What's more important, discovering who you are through art, philosophy and nature or "becoming somebody" by making out like a bandit on some huge investment deal? We live, we work and play in a society that is driven by the shallowest and most pathetic forms of desire! You can't get away from it! Everywhere you turn you are inundated with billboards, TV ads and radio commercials telling you how to get rich, lose weight, get a better paying job, mortage your life away so you can have that new sporty automobile, get a new wardrobe, 'cuz a <insert sexual preference here> would have to be fucking crazy to sleep with you if you aren't slim, trim, gorgeous and dressed to the gills! No, no! Don't go and expand your mind and try to actually interest somebody! Are you nuts?! Go buy some bigger tits or do something about that puny cock instead, 'cuz that's what really makes the difference!

And the problem is that we are all, all of us are getting sucked down deeper and deeper into this shit with every day that passes. Don't get me wrong, I'm a capitalist just like the rest of you. I've got the house, the car (yeah it's an Acura but the lowest possible model there is... it's a glorified Honda Civic -- only available in Canada -- why is that?), and my saxophone and various other instruments and I work as a senior programmer at an up and coming IPO, but that's about it. Granted, I'm not slumming it, waiting tables and preaching about the evils of materialism to school children with all the venomous intent of the boogie man, but I'm also not some corporate fuck who treats people as though they're numerical commodities!

The money I make supports me and let's me buy my sad little indulgences but that's about all. I don't have a huge, diverse portfolio with RRSPs, Stocks and futures. In fact, I haven't got shit stored away... (probably not such a "good thing", huh?)... well, aside from what I ate for dinner, but that's probably not so much shit at this point as it is just some goo stuck in my stomach... but I digress. Who I'm really bitching about are those white collar, yuppie, business criminal assholes with their BMWs, Mercedes, Armani suits, goddamned putrid fucking cigars that couldn't be more phallic if they shot jizz, who just can't wait to shove just one more enormous advertising dick up your ass so that they can make 7 figures this year instead of 6! (Thank you to George Carlin for the material dripping from that rant)

No no! It's laughable to make the measly 5 figures that I do. That doesn't show that I have a penis. The god of capitalism doesn't give you your penis until you've reached that, all important 6 figure salary! And god help you if that's in Canadian dollars because if it is then you had better break the 6 figure mark by a pretty huge margin. But then, apparently 6 figures isn't enough! Your house has to be bigger and your car has to be faster or more luxurious or to put it more simply, you have to just show everyone with at least one good eye that you're stinking fucking rich, because if you are then you can get an upgrade on your token bimbo. "Oh man, if I could just make another 20 thousand a year I'm sure I could start dating a D-cup!" Get a grip, you shallow piece of country club fodder. Why, oh why do I have to look around and see carbon copies of people everywhere?? Gap and Old Navy shoppers climbing into their imported luxury cars, with their perfect little babies, stupid spouses and an entire life of boredom and misery hidden behind the doors of that perfect little suburban home? Would it kill them to invest some time in themselves or in others for no monetary gain whatsoever?

You've been very kind to stick with me this long so let me close this node off. It's not about the cash and coin, or the abs, the Ferarri, the enormous house, your looks or (god help me!) how hot your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/partner is... Folks it's not about any of that stuff. I'm no pseudo intellectual (I have no idea who that user is, I just needed a link there :)), and I'm certainly no expert on life. Hell, I'm trying to climb out of the materialistic hole myself. It's one of the main reasons I study jazz and practice saxophone as much as I do. But that's what I've found to help me out. Learn something, pursue that which you love (and if it's money, try again), study the lives of the great people who lived before you and strive to acheive power in mind and depth in soul before you reach for that bar of gold. If you don't have the strength of character to wield it, that gold will suck the life from you faster than you can imagine. But I think a lot of noders out there already know what I'm ranting about.

Send the Britney Spears clones back to the pit from whence they came and bring me a scholar and let me ravage her mind.

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