“I Want it NEW, and I Want it NOW!”
It’s
no secret that shopping is a national obsession. Spend a day at the mall on the weekend (i.e.,
when there’s NOT a UK basketball game!) and see the merchandise being hauled
out or at the post office to see the number of mail-order catalogs being
processed, not to mention e*Bay or Amazon traffic on the WEB. Holiday time is especially notable as
shoppers vie for the latest toy or game … or (sorry, dad) most pathetic looking
tie! Truth be told, it really doesn’t
much matter WHAT you take home, as long as it’s SOMETHING and as long as it’s
NEW.
Why
do we like NEW stuff?
Why
can’t we be satisfied with REGULAR stuff that’s used a little – that’s even
survived the test of time? The art and
passion for “rejuvenatin’” and “fixin’ things up” has long since passed and we
don’t even give a first thought about recycling things – unless, perhaps, it’s
a 1934 Ford Coupe with a rumble seat.
Part
of our fixation with newness is that we’ve become a “been there/done that”
culture. Old news is no news and old
stuff has had its day, and, while we were THERE, we’re now HERE,
and we’re “movin’ on”.
But
the bigger part of the fixation – I contend – is the distance NEWNESS puts us
from the “ordinary”, and, more particularly, from anything “used”, from dirt,
dust and the “cutting room floor” ... from where the thread, metal and plastic
first take shape (not to mention the toxic waste) and from where wear and tear
and rust and thermodynamic calamity and disorderliness are finally banished and
something emerges that is shiny, new, untouched, “virginal”, unspoiled,
pristine and completely segregated from the components used in its construction
– not to mention from the condition it will unfailingly assume once pressed into
service. (Unless it’s a “collectable”,
of course, whose sole character depends on NEVER getting pressed into service,
and which only has to be protected from dust, humidity, and the occasional
earthquake tremor or hurricane.) And
note the marketing ploy of exaggerating the immaculate differentiation of a
product from all of its surroundings by providing distinctive and contrasting
background, color, lighting, textures, etc.
In this context, it becomes much easier to comprehend how a person can
have a closet full of clothes and “nothing to wear”. Everything in the closet blends in, and
nothing is sufficiently differentiated to stand out – even in “Designer” mixed
company.
Another
component of the fixation with NEWNESS is that we’re constantly in search of
perfection and renewal and we tend to look for it outwardly. Like a breath of fresh air, we’ve just GOT to
have a new something or other to keep going, else we lapse into an
unconscionable depression. An absence of
new stuff is like holding our breath: if the dearth of newness doesn’t end
soon, we just might DIE!
Finally,
“salvation” is perceived as a state of pristine, unadulterated, pure being, and
the closer we get to that state, the more “in” we feel with the heavenly
throng.
But
the real heroes are the ones in the trenches – the ones digging out the
diamonds, separating them from the dross, cutting and shaping and polishing
them and placing them in the distinctive settings we so delightfully “discover”
on the show room floor.
“Become a “trench
rat”: Do the digging and become a ‘processing expert’ to create gems for the
marketplace and you will neither want for something worthwhile to do nor for
due recompense.” Quartermaster
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