I'm a slave for......who?

I read Ediblewoman's blog about her vow to not buy anything new for a year and it made me ask myself: why do we buy new stuff? What is it about things that just gives us the temporary high that we are constantly addicted?

I feel like it's not limited to buying new things, but everything in general seems like an escapism from life. Media, going out, love, religion, commercialism- as cynical as it sounds it seems to me sometimes that it's all little distractors from our lives. And in today's society, when what we attain fails to give us that high we look for, it becomes cold and forgotten. Thus, people get divorced, religion becomes ignored, going out leads to addiction, the media consumes our minds, and commercialism traps us in a rat race. Nothing seems sacred anymore and I know that just make me sound like another pessimist in the world, which is really is the last thing we need, but sometimes the world can really get you down. Somewhere along the way, all of our ideals got screwed. Don't get me wrong I am by no means a capitalism hater, I love me a new pair of new shoes just as much as the next girl, but I can't help noticing a correlation between the development of a country and the social emptiness that arises.