Ramble, ramble, rant, rant ...

This is disjointed and strange, but I need to get it posted and off my desktop before the computer crashes and I lose even the little bit that I have ...

When left alone for long periods of time, I get contemplative. Or I watch TV. Sometimes they coincide, hard as that is to believe. Last night, I was staring at the screen during a commercial break, not really paying attention, but letting my mind drift until the next installment of either the Frying of Rob Reiner on Comedy Central or the new show, The Street, or the Halloween episode (a day late) of the Simpsons, I can't remember....

Anyway, I saw this commercial for some SUV, I don't know which and it's not important. The point is that they were promising to deliver everything you'd ever want in a car, and thus, in life.

Now, this isn't really about the car, but about our attitude toward things. Things to save time, things to keep other things clean, things that allow you to do nothing at all. They're supposed to be good things, but I don't think it turns out that way.

Since my living spaces have gotten smaller and smaller, I've tried to shed the things in my life. Things that don't really add to my life or reflect the essence that is 'me'. It's tough. Strangely enough, I find that it costs money to downsize. I throw away three things, and I buy one to replace them. I also find myself uncomfortable around ostentatious wealth and consumerism. The idea that you buy what you want/need regardless of the long-term effects on the environment or society. Not that I'm exemplary by any means, but I try.

Then I go Home, and see that the attitudes of those I moved away from have not changed in the least. Granted, they've been around a lot longer than I have, and they have more space in which to put all this stuff they've accumulated over the years, but still, the consumerism is astounding. I couldn't believe my ears when my father started suggesting that I buy a new car. Why, I asked. Well, he said, you've had yours for a few years, the value has gone down, and it's time for something new. But my truck works just fine, I said. Yeah, but it might not for very much longer, he replied. That was at least 5 years and 75,000 miles ago.

It's also about our belief that, at some level, we're all entitled to perfect happiness, to having not just all our needs met, but also all our wants met. Where the hell did this come from? We rail against parents who give their children everything, creating lazy, spoiled brats, unfit for society. But everything we do demonstrates that we'd like nothing better than to be those lazy, spoiled brats.

Maybe it's because I live in Silicone Valley, where the measure of a person's success is not the car he or she drives, but the car their secretary or assistant drives.

I keep hearing another commercial for a car (why is it the car commercials?), in which the tagline is "because we think freedom should be more than a feeling. It should be something that you can actually touch."