A New Earth
I picked up Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth in the airport this morning, and it's terrific stuff. I cannot recommend these books (that one and The Power Of Now) highly enough, you must read them. The latest one expounded on a neat paradox that hadn't occurred to me before.
The whole consumer society and economic model of our culture depends entirely on the following two things :
1) We think that buying things will make us happy
2) But it doesn't
Think about it. If buying the latest thing you see in the advert actually made you happy, why would you need to buy the next thing ? As I said last year about the story with the robots. Half of us making crap that no one needs and the other half buying it.
The whole consumer society and economic model of our culture depends entirely on the following two things :
1) We think that buying things will make us happy
2) But it doesn't
Think about it. If buying the latest thing you see in the advert actually made you happy, why would you need to buy the next thing ? As I said last year about the story with the robots. Half of us making crap that no one needs and the other half buying it.
5 Comments:
Enough by John Naish is very good and along the same line.
Does it cover hi-tech kitchen in a separate chapter, or do we have to figure out what he thinks about those by way of deduction? ;-)
Yes yes. 5/6 each of two whether you or Titmus would bring that up :-)
Andy.
I haven't yet read A New Earth, so perhaps it's unfair of me to pick up on a logical flaw that might be resolved in the book, but surely it's possible to buy something that makes us happy temporarily? Hell, that's the entire point of alcohol and drugs. So why should physical possessions be different? Does Tolle argue that, if the happiness is temporary, then it somehow isn't "real"? I can't see him taking this line, as it would explicitly contradict his arguments in The Power of Now.
Right, I didn't make that totally clear, yes he definitely means that things can make us happy temporarily but not permanently.
Andy.
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