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My Materialistic Existentialism

Posted: 17-11-07

I wasn't the most rebellious of teenagers. About all I did was stay out till midnight, smoke a 10-pack of Marlborough Reds a day and enjoy the odd 7 pints of Stella (all after I turned 17...I thank you..). But that thing I was most against, that I had the biggest fear of allowing to occur in my life - conformity - was the reasoning for my procrastinating over a great many things.

I have always and still do think that Human beings were not born upon this earth to sit in front of flat screens all day, consume unhealthy quantities of alcohol and stimulants every Friday night and buy dishwashers from B&Q at the weekend. This to me had always been what other people did with their time. I, Russ, bettered myself as a person with each interaction and couldn't help but analyse each attempt in so doing. I contemplated Human existence and attempted to debate my way into persuading my colleagues to do the same, if only for once that year.

However, things in life catch up with you don't they? If you live in a society that functions at some base level using only materialistic methods in which to achieve it, conformity on some level has to happen unless you are extremely strong willed and really don't care what other people think of you and your weird decisions.

My Dad is one of these people and I admire him for it.

But for the time being, as I have just said, society seems to have at last caught up with me:

Everyone else drives a car don't they? So I managed to put-off learning to drive until last year when I was 31 years old. Everyone else in the UK learned when they were 17, and a large number of them were getting 130Mph out of their old-man's beamer up Dry Drayton's Scotland Road when they were 15.

Buying a house and taking out a home-loan is what everyone else does right? But I could hold out no longer when the thought of flatmates and flathunting dictated that this would be the only way out. I did this in February 2007 and it is currently the source of my great materialistic delights.

And now I have recently found myself getting pleased and excited about those things that only those other people were normally excited about: My new kitchen, relaxing at home in front of a movie and buying our new dishwasher at the weekend.

What is particularly interesting to note about me in this scenario, unlike what I observe of others in their conversation, mannerisms and lifestyles, is that I continue to analyse everything just like I ever did and I read some very interesting books as a result. But I now also have hope for mine and my family's future aspirations of detaching ourselves enough from some of the more unhealthy aspects of society, ironically by using society and its various materialistic methods to achieve this.

To this end Tasia and I, while finishing off the renovations of our house in Brooklyn, Wellington, are simultaneously planning our self-build project out in the country. While we'd still be in commuting (Train) distance of our respective workplaces, I've been thinking for quite some time about either a total change of career or going into business for myself. The problem is I only have the vagaries of an idea of where these may take me, so is best left until the project is complete.

Although I have only partially become that which I feared so much as a younger man, I believe I am all the better for it. I now have the perspective by which to better judge what I'm doing and more muscle with which to lift 25Kg bags of cement....

Thanks as usual for your indulgence.
Russ