Microstory 386: Extravagance

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Legacy

This is not a step. I repeat...this is not a step. This is not something you should be striving for. This is superfluous, wasteful, and another synonym for excessive behavior. I only put this in here because it is a possible way to live your life, and I know some people are interested in it, and it deserves academic attention. One of my favorite rap artists, Conner 4 Real dropped a hot bonus track called “Should I Move?”. It’s a fascinating satirical song about the human condition, society’s demands for what kind of goals people should have, and the imprudence of materialism. In it, Conner tells an obviously fabricated story about the so-called “hardest day of [his] life” where he struggled with whether to buy a larger second home even though his current home is plenty large. Spoiler alert, at the end of the fictional version of Conner’s tale, he does end up buying the house, and keeping “the old one for [his] dogs”. It’s a ridiculous situation, having two houses that are so close together. I applaud Conner for writing such a serious musical piece that’s unlike any of the other poppy music he normally puts out. Quality of living is a spectrum. The most impoverished of us live in terrible conditions with no food, no shelter, and no help. The richest live so extravagantly that the only work they do is designed to make them more money, rather than contribute to society. The Purge franchise of movies is about a dystopian future where the wage gap has grown so large that politicians have annually legalized all crime in order to cull the poor. They do this on the belief that the poor are draining the nation’s economy. In reality, it’s the opposite. Sure, rich people who own businesses are supporting the economy by employing the less fortunate and continuing to cycle money. But so much of what they, and other rich people, do is only about their own purses. This doesn’t help the economy. Yes, in the short-term, you’re supporting the yacht industry by buying ten yachts, but this will lead to diminishing returns, and only help a select few in the population. Your goal in life should be to become as successful as possible, but beware the moment success transforms into unfulfilling overconsumption.

Gourmet Eating