"In a consumer society, there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy."--Ivan Illich (1926-2002)
Frightening images project in my mind when I read this. The prisoner of addiction is already in a greedy haze but is still loading a syringe with money and wastes it away through his veins; he wishes he could stop all of the lavish spending. The prisoner of envy is wild-eyed and starving for possessions; he craves what the prisoner of addiction has. In reality, outside of my creepy little mind, these prisoners exist. The prisoner of addiction buys everything that appeals to him, simply because he has the money to do that. He tries to find joy in it, but that is impossible. He wants more. He sees what other people have and wants it, too. Wait, that sounds like a prisoner of envy as well! Perhaps people uncontrollably enter a cycle that starts with envy, then goes to addiction, then goes back to envy and so on.
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