December 26, 2004 :: My true love gave to me...

On this, the most materialist day of the year, I've decided to write a little bit about "stuff." For most Americans, this day is the culmination of a season of acquisitive orgy that ends with a flurry of ripped paper, tossed bows, oohs and aahs and silent groans at the results. Some uncreative television producer starved for career growth could probably make a fast buck on a reality show that featured judge's scoring cards a la figure skating on a family's Christmas day gift opening. The family could even use some of the money they earned by being on TV to pay off the piles of debt they undoubtedly incurred to get the gifts (and decorations, and food, and other seasonal accoutrements) in the first place.

What's that? Reality TV contestants (actors? let's go with participants) don't get paid for their services? Well then, why would they agree to be exposed and debased on national television? I imagine (and I vaguely recall reading a newspaper article stating) that reality show participants are there for the experience. Whether they are attention whores or just there for their 15 minutes of fame, the end result is that they don't have any material change in their lives, but they are somehow different persons for it. How many times have you (or I) remarked to someone that the $50,000 grand prize on Fear Factor isn't enough money for eating hippopotamus testicles, even if you are the winner? There isn't even a prize for second place. And yet, I have more in common, philosophically speaking, with them than I had realized at first glance.

In a nutshell, I think most people are rational, in that given a goal, they will take whatever are the most logical steps to realize it. In real life, that goal turns out to be a complex combinations of smaller, separate goals. How we choose those individual goals turns out to be a function of whether we prefer things or experiences. This distinction, while subtle, I think is important. Let's look at the two, in turn.

Stuff, or things, we understand well. The pursuit of material possessions is such an ingrained part of our culture that it comes almost as naturally as breathing to most of us. We know the visceral joy of opening a newly purchased thing, and the sense of satisfaction at stuffing our homes with shiny tchotchkes like magpies lining their nests. Stuff and things you can hold in your hand, count, manipulate, preserve, and destroy at your will. Our relationship with stuff is necessarily (and generically) active in nature. After all, if you aren't going to doing anything with an object, what good is it to you?

But what does it mean to pursue an experience? The sumptuous consumption of a steak, the tickle of the bubbles of champagne on the tongue, the enveloping warmth of laying on a tropical beach, these are also experiences we understand. In fact, the most basic experiences play directly into our five senses. Fireworks, concerts, meals, a massage, these all appeal to our sensory inputs. There are also experiences which appeal to deeper senses - feelings, for lack of a better word. The rush of skydiving, the anxiety preceding a public speech, the satisfaction of assisting someone, these all are notable to us because of how they impact our emotional being. And when they are done, there is nothing left but the memory of the experience. Our relationship to experiences, in a way contrary to that with things, is necessarily passive in nature, because an experience is something that you allow or plan (or actively engineer) to happen to you.

We talk directly about the relative values of stuff and experiences when we talk about ways to measure the accomplishments of one's life. No meaningful eulogy talks about one's lifetime earnings, or the sweet SL500 in the driveway. Intellectually, we accept that objects merit a lesser status in the meaning and purpose of life, yet we behave as if alignment to that ranking of merit is only appropriate as one's life comes to a close. In other words, get stuff now, and worry about meaning later.

I think I've been a pursuer of experiences for most of my life, and only now have I come to identify it and realize what that means for me. A glance around my house makes that clear, although I don't think many people can make sense out of that when they know what I do for a living (and speculate on what kind of salary I draw). As for my true love, I haven't met her yet. I hope that when I do, she'll know not to get me five golden rings, but instead take me to five places I've never been.

posted by Rainmayun at 1:16 AM -