Chasing hollow ideals of success—status, luxury, appearances—we find ourselves empty, unfulfilled by the promises of a consumer-driven world.

In a recent newsletter, “The Shopping Cure,” Anne Helen Petersen explored the compulsion to buy and accumulate stuff that’s been fostered by technologies of frictionless consumption. Every conceivable activity or hobby one sets out to enjoy becomes an occasion to buy stuff: “They transform from sites of actual pleasure and diversion to means of sel

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I don’t know if people develop such a deep connection to the things they buy these days. Many people have a strong desire to possess the latest thing, and manufacturers and advertisers know this. It is not by accident that merchandise is not created to last. The objects of our desire are constantly changing. And our desires for the objects we consu

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