As it has been said, we are “living in a material world”. Of course, not everyone buys into that, but then again, in America, it sure seems like an awful lot of people not only buy into it, but truly live their lives in a manner in which they absolutely believe it. For those, that see this life as the only life that they will ever have, then for a certainty, for them, having and accumulating material possessions allows them to have some sort of comfort and pleasure, in the here and now, especially as contrasted with the fact that certain death will come, either before its time, or later when one is old and decrepit.
Additionally, when it comes to material possessions, some people are drawn to the accumulation of such, and subsequently the displaying of such, as a form of getting or earning social status. That is the reason why, some people, whose finances are somewhat suspect, will purchase an expensive purse, or pocketbook, or even a luxury automobile, even when it doesn’t really make any good financial sense to do so; of which, they are drawn to doing exactly that, in order to project themselves to the outside world, as someone that is successful and thereby deserving of a certain respect, that others without such visible accouterments are therefore unable to personally display, implying that these others are not worthy of the equivalency of that status.
So too, material possessions can bring us not only comfort, but also some degree of happiness, because material things often have real utilitarian value. For instance, those that have good air conditioning, and are using it on an absolutely brutally hot day, have a possession well worth having. Additionally, those that have very useful things, are able to not only derive the benefit of having a really nice phone, for example, but are also able to take in the compliments from those that wish they had the same thing, thereby being essentially twice blessed.
Clearly then, those with a fair amount of material possessions of which these items are providing them with good value and satisfaction, are seemingly in a really good place, that would appear to place them well above all those others that lack those material things, and especially those others, that not only lack such, but really wish that they had such. Yet, despite it all, hanging over the heads of those that overly appreciate material items, is Damocles’ sword, for what cannot be avoided is the finality of physical death; and while certain material possessions can be passed down from generation to generation, those that were once owners of such, even though they can direct as to where and what so happens with those possessions, cannot conceivably anticipate, after their demise, unanticipated perils or complications, thereof.
So then, it could be said, that one’s lure for material possessions are to a certain degree, for some people, the “comfort food” for those that believe that our physical presence is all that we will ever be, and believing that, they take solace in having things that provide them with some degree of satisfaction and happiness. That said, the very tricky thing about material possessions, is that often times, the satisfaction and happiness of having such is rather fleeting, and thereby the desire to have more, or to have something else, creates a construct in which the selfishness of a given person, invariably meets the selfishness of another, and that conflict, could be said, to be the salient reason why there is so much misery in this world.