I was having a conversation the other day about consumerism. One of the things the other person brought up was the desire for something new. Consumerism fosters the need for novelty, and the problem may be that we lose contentment and overconsume just to feed an ever-expanding need for something new.

The need for novelty seems like an integral part of our humanity though. Wanting to grow, change, push oneself is good. Sin is a perversion of a God-given element of humanity to an unhealthy area, and in this particular instance, the human psychological need to grow and change is directed towards an unhealthy desire to realize that through accruing more stuff.

This took the conversation in the direction of how we each meet the need for change or growth.  

For her, it wouldn’t be necessary to buy new furniture, that desire could be met even by simply switching things around.  

I noted that for me, satisfying a need for change comes from learning.  
I’ve often joked that I have more intellectual pursuits, and less intellect with which to pursue them, but the fact remains that the pursuit is where I satisfy a lot of my need for novelty. It’s in intellectual growth, not the acquisition of stuff.

I feel like I’m constantly hearing about things, and then wanting to know more about them.
A big part of that is reading, particularly reading stuff like the Harvard Classics series, which contains a lot of material I would never have even picked up. At work, I have a bunch of different types of things I do. The one that takes the least creativity is patent drawings, which are essentially technical drawings, most of which I do by some form of tracing over what I’ve been given, and adding the appropriate numbers given to me by the attorneys.

It’s boring work, but I’m happy to do it because it is the one thing that is directly billable, and therefore making money for the firm. It’s a measurable quantity of value that I can provide for the company. It doesn’t cover all my salary, but as much as I can do, I actually like it. Why did I spill all that in the context of learning? Because while I’m doing creative work, I don’t like distractions. But when I’m doing boring work like the patent drawings, I’m listening to podcasts to try and learn something. I also listen to these podcasts on the way to and from work.

I will listen to some political stuff, but when I do, I’m trying to keep it towards understanding the theories behind the day to day stuff.  

I’ve recently been trying to understand modern monetary theory, so I’ve listened to a bunch on that.

I’ve listened to more hours than I can count on critical theory, and critical race theory in particular. I’ve listened to podcasts on the various philosophers on whose ideas the theories were originally derived, I’ve listened to professors speaking on different angles of thought, and I’ve tried to listen to different sides.

I will occasionally listen to a Galaxy podcast, the Babylon Bee or DryBar comedians for laughs, and on rarer occasions will listen to some music, but music videos are over too fast and the INCESSANT ads on YouTube are enough to make me insane, so I tend to like longer interview videos.

For a while I was watching a series of Courtney Ryan videos- which are basically dating advice videos for men. She will sometimes critique tiktok advice videos and stuff that’s floating around out there. I happened across them, but found the entire scene fascinating. I haven’t dated for a long time, so it’s kind of a trip to see what younger people are dealing with.

I also watch all kinds of how to videos about the work projects I’m doing. I’m learning a 3D program called Blender, and everything I’ve learned about it, I’ve learned from watching youtube videos. I learned how to create the website, SEO, and did all the research for some of the FAQ pages and news articles online and through videos.

But anyway, it’s the desire to learn about the world that is currently scratching the itch for change in my life. Given that I’m towards the introvert on the spectrum, I guess it suits me to find a satisfaction in this.