Appearances vs. Experiences: What Makes Us Happy
This article–and the many like it-assume that there is some universal truth that experiences will make you happier than mere things, when this is not true.<p>I derive a great deal of happiness from nice things. I suspect I’m not alone, and that people like me are the reason that the whole human environment isn’t just a pile of half-arsed crap designed to facilitate only certain types of approved experiences. We notice the qualities of the things around us every single moment of the day, and they can bring us great joy (or the opposite).<p>Materialism is clearly not in vogue (and I suspect there is a moral dimension to this), but for some people it will make them far happier than trying to chase experiences. I suspect there are many natural materialists out there struggling to conform to the new societal norm that only the ephemeral can lead to psychological salvation, and that all desire for material riches is a sin.