I don’t need Madonna to tell me that it’s a material world.

Then again, even if she hadn’t, we are carpet-bombed daily by the third certainty. Those would be life, death and marketing. There’s no escape! No running, hiding, not even fighting back. It’s so subversive that we wouldn’t see it unless we got a post-secondary degree in investigative techniques. It’s so pervasive that you will find no solace. In fact, I am marketing the rest of this article to you RIGHT NOW.

Joy, eh?

The worst thing is when you realize that you have already been sucked in. Of course, I know full well how that is. For some, the lust for material goodies flees soon enough. For others, they may be the ones who need to do the fleeing.

I’m a sucker for limited-edition stuff. Cap the limit of production on an item and I’m there. Paint it a different colour and call it special. Add a sticker. It all seems silly, but sometimes it just feels like the customization adds some sort of unspeakable value. That, and the curse of elitist human pride. Before writing this, I had stumbled upon a trio of auctions for the exclusive Pentax K-7 Limited Silver DSLR camera. Only 1,000 in the world, and only $1,500-odd dollars that I really should be saving up.

A beautiful camera faced a beautiful future. The latter won, thankfully, and I return to normalcy again. How do you deal with material lust? How important is it you? Always food for thought. You might be surprised at how deep you’re already in.

AJ Pau

In describing AJ within 50 words, “mobile” and “phone” would show up for sure. Beginning with a palmOne Treo 650 long ago, AJ’s used many devices from Europe, Japan, even North America. He’s dabbled with the Internet since discovering Netscape 1.0 as a child and is neurally linked to Twitter.

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