The High Def Moment

It's been a long time coming for me to join the HD world but it has finally happened. To some, maybe even many, this is no big whoop. The truth is it is a big deal to me. Such a big deal that it's hard for me to get my head around the fact that the long wait is over and I can go on with the rest of my life. It's been years of saving, meticulously following the latest HDTV news and reviews, the price drops and so on.

Yes, it was quite materialistic of me to desire a big screen HDTV. Some people argue that materialism is insatiable and that as soon as you acquire one thing, you don't enjoy it as much as you thought and you go on to your next craving. If that sounds like an addiction, it's because that's what the anti-materialists believe. Maybe that's what happens to them. The more stuff they own, the more it owns them. I pity them, because that's like being allergic to the air you need to breathe - you will always be miserable.

The more stuff I own (that I want), the more free I am.

But I know that every time I walk in the room and see the TV, I will smile inside. The same is true for several other objects I own (clothes, Legos, hardwood floors). They all create mental sighs of contentment. Materialism, at least to me, is a means to an end - mental comfort. Not having the material things I want leaves a constant ache, a point of mental discomfort. As I get older and am able to obtain more of what I want, I realize that there is a mental multiplier effect from material comfort.

The flip side of this is that there is a limit to the mental bang for the buck from buying stuff. You have to shoot for the big comfort boosters. There is a smaller and smaller pile of stuff that I don't have that I want. It's still quite a big pile though, it's just shrinking.

At a certain living standard point, one becomes kind of post-materialistic. We're essentially all at that point since material needs are pretty minimal. But that doesn't mean we're anti-materialist, it means that we can be choosy about what stuff excites our neurons. Like fine food, music, experiences or good company; it's not the quantity, but the quality.

And a HDTV is all about the quality.