and fears, and the third step is to integrate what we have learnt into our daily life.
 

Typh0n

clever fool
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
3,497
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I mostly agree, I don't think there is anything wrong with having possesions, just with thinking they are the only thing that can make us happy.

I would go further. It isn't just material things that can distract us from our real purpose in life, it is any kind of "noise" such as becoming so reactive to things said in the media one forgets that it's a game, just like adverstising is a game, made to make us react to the point all we do is react react react and we become robots, at that point anyone can just sell us what it is they want and we will surrender our money for it because we are programmed to react to external triggers and not listen to ourselves and understand ourselves.
 
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