Inner Struggle

Lately I've been dealing with a lot of mixed thoughts and feelings. None of this is related to relationships in any way though, that stuff is all good. Instead, I'm having trouble dealing with the fact that I can afford things that I never have been able to afford ever before.

Recently I have purchased a docking station for my laptop (so I can use my old Keyboard and hook my laptop up to a widescreen LCD), a Tivo, frames and photographs to decorate my walls, a network card for my Tivo so I can connect it wirelessly, dishes which cost more than my docking station, and several other smaller purchases. All in all I have spent enough to basically max out my credit card 2 months running. Sad. Anyways, now that I have the few things that I had been putting off purchasing while I lived with Linda, I still find myself craving more. I talked with my Dad about this while I was home.

Basically, what my issue is is that I always preach simplicity and that I hate consumerism. The fact that America uses so many resources compared to the rest of the world sickens me. To be perfectly honest, I think that how third world nations cope with their lack of material needs is something the rest of the "developed" world needs to be more considerate of in our day to day lives. That being said, I am going to try my hardest to keep myself from venturing down that "typical" American path. I'm not going to buy a newer car until mine dies. Now, when I say "dies", I really do mean DIES. I want to drive it until the costs to maintain it and keep it in reliable working order exceed the costs of a monthly payment on a new used car. Then, when I do buy a used car, I'm buying one strickly for mileage. Screw the fools of this world that buy their car as an "investment" or better yet, the ones that think it is a status symbol. Thats such bullshit -- your car is simply a tool that helps you get from point A to point B in a timely fashion. Right now I am thinking that a newer deisel VW will be my car of choice. They get between 40 and 50 miles per gallon (no matter if driven in the city or on the highway). The beauty of a deisel is its simplicity. No spark plugs, peaks RPMs at between 2,000 and 3,000 compared to 6,000 to 8,000 in a typical 4 cylinder or 6 cylinder engine, and the engine fires off of the compression of the fuel instead of the ignition - awesome. Plus, the cost to refine deisel is inexpensive and the technology has been around forever whereas hybrids and other fuel efficient alternatives are still being perfected.

It is kind of embarrassing though, I have always considered myself to be a pretty simple guy. I don't want to have an extravagant house, car, or basically anything that will draw much attention to me. If I'm not enough to make people take notice, then obviously I need to work harder at being impressive (not in a cocky way, but more in a self-improvement kind of way). I really think it is kind of sad when people put a ton of money into thing they don't need -- like cars. A car is the worst investment a person can make. So many people buy new cars and it is definitely a status thing. People want to be seen as wealthy, or appear to have enough money to have a new car, even if they don't. For instance, I was in Midland this past weekend and drove past a small house on a busy road. The house was no more than 1,200 sq. ft. and wasn't in that great of shape, but there was a Lincoln Zephyr in the driveway. One second while I pull up the base price of a Lincoln Zephyr for your knowledge... $28,000. Ok, honestly not as high as I expected, but still pretty expensive for a base price. So anyways, some guy drives around in this car thinking he is hot shit, but a lot of people probably just laugh at him because he bought that car, drove it off the lot, and just lost about $5,000 on its value. Dumbass.

Now, leasing... good idea if you always need a new car (i.e. maybe a Realtor, or an Executive), but for the most of us, leasing is a very bad idea. The monthly payments might be reasonable, and maybe its easy to get the car, without the need to take out a loan, but after a couple years, when you are done leasing, you have no car and the monthly payments you just made result in nothing back in your pockets. Plus, if you go over the mileage, you get raped on any extra. Deal or no deal? NO DEAL!

Anyways, I'm veering off topic a bit. In my political science course last year, we discussed whether some people are "better" then others. At first most of the students were pretty appauled by the entire idea, but after a lot of discussion, I can to the realization that in a lot of cases, some people are better than others. Now, the real question comes in with regards to politics and social issues. Should these "better" people be given a greater pull in voting and influencing? Honestly, I think they should. I admit that I'm not the smartest, or best and pretty much anything. Nor do I have the time to keep up with politics as well as I should; therefore, I think that the people that have extensive knowledge of the world should be given extensive priviledges with influential issues. This brings me to my final point - I believe that the US should look to educational institutions for assistance with the most pressing and difficult issues. Universities have extensive knowledge available and the government takes a lot of it for granted. If these knowledge pools were interacted with in a more direct fashion, a lot of the issues related to socioeconomic and world problems could be tackled with a much better understanding.

Thats all for now. I'm tired of typing. Hope it wasn't too boring. Any thoughts?