Private Investigation 7: Of Commodities

The conflict of living in a world of commodities

commodity |kəˈmäditē|
(n.) A parcel or quantity of goods.
(n.) Convenience; accommodation; profit; benefit; advantage; interest; commodiousness.
(n.) That which affords convenience, advantage, or profit, especially in commerce, including everything movable that is bought and sold (except animals), -- goods, wares, merchandise, produce of land and manufactures, etc.

We have so many needs in life, not to mention those ceaseless wants, while getting fed up of living in a world flooded with commodities. It is a dilemma.

You may interprete as man is born free but everywhere he is chains. Often we cannot ignore the temptations provided by free-market economy, though our wants are masked by mere frustration at times. Maybe we might have been in another frame of reference, if we were some spoiled brats of the Ambanis or the Murthys.

Life in a metropolitan has accentuated the predicament. In our heart, we care for the marginalised sections of the society and long for an egalitarian living. But we cannot even feed ourselves – the dream to own a home, the desire to buy a car – for all these thoughts remain a feeling and sadly, never materialise.

We cannot give up our lives, Hijam Irabot once dissented, because it's our responsibity to take the people forward. However, at the end of a day: we have no life outside the time in office; just pass the time, doing daily chores; and, form a couple of impressions, which are not nothing more than abstracts of wishes.

Love it or hate it - reality digs down in our life, pushing our psyche to indulge in various conflicts. The basic needs, as some of the commodities are called, are what we have achieved through our animal instincts to survive. Unfortunately, these are not sufficient to make us grow. We need to find ideas, and plenty of them that would literally flow out of us.

Otherwise we are always in a whirlpool of conflict, shackled to the conventions. We are not driven only by our thoughts but also by the system of creating wealth. We have different occupations, that's all. However we don't need to succumb to economic pressures. Be firm to rise against the bottlenecks as much as we must be determined to perform our spiritual duties.

Ultimately, it's a tussle between capitalism and socialism, which are fighting inside the mind in each one of us, for a place they could call their own. So to be or not to be, that is not the question. We got to have an ideal in life and never bend our principles.