Dependent on Retail Therapy
“You buy things you don’t need, with money you don’t have, to impress people who don’t care.”
No matter how aware and “woke” I try to be about it, I still can’t seem to shake this dependent need for retail therapy.
It’s a sickness.
One minute I’m sitting here questioning the emptiness of modern materialism, feeling purposeless and depressed over the monotony of it all. Then the next, I’m consumed by the desire for some fresh new shiny thing to fill the void, if only temporarily.
Shit owns me. And not just me. We all are mind-controlled meat puppets.
I can’t claim innocence when it comes to being a mindless consumer.
I’ve definitely fallen for the “miracle” moisturizer that promised to erase my worries and wrinkles. I’m the sucker who bought the “unique” t-shirt to realize it was just mass-produced hype. You bet I’ve upgraded my phone just for the better food pics. That designer bag for my wife? Yeah, I paid an arm and a leg for a walking billboard. Don’t get me started on the juicer collecting dust in my kitchen corner of forgotten fads.
I remember when I was a kid, happiness was found in the simple things. The ice cream truck, catching lightnin’ bugs, not having to go to school. But now I’ve got the feeling that it’s all about accumulating useless shit that goes out of style quicker than you say “but it’s limited edition!”
I see y’all out there…the dude bragging about his new Tesla like it’s a damn personality trait. The Instagram influencer “models” posing in Dubai, humblebragging about their bougie vacay like we’re all supposed to be jealous.
It’s a superficial pissing contest where no one ever really wins.
Sounds like first-world problems. We have fabricated an entire make-believe world where material wealth is the only marker of success and happiness.
It’s honestly kinda sickening when you think about it. But that’s the vortex we’re all trapped in. Consumption for consumption’s sake.
Maybe that’s just the human curse. We’re inherently spiritual, cerebral beings, but also overwhelmingly flawed monkeys drawn to shiny distractions and quick bursts of adrenaline.
Retail therapy indulges our basest impulses for pleasure and gratification, even if it’s solely surface-level.
I don’t know if there’s any real cure, to be honest.
Going cold turkey feels near impossible when you’re fully enmeshed in the matrix of late-stage capitalist depravity we exist in. Advertisements and carefully tailored desire-inducing stimuli lurk around every corner.
But who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to kick the material obsession fully. Return to a child-like state of pura vida, where happiness flows naturally from the simplest pleasures rather than compulsive, spot-treating addictions.
Doesn’t matter if it’s designer clothes or hard drugs, we’re all addicts at the end of the day.
Choose your addiction wisely. But be sure that nothing external is ever gonna fix those internal voids.
—
Rod
