Some thoughts on consumerism and minimalism

One day about 3 years ago, a friend of mine came to see me. He loved the type of music that were popular during his teenage and young adult period. Wherever he goes by himself, he is seen his ears plugged a pair of earphones, listening to hundreds of his music being played from his Sony Walkman. I asked him what would he feel if he stopped listening them? Would not he feel too bored listening to those same music again and again? He replied in a firm tone, "nobody can stop my hobby of listening music whenever I can. That is my only favorite thing."

So when I paid a visit to his place one day for the first time, I was heavily impressed by the music echoing lightly at every corner of his home. The music being played were familiar to me too as I was only 4 years younger than him. They were peaceful, beautiful and hypnotistic, having the power to draw your soul into the time and space of 50's to 70's. In the living lounge alone, I could already found 2 mini stereos and one bigger set with bigger speakers apart from the television sitting in the middle. In a corner of the lounge I saw two CD/Cassette organiser storages full of music media.

I thought these should be all the devices he got. "Nope. there is a TV and another mini stereo system in my bedroom." he proudly replied.

Besides all these working ones I could see in his home, one day he brought a portable three in one device (radio/laser CD/cassette) to me for repair because he knew my hobby was to open up any broken device to find out what was wrong and how to fix it.

That radio/cassette was still working but you would find it noisy and annoying when you turned the knobs to select the desired station or to adjust the volume of the sound the noise would just ruin your eagerness toward the broadcasting or playing of music. I diagnosed it having a bad potentiometer on both volume control and tuner. But I was not enthusiastic in offering him a positive advice of replacing those two components, as I knew he was already over equipped with various stereos, big or mini.

Together we have  common topics to chat about, the music and the hardware in need of a repairing. Actually, this two types of person are representing two opposite groups in the economy world. My friend is at the side of consumerism while I will be put in the side of minimalism.

As far as I understand about consumerism, it encourages buying,spending, consuming, and it will use every chance to stimulate the atmosphere of buying, buying and buying. A typical example is Valentine. Flower shops, restaurant, put lots and lots of advertisement to educate the targeted group of consumers what is the coolest way to surprise your honey? What is the most romantic program that will make your sweet heart happy whole night. When Valentine is over, some earned heaps of money, and a great number of the roses presenters find their bank accounts had turned red over the night.

I happened to pick up a news from Radio Live this morning. They were talking about the average cost of a wedding. The journalist said it was AUD54,000 in Australia. I believe this is not false. You see, diamond ring, costume hire, venue hire, photographer's hourly rate, honeymoon overseas travelling, every item they can think of is a must. But the young couples are willing to pay for these spendings even though after this romantic ceremony and the activities that follow many of them will see their account balance red.

However, you may not be able to make all the young do the other way round, the minimalism way, as this is very likely to turn the over all economy of a region or a nation into recession. What is the best example of the life style representing minimalism? Monks, Saits, moralists are.

As far as I have learned from books, Buddhist monks observe the rule of possessing their personal belongings of just a bowl and 3 clothes. They travel on foot, sleeping under the tree or cave, beg for food from local household by offering their prayer or mantra chanting that draw bless on this doner. There is a great number of this category of people. To its counterpart, the consumerism type persons, this group of people are really pitiful. But it is said that Bhutan, a small country neighboring Nepal and Tibet, is the number one country in the world that has the majority of its population that can be put in the side of minimalism life style feeling they are happy.

Nowadays, people measure the degree of a country's civilization by its GDP mainly. But the high GDP also reflect high crime rate, far greater number of unhappy and depressing citizens.

My mother used to quote a Taiwanese saying whenever she was engaged in conversations with debatical topics like Consumerism vs Minimalism. When she got to withdraw from the debate she always left with this quote: some loves to eat savoury while some loves sweet. To me personally, I am more biased to the minimalism side, and what is your standing point on the scale?