Apr
Do I Need It?
We live in times when people have more cash than ever before. Fe is in abundance. We are the richest that people have ever been. We have more than ever.
So why do so many feel they do not have enough??
The average person has plenty of food, good clothing and a comfortable place to live. What more do we need? Not much.
Back in the 1950s, money was spent on practical things and a few luxuries. There would be a television, maybe a hobby or craft or sport. The family automobile was a practical car, although some might try to buy a luxury model. They did not have video games or computers or cell phones in the 1950s, and people got on quite well.
The 1960s saw a boom in mercantilism. There were whole new ranges of products that were not necessary. Things like hair crème and after shave and fancy toys were promoted aggressively through telelvision ads. We did not need these things and most people had never used them but a decade before. The marketeers created the illusion of a need. The hair cream that impressed the women, the after-shave that kept you from smelling stinky, the toy that you just had to have. There was Score hair crème and Hai Karate cologne and the latest color TV and any number of other things.
Nowadays the marketers try to convince us that we need HD TV, PDAs and cars that park themselves. We continue to be bombarded by messages promoting a cavalcade of crap. Most of it is useless. Through a combination of aggressive marketing and advertising aimed at creating peer pressure, marketers try to convince us that these things are necessities.
Over 20 years ago, I hit a financial bottom. A strange confluence of circumstances left me broke, homeless and physically injured. The only asset was that my mind was clear. During this time, I came to see what I really needed: good clothes, food, a safe place to sleep and the right attitude. After this bizarre sojourn into Naud, things came into perspective with striking clarity.
Having my finances reduced to “lowest common denominator” was not a bad thing, for it adjusted my priorities. I came to understand just how much of the things we value are really unnecessary. More important was seeing how the “need” for these things was created through ruthless marketing rather than genuine need.
In these days when marketing is even more invasive, it is up to us to know what we need as opposed to what we want, as opposed to what we are being told to want. A little luxury may seem cheap, but it all adds up. It can be very expensive in ways that you do not expect. It is far better to get ahead of the marketers and take a good look at needs versus wants versus marketing. One simple question paves the way: “ Is it worth it?”
“Is it worth expending my assets to have this thing?”
“How can it really benefit me and my family? How can it makes our lives better?”
“Do I need it, or is there something else I need much more.?”
Questions like these mean the difference between enjoying your assets or acquiring useless things. Despite the old joke, life is not about how much you have. Life is about what you do. Sometimes the difference is in being happy to do more with less. And sometimes having less means fewer burdens rather than fewer assets.
Here we see the difference between Need and Greed.
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I have covered some of this in Loki for You, especially in the discussion of the FE and NAUD Runes. Loki for You is available here:
http://www.thortrains.com/bifrost/specials07.htm
