Today's Ramble - 11/30/06

As I was participating in a voluntary simplicity discussion yesterday, it occurred to me that our country (and the world for that matter) wastes an incomprehensible amount of brain power (intellectual/creative resources) on consuming things. Just think about all of those well-educated lawyers agonizing over which luxury car to buy. Think of the architect and his wife shopping for just the perfect refrigerator for their beach house. How about the human resources director surfing the internet and pouring over catalogs looking for the perfect new wardrobe? I don't have the statistics about shopping at my fingertips, but I know that people spend large amounts of time searching for, looking at, analyzing, and dreaming about things that they would like to own. If this time were spent more productively, how much better would our society be?