Many things there are which I do not need… or do I?

Today is Black Friday in the USA. After giving thanks around the turkey, the country celebrates consumerism at its finest. Before, in that almost forgotten geological era that preceded our online times, people used to wake up in the middle of the night to be at the mall by dawn and make the most of the great discounts that officially kick off the holiday shopping season. Now everything can be done through the internet, saving you the sleepiness, cold and crowds –which, by the way, the pros consider front and center of the fun. In any case, the point remains unchanged: buy stuff, use the money you have or you borrow, close the vital cycle consisting of working hard to have money available so you can later spend it.

I will go all high brow and quote the classics –just to show that I studied the Greek and Latin masters back in high school. It is said that Socrates was fond of going to the market, but he never bought anything. His disciples asked him why he did that and he answered: “I like to see how many things there are which I do not need to be happy.” The origins of minimalism.

This is a fine story, and I believe it can be a helpful mantra in some circumstances: wear your moral superiority for a stroll in the mall as you measure how your stoicism and complacency separate you for the blind masses. But what needs to be answered is whether the act of buying makes us happy or not.

Purists like Socrates will say that the stuff we buy does not fulfill us; it is merely ephemeral nonsense. When you meet a material want, another one will arise, and then another… and you will spend your life working hard to be able to buy the next thing in an endless list of stuff. With the crisis –oh, the crisis!— this thinking is becoming more mainstream and in the future we may see less materialism, which would be undoubtedly good. What I am not sure about is if we would be less materialistic because we don’t want or we can’t spend –many posts could be written on that.

In any case, although intellectually in agreement with the aforementioned, moral superiority is just too tiring to maintain in the long run. At least for me, this small and flawed being. I confess: I like buying nice stuff. The turn-on when you recognize in the shop window (or the online store screen) the object of your desires, the sweet anticipation of owning it, the slightly obscene empowerment when the transaction is closed, and finally back home the happy (yes, happy!) purring when passing your fingers and eyes over the newly acquired stuff as you evaluate how it fits with the rest of your stuff and life.

All my praise to those who can rise to the level of Socrates. Personally, I have just bought some really neat things online…