ON WANTING & GREED
Are any of us really happy? You can talk to nearly anyone and they’ll tell you they wish for something bigger and better than what they have already got. The poor man asks for wealth, and the rich man will ask for a more uncomplicated life, a fat person wants to be thin and a skinny person wants to be thinner, a dark haired person wants to be blonde and a blond wants to have dark hair, the list goes on and on.
Why do we seem to greed for wants? Watch the movie “The Gods Must Be crazy” and you should understand. This movie is about a Sho, in the Kalahari Desert that encounters technology for the first time in the shape of an empty Coke bottle that falls from the sky (thrown out of a plane). He takes it back to his people, and they use it for many tasks like grinding flour and softening snakeskin’s (they mimic the tools they already have). His people start to fight over it, so he decides to return it to the Gods, where he thinks it came from. The moral to the story is, before we wanted things that were uncommon, life was simple and we made do with what we had.
I think that we, as a creative minded animal have no choice in the need to want, it’s why we have evolved to such a high level. Our instinct is to want and just like every other animal, without want, there would be no reason to go on existing and evolving. In our period of prosperity, living without money in a high class group would give us little or no chance to impress either the opposite sex or society. So it’s no wonder that we strive to want, “Money is our big chest”. Some people have little desires for wants, and take what comes, others seem to greed want, and want far more than they have or need.
People/cultures whom do not need “wants” are usually happier easy-going people, and they are content to follow whatever philosophy they follow. They seek no praise from peers, and usually do not follow in the footsteps of heroes and legends. On the other hand, the people who greed ‘wants’ seem to be lacking this contentment, they are always after something better.
These people are the ones you hear asking for other people opinions and or skite about things they have, they are the ones who need to “fit In” “met expectations” they say things like; do you think my girlfriend is good looking, do you like my car, have you seen my big house, do you know how much I paid for that, I have friends who are millionaires etc etc. This is so they can be accepted into group. These people drive expensive cars and have big debt to show where they are in higher social level. Their posture expresses success similar to that of a king sitting on the throne, in their minds they are saying, “I am better than you, kneel before me”.
Should we criticise these people for wanting more than they have? Is it their fault that they become addicted to greed, or is it societies fault or even evolutions fault (or gods if your think he made us in his image). Maybe these people have evolved to have a greater desire to want; maybe they have a greater inner voice that drives their instinct to be successful and to be noticed maybe we could call them “alfa greeds”. There could be many reasons why one wants more in life, but the most common answer is to be noticed more than the average. Sports people for example have a greed to win, and we notice them.
Has modern human instincts been forced to change so quickly, that we have forgotten about basic living and needs, such as having a good shelter to stop the rain and the cold, and to ensure we have a good supply of food. I believe that it is not totally all their fault that they thrive on greed and want more. I believe that society has forced greed into our morals more than any other factor of survival. Our culture and learning process is all based on winning at all costs. Everything we do in our short life is concentrated on winning and being accepted, and to be accepted you have to be good and better then everyone else, at all costs. We no longer have to impress with who we are biologically, we now have to impress with our momentous possessions, whether we own them or not.
So, in order to have all these material possessions that is needed to make us stand out, we need to have money, and in order to get money, we need follow the guidelines set by society, which is to get a good education then get a well paying job (or become a criminal). This highest socially enforced guideline that we are taught insures our existence will be granted as successful and that this success is based on the; winners take all and second sucks goal. We as children see successful people driving expensive cars, talking on mobile phones and living in massive houses, so we naturally relate success to the cost of our material possession, not on moral ideals and ethics. Just because someone is wealthy does not mean they are nice or can be trusted.
Possessions place us in different levels of hierarchy. We as young children quickly learn that wearing no name brand cloths does not attract the desired attention of the other children in the group who are wearing designer brand name clothes and so on. We learn that our survival “success” instinct is to acquire valuable assets, not to acquire the basic living morals that would insure greater happiness and well being. We are taught we have to get a good high paying job so as we can acquire assets, and if you cannot afford to buy assets, we ‘society’ will allow you to borrow money against no assets, so you can have what you cannot afford now, but will have to pay off later, so it looks as if you are happy and succeeding. All this pain to ensure you can fit into the square and not be banished by the higher levels you dream of being within.
There is a definite selfish and uncaring attitude on how we live now than in the past I feel, and people are more competitive and concerned with their private welfare. TV has a lot to do with this. Selfishness, egotistic living, the "me now generation" is on the rise, but is it any wonder why, as we are bombarded with “you got to have advertising” and practice of persuasion.
There is little serious concerns about the troubles of the poor or the unemployed people. Any political party suggesting that taxes be raised to eliminate poverty would lose an election. The upper class and the very rich are doing very well thank you, and they see no need to share or care.
Cheap wall to wall housing are built for the lower middle classes, while upper classes are refusing to pay as much tax for the maintenance of public services, as they can afford private hospitals and schooling. Poor people are being forced out of popular areas like the cities, purely because it’s the place to be and the real estate values rise to profit from this movement.
There is a political and social laziness about "the common good of people" i feel today. Society has become more selfish, greedy, indifferent, and self-centred. People are increasingly willing to sue someone for damages even if the incident was not their fault. Goods are often trashy and are not made to last more than a few years by design, but the advertisements are often falsely and fraudulently saying the opposite. The legal profession is busy as it overcharges clients, because of all the wrong doings that are go on. Consultants and professionals charge outrageous sums of money without any challenge, and the astronomical CEO salaries cannot be warranted, this is because many people make a CEO..These are all part of our downhill run into a greedy pit of shame.
People go to get rich quick seminars to learn how to become greedy or become even greedier.
People go to get rich quick seminars to learn how to become greedy or become even greedier. If they have trouble learning they are easy persuaded by the spin the sales person has leaned through seminars about manipulating others into buying what they don’t need.
These get rich quick scams teach us how to be more self cantered, more materialistic and less concerning. They scream at you saying things like, buy better things, own a more expensive car, work less to get a bigger home, you need money to make you happy, life is a dead end road without wealth etc etc etc. The people who go to these seminars are just like fish caught in a net, an easy meal.
As like in the movie 'The Gods Must Be Crazy', whenever there is something better to have that’s rare, everyone wants it, and that’s the problem with our society, we all cannot have everything, and that causes problems.
