Consumerism on Hi from Dwipal

Temporal Happiness

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:01:00 +0000

I am very happy with my life. Everything is great. However, there are still a lot of moments of “unhappiness”. So on thinking the reasons for that, I realized that a lot of this is directly connected to satisfaction. If you are satisfied, you will be happy. Ok, there are some contradictions to this, like if you are satisfied with the life then you will never grow and stuff like that, but thats not the topic of this blog.

Now, if you have no “real” issues, what can make you unhappy (or unsatisfied?). For me, these are the small things that are supposed to make the life better, like the phone, the computer, the televsion, the ipod, the apartment, etc. I have realized that these things in generally keeps me more unsatisfied rather than satisfied. There is always a compromise when u get a new one, the features you want are either not available or they are not affordable. Whenever there is a compromise, the level of satisfaction goes down. It also depends upon the expectations. There are so many people who are satisfied with what they have, and do not really expect a lot from these things (these are just stupid worldly things, afterall). I have a few friends like that, and I feel they are truely happy. They don’t really understand how someone can be unhappy because their cell phone does not support a software which lets you control the computer mouse with the phone.

All these materialistic things only get you temporal happiness, but then not getting these things is probably even worse (unless you are a monk). I don’t know what the solution is, may be will find out some day (become a monk is not a solution) !

Comments

Gee2 (February 14, 2006):

Vasa directed me here -I guess this attitude would make you a better designer / coder and successful at your work, but not necessarily make you happy - satisfied.To me, this is the essential difference between the east and west. The west being focused on bigger,better, more. East being impressioned with contentment,satisfaction and ideals of spiritual living with attitude towards conservation, savings and non-violence.Religions propose similar solutions to these questions and hence flourish in doing so.God help you !

None (April 17, 2006):

Howdy,It’s a good thing that you don’t feel satisfied because you are an engineer and you should always feel that an improvement could be made. That’s your competitive edge. Embrace it. peace,A

None (January 30, 2007):

Read ‘Autobiography of a yogi’ if u get a chance

Comments

Gee2 (February 14, 2006):

None (April 17, 2006):

Howdy,It’s a good thing that you don’t feel satisfied because you are an engineer and you should always feel that an improvement could be made. That’s your competitive edge. Embrace it. peace,A

None (January 30, 2007):

Read ‘Autobiography of a yogi’ if u get a chance

Tea, Coffee and Starbucks

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 05:32:00 +0000

America is all about capitalism. Its about the big corporations. There are various good and bad things about capitalism, which is not a part of this blog.

However, what I want to write is what Starbucks has done to people who start their day with these beverages. Starbucks has bought a whole lot of smaller/better/competetor (Seattle’s Best, Torrefazione Italia, etc.) coffee chains and replaced them with their own franchise.

A result of this is, a lot of people have gotten used to drink really crappy coffee and tea. I am not a coffee connoisour, and am mostly a tea drinker. I have tried all the different varieties of tea available at these places, and its so bad that I actually had to throw it away. Whats even more amusing that starbucks advertise themselves as selling the best tea/coffee. They call the Indian tea as “Chai Tea” made from some “powder” mixed in milk, which simply shows how shallow they are. (Chai actually means “tea”, specifically from “CTC Tea”, which is boiled with (optional) spices and milk.).

Well, the bottomline is that places like these are corrupting the minds of people in making them believe that the special “burnt” roasted coffee they sell is actually good, and the “chai tea” in a plastic cup with a small hole on the top (which may be designed to hide the foul smell of the beverage) is an exquisite beverage to drink. The only way that we can stop these places from prospering at the cost of good coffee is to not buy beverages from there. Because of their scale, they will probably never be able to sell the best beverages around, but atleast they will stop shutting down the smaller chains who actually care about the quality rather than fancy names and wireless internet.

“Friends don’t let friends go to starbucks” (A quote from Dana Street Roasting Company, Mountain View)

Comments

Empress of Blandings (January 24, 2006):

Yeah, I’m sick of all these big corporate chains and their penchant for gobbling up smaller/better players.. only to replace their products with something that tastes foul…n shove them down consumers’ throats with aggressive, monopolistic marketing gimmicks and ploys.“Chai-tea in a plastic cup with a hole on top”?? One shudders.Gawddd!! I still miss Gokul bhaiyya’s chai n Bakshi’s chai n cream-rolls…. :-)

None (February 16, 2006):

Hi #NAME#. Just found your site via contacts. Although I was looking for contacts I was glad i came upon your site. Thanks for the read!

Comments

Empress of Blandings (January 24, 2006):

None (February 16, 2006):

Hi #NAME#. Just found your site via contacts. Although I was looking for contacts I was glad i came upon your site. Thanks for the read!

The Apple Effect

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 07:27:00 +0000

October 12, 2005 on 11:45 pm

So today was a “And One More Thing” day by Steve Jobs. And they came out with video on iPod! I remember steve jobs telling last time that video ipod does not make any sense. The screen is too small. You cannot connect it to the TV. Content is not present yet. But they still came out with one. And as usual, I got super-excited. Felt something missing in life, and the sudden urge to get the new iPod. But then i thought about it. Its not a big deal.

Its just an incremental update to the iPod that we have been expecting (since apple started using chips that supported video decoding and itunes supporting video podcasts). I still have the memory fresh in my mind when I jumped on Photo iPod bandwagon immediately when it came out. Its not even an year ago, and now the video iPod. I cant justify this one as the iPod dosent have speakers. So i cant show the video to a bunch of friends like pictures. But who knows…time shall tell.