The stupid mind

Today, I was once again going through Zygmunt Bauman's work on liquid modernity. In one of his books, he talks about people considered the 'flawed consumers' which I find extremely interesting.

Woe to those who for some reason are stuck with one good instead of browsing through the full, and apparently inexhaustible, assortment.

This really got me thinking about how meaningless most of our lives really are (more so than I initially thought).

No one ever told us that we need new or more stuff. 'We just do' is what our brain is constantly telling us.

I remember commenting on the fact that someone was wearing the same shirt he wore the day before and everyone telling me that that was the worst possible thing I could say. At that time I didn't really question it - why this constant insecurity about 'recycling' clothes?? - because even I feel it. It was just one of the many things that we accept as true and move on. We live on all these absurd 'unwritten rules' that have, not unlike termites, eaten into our lives - no one knows where it came from and no one really knows how to permanently exterminate it. In fact, most aren't even aware of it's presence. It inconspicuously eats away at the fabric of life and then one day when the walls start crashing down, you go: oh gee, we had termites? :O

Anyway, my point is, now that I think about it, this is liquid modernity right smack in my face - one of the many mysteriously stupid things we do in life.

Why is it that we so driven by this constant need for the 'brand new'? 'Turnover' as Bauman puts it - it's not the matter of HOW MUCH we have, it's the matter of HOW OFTEN we 'turnover'. It is just baffling how we grant such childish and pointless 'rules' constant excess to our thoughts and permit it to deprive us of much time for which we already have so little of.

Life is already so pointless as it is. Here we are being deceived by such meaningless rules that foster obsessions to which we attach much significance.
It's just a wonder how our brain works...