The chains that bind

Materialism. The word sickens me because of its truth. I am suffocated by the presence and overbearing realness of the material world in which I reside, but even more so by my own tendency to succumb to its deadly clutches. Everywhere I look I see it, the demon of materialism. It lulls humanity into a false security-promising happiness and fulfillment, but it leaves only rotting emptiness. We clutch, grab, snatch and madly fight to possess it, to capture it, but always and forever it eludes our grasp and vanishes into the realm of impossibility. Clothing, houses, cars, all things material are temporal and weak, empty-it will all leave us alone with just ourselves with nothing to offer us comfort if that is all we possessed and looked to. If we turn to this demon for happiness we will ultimately find despair and hollowness. I can attest. I attempt vainly to capture some sort of permanence or security by means of materialism, but am always left completely empty and without fulfillment. It is all the same, a guise of unique individuality. It wears the mask of beauty and fashion, but the ugly reality beneath the mask is mass commercialism and anything but individuality. Things will rot and decay, clothes will go out of fashion and we will always be continually trying to keep up with the impossible demon of materialism. If we, if I attempt to fight him and win, we, I am doomed to failure...