material wealth

my uncle took all of us to this outlet store where there's huge collection of branded stores. i couldnt believe the concentration of good that this place had. mind you, this isnt one of those places where they keep everything. each company had a store of their own, so you see a nike store here, an armani one there, a sony one over the other side, etc etc. the place was huge, bigger than anything ive ever seen. well, not quite, the place i went in malaysia was the biggest ive ever been in, but this was almost as big.

but then as i watched all these people (the place was packed, car parks werent sufficient to accomodate all the cars) spending their hard earned cash like they werent theirs, i couldnt help but think about a lot of things.

first and most important, does having designer goods and high end electronics a sign of good living?

i say no. coz u look at it, an varsace trench coat was on sale for 800 bucks, down from usual price of 1200 if they were to sell it outside of this outlet store. and varsace is still making money out of this 'discounted price.' even audio giants, bose, were offering their latest system 300 bucks less at this place. and i could go on n on. i think it was at marco polo where i saw a tag that said 50% discount, but i bet they're making considerable amount of money even at such low price.

ive kinda grown not to be surprised at these things since my last visit to the united states which opened my eyes to the corporate world of misguiding consumers. so much so, that i dont raise my eyebrows when i go to these stores anymore. in fact, im not at all impressed by designer goods or high end products as much as i used to. now i dont bother how much they cost, coz i know whatever the cost, these companies are making money. so why should i contribute to their profits when they're already sucking money out of hard working citizens?

trust me, now i really dont care. if anything at all, i hate myself so much for buying the adidas megastar shoes for SG$100 bucks, spending SG$120 bucks on my adidas newcastle jersey, SG$60 bucks on my levi's shirt and SG$270 bucks for my 'world's slimmest (at that time)' sony discman. i could have owned a comfortable pair of sneakers for less than 40 bucks, go away with the usual white tee and cargo for combined worth of 20 bucks and go around listening to a discman worth 80 bucks. as simple as that.

i mean, hell, i should be getting paid to wear a shirt that boldly proclaims levi's since im advertising for the company. why should i pay money for that kinda thing, right? i bet the shirt itself cost only about 10 dollars at the very best, and the 50 bucks i paid was for just the rights to carry that name. oh i feel so terrible.

but then ive already paid the money for it, it'll b foolish to just toss it and not use em, so i'll use it for long as it lasts, but dont count on me getting that kinda products anytime soon. and why did i ever bother to get the discman when it didnt even matter if it was twice or three times the thickness? it still would have played the same old songs and i wouldnt use it for 125 hours in a row, would i?

maybe the only exception i could let is the newcastle shirt. im not sure how much money goes back to newcastle, and 100 bucks is peanuts if i consider the amount of money that is involved in newcastle dealings, but if it helps the club in any manner, maybe im willing to contribute to the club's success.

so when i see people conned into thinking that when they own armani material they are on a different level from others, i frown. these people mind paying big money for short term material, but not save for long term benefits. everyone's brainwashed into thinking that the better goods you own, the better you are. its a total bullshit if u ask me.

i remember my friend telling me about a certain indian scholar in NJC who was such an anti globalizationist, that he avoided at all costs from owning shoes from nike, adidas, puma, and others, not to own any watches from seiko, citizen, casio and such, not to buy any sunglasses at all from oakley, varsace and bla bla bla. the list goes on. i used to think he was being a little too serious. not anymore. now i understand what this person had in mind.

i dont know what makes people think owning expensive goods necessarily mean that you lead a better life. being able to afford is the question, not owning it.

see, for example, my uncle showed me an add on the paper few weeks back. a 2003 BMW i forgot what model for sale. US$65k. and then, the same series, but of 2001 model, US$32k. then i calculated the drop in price during that 2 year window and the loss of the value of the car per month. came up to US$1500 per month. you could buy a nice cosy house and pay that amount for mortgage every month. at the end of 20 years, you would own the house, whereas you probably wont be using that car for even 10 years, well, at the very best, 15 years.

and you think about the extra amount of money you spend on fuel. if you didnt get the house, and instead bought a toyota corolla, then with the amount of money saved, you can get tons of designer goods. it doesnt take a genius to figure that one out, does it?

so at the end of the day, im frustrated, because even though i know what my beliefs are, if i dont own these prodcuts, the rest of the society will consider me unable to afford these products and hence, not classy or worse, low class citizen, which is so not true. but then why would i care what they think about me not owning designer goods.

i would be happy in my own little world.

so if u guys ever wondered why i dont splash my cash on trendy items and such, now you know why. the same goes for the handphones. how often do you use the camera function and internet and polyphonics. is is so much to ask to own a digicam? is it too much to ask to go somewhere where you can surf the internet on the laptop or the PC? i mean hell, the resolution of the camera isnt that great compared to a digicam is it? sure, its convenient, but with the size of a digicam these days, its almost the same as carrying a handphone around.

simon cowell spends between 300 to 1500 bucks a piece for his plane black shirts. n the surprising thing is, he owns hundreds of the same things. i question, what for? are they really so much more comfortable than normal blakc shirts, or is it his mind that makes you think that because he spend 300 bucks, its comfortable.

i saw a VH1 special on celebrities and when celebs like britney and christina go 'oh my god, this is so comfortable!' for varsace goods, i feel like shooting them. first and foremost, i bet they wouldnt be able to tell the different in comfort if i were to get something that is not branded. so the whole comfort issue is a fucking lie. i have an idea for a reality show, invite celebrities and see if they're able to tell how comfortable their gucci is, how much better their Merc is, how much better their Nikes are from the unconventional 'made in china' goods.

i came up with a line recently.

"The mind is a very powerful tool that can make you believe in things that aren't true."

there's so many ways to interpret that line. for now, im only talking about material wealth. if i want to, i can really be controversial into topics such as self imposed fear, conservative tradition, hell, even religion. well, that's the main reason why i dont wanna blog about it, coz it'll make me really unattractive, as in friendship wise, social wise, and personality wise. so im not gonna go into that.

but ive made my point for today.