Nice chops, Mr. Darcy. Nice chops.I read a really interesting post over on Consumerist.com tonight about materialism and how it can screw up your life. Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism, was interviewed over at the US News & World Report Alpha Consumer blog about materialism and offered up a few sage words to think about:
We propose four psychological needs. The first is safety/security, which is the need to feel like you'll survive, like you are not in danger, like you will have enough food and water and shelter to make it another day. The second is competence or efficacy, which is the need to feel like you are skillful and able to do the things that you set out to do: I need to feel like a good psychologist, you might need to feel like a good journalist, etc. The third is connection or relatedness, which concerns having close, intimate relationships with other people. The fourth need is for freedom or autonomy, which is feeling like you do what you do because you choose it and want to do it rather than feeling compelled or forced to do it.
As I lay out in my book, The High Price of Materialism, people who put a strong focus on materialism in their lives tend to have poor satisfaction of each of these four needs. In part this is because of their development, but it also is because materialism creates a lifestyle that does a poor job of satisfying these needs. That is, a materialistic lifestyle tends to perpetuate feelings of insecurity, to lead people to hinge their competence on pretty fleeting, external sources, to damage relationships, and to distract people from the more fun, more meaningful, and freer ways of living life.
Read the rest of the post and grab the link to the interview at Consumerist.
Los Campesinos! New Record
A band that we've really come to appreciate, Los Campesinos!, will be releasing their brand spanking new album, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed October 13. According to the band's website, "It's no B-Sides and rarities or "songs that weren't good enough to be on the album cobbled together with some remixes and field recordings of Cardiff's indie scene"; it's ten all-new tracks that none of you have ever heard before."
The tracklisting looks like this:
1. Ways To Make It Through The Wall
2. Miserabilia
3. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
4. Between An Erupting Earth And An Exploding Sky
5. You'll Need Those Fingers For Crossing
6. It's Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song For The Other Kurt)
7. The End Of The Asterisk
8. Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown # 1
9. Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time
10. All Your Kayfabe Friends
New to Los Campesinos!? Check out their previously awesome track below:
"Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)"
Last but not least...
Thanks to Chad, I'm reminded that today one of my favorite musicians would have turned 39.
Take a spin over to Sweet Adeline to reminisce.
Elliott Smith - "Everything Means Nothing To Me"
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. - Jane Auste, Pride and Prejudice