Ice Cream, Gold, & Consumerism

What would you, Reader, consider yourself? In the media, the individual is most commonly called a 'consumer'. It is an odd label, in our estimation: to be a consumer means one should be spending money on stuff. It isn't important what stuff is bought, simply that money is still flowing. It's just something one does, like breathing, sleeping, and eating.

To us, the concept of 'consumer' brings to mind a cow. A cow grazes, mindlessly eating grass because, well... that's what cows do. They eat grass, because they have no choice in the matter. A consumer, likewise, spends money mindlessly, because they have no choice in the matter. One tends to feel insulted when called a cow.

We do not mean to play with semantics; we only wish to make a point. To consume is to spend money, something one finds is forever in short supply. Money is something one receives in exchange for one's efforts, which one can then do with what one wants. Honestly, we prefer our efforts to deliver things of lasting value (utility, entertainment, or otherwise). It's a difference of mindset: rather than spending like a mindless cow, we study ourselves and ask what we really want.

We must admit, however, our ideals do not always come into play. For example: if presented with $100, we would desire a 1/10th ounce of gold far more than twenty ice cream sundaes. However, when we look back on our life, we remember far more ice cream sundaes than 1/10th ounces of gold. Our preference of ice cream over gold was a reaction, an unexamined urge. In the moment, we might have rationalised that an ice cream sundae costs much, much less than a 1/10th ounce of gold... but we were probably too busy drooling over the chocolate double-fudge. Gold was the furthest thing from our mind as we stuffed our face, but in the final analysis we'd rather the gold.

This is a tongue-in-cheek example, but it goes to show the sort of decision-making one must make. For our part, we've written off a lot of future ice cream in the hopes of saving more money, which we will then turn into our more-desired gold... or something like that.