Getting out... with new shoes.

Sometimes you just need to get out of the house, but have nowhere to go.

Today was one of those days. Didn't help that it was pouring rain outside either.

Too often when I'm feeling that urge I end up engaging in consumerist behavior. That itch has a talent of drawing me in - like Medusa, except warm buildings, where you're obligated or obliged to spend money on shiny new things. It's a draw that works on an emotional level - fueled by the little ego, the 'little me', in all our heads that wants to enhance itself by acquiring mental 'forms' - sometimes physical things, or mind-constructs of status, that it can make itself feel better with. The ego's only weapon is emotion - and it's so good at using it that it has most of us completely fooled into believing that our emotions, and therefore our ego, is really 'us', and that we're the ones in control, not our emotions.

Bullocks.

Last Friday I left my warmest/comfiest hoodie in the back seat of my coworker's car. I couldn't find it this week, but then, when I realized where it must be,I got impatient, and my 'little me' jumped on this opportunity. There's nothing the little consumerist ego likes more than to buy new things to make itself feel enhanced - self-enhanced. I was going to be without my hoodie for, what, like 2 or 3 more days before I got it back, but I had already made plans to go out and buy a nice, new one.

I stifled the urge - but then I hated myself for it. Buying new shit is fun - and my ego was pumping out negative emotions - disappointment - that it didn't get to feed itself with the new acquisition. ... The thing about the 'little me', though, is that it's never satisfied. It doesn't matter if it's buying things, bullying, socially maneuvering, or having sex. It's never satisfied.

It's the 'new shoe' phenomenon. Buying a new pair of shoes feels great, doesn't it? ...Yeeeeaaaahhh... - walking down the street - or through the mall, with your new shoes - you just feel great. There's an extra bounce to your step - hell, you'll even notice people of the opposite sex checking you out more now than ever. New shoes are fucking great. ... but how long does that last? a week? two? three - probably not that long. They've probably got a few scuffs on them by this point - or, at least 'mentally' (where the little ego lives) they're not new anymore - so that 'new shoe feeling' is lost. So what else does the little ego have left than to have you go out and buy something else?

Why can't we all just have that 'new shoe' feeling all the time?