This is a misleading article that, with its mundane look at the world, tries to provide a "gotcha" that does not seem to exist except in the minds of someone who tries to find "gotchas" everywhere, as the author does.
Do you want a new and better car? Actually, you don't want a Ferrari, you want dopamine. Do you feel attracted to someone younger, better looking, funnier, more interesting than your current partner? This is a trap.
Well, I would love to have a Ferrari and I would love to be in the company of the best partner I can find. Call me a dopamine addict if you want.
Although my experience is not necessarily generalizable, it may offer the perspective of someone who, through working in the tech industry, has gone from having little to having more.
Having better things makes life more interesting, bigger, and reduces the likelihood of having annoying problems. On average, mind you, and that is how we should look at people's behavior (we should also look at variance, but that would require a longer commentary).
We have all experienced the Gatsby syndrome, either personally or through other people. Having everything we want except one thing we obsessively desire, perhaps a woman or a man, a full head of hair, a few inches, the genuine appreciation of others, fewer years on our shoulders. It is the limiting factor of a chemical reaction. Does this make the possession of things irrelevant? No, it just tells us that they are bottlenecks, limiting factors, that can keep us from enjoying the material or the easy. But if you get rid of the obsession, you will find, as I did, that a 5-star hotel is better than a 2-star hotel, natural fabrics better than polyester, first class better than knees touching ears in economy, a Ferrari better than a 25-year-old Ford. Just lived experience.
Most (all?) of these topics need to be approached in terms of probabilities, not absolutes. More money makes it more likely to be happier, enjoy life more, or have fewer insurmountable problems. It is a truism.
Now, after how much money we reach a plateau for the outcome being considered (happiness, the best care in case of illness, sending children to the best colleges, traveling the world in 80 days), whether there are trade-offs between the money obtained and the ways of obtaining the money are examples of topics that may be more interesting, and they are all context-dependent.
But if someone wants to give me money as a gift and makes me choose between $10 million and $50 million, I choose $50 million. And I might have the temerity to ask if there is by any chance also the possibility of getting $100 million.
And it is the same for all positive traits or qualities, which are, in fact, considered positive because they make it more likely to achieve the goal being talked about.
Then we can discuss more interesting matters of trade-offs and let people like the author of the article enjoy a nap instead of offering the usual trivial contentions with his writings.
I think what you are describing is euphoria. Drugs like adderall can motivate people but the reward will be nothing without the endogenous release of opioids.
> There is a “mindfulness” angle. Instead of taking it always for granted, pay attention and make time enjoy your stuff.
Being satisfied with what you have is what “poor” people (people who can’t have everything) do in order to be happy. What’s the benefit of being rich then?
Owning better material items is only meant to facilitate freedom. I'm not a collector and never will be, even if I inherit two billion bucks tomorrow.
Examples:
- I'll get an expensive bike so me and my wife can go on an impulsive picnic in the outskirts of the city.
- I'll get an extra house in rural France so we're free to go there if we need the scenery for a few weeks (but will otherwise allow a local family to take care of it).
- I'll just invent stuff in my shed -- or compose the programs I always wanted to write on my computers -- if I'm never worried about money in the future.
---
Rich people getting bored and even unhappy is just lack of imagination, intellectual and physical laziness.
Being rich and unhappy is entirely on them. It can be much better in every way but they're too busy complaining about non-issues to see it.
>Being satisfied with what you have is what “poor” people (people who can’t have everything) do in order to be happy. What’s the benefit of being rich then?
It's the ability to do what you want with your time, and to (increasingly with more wealth) say fuck you to people who try to force you into this or that.
It's also the increased ability to change things (for you, others, your city, or even your whole country) towards what you want to happen, aka power and influence.
"Being able to buy nice stuff" is the benefit of being rich that poor (or well-offish but still mostly aspiring to greater wealth) people think being rich is about...
More freedom by virtue of having more money? Above a certain level of "enough" money, money becomes less and less important. Or it becomes an obsession, in which case more money takes away freedom. Falling into this trap is tragic if you ask me.
And there will always be sometjing you want but cannot have, regardless how much money have. E.g. art, the Mona Lisa will never be up for sale. Or some other unique piece of art. Accepting that fact makes you a happier person, or at least doesn't hurt.
“Being satisfied…” is what you do to not go bananas—-to consume for the sake of consuming in a society structured around consumption for the sake of society…
- Consuming is usually bad for the environment, even if you're rich. Being satisfied conserves resources.
- The work you devote to something gives it its value. I appreciate good food, good art, good engineering and good woodworking because I have repeatedly attempted them. If you just buy stuff without consideration, you rob yourself of a finer experience.
The point of being rich is to have all the good stuff.
To get there, it helps if you're not too easily satisfied.
Alas, many rich people go overboard on not being satisfied. When they get all the good stuff, the have forgotten how to enjoy it.
But if you're smart about it you can make sure you enjoy stuff, and also get more stuff.
You are allowed to (gasp) enjoy your previous victories, without getting complacent. You can be happy about your yacht and also work hard to get a jet.
Unless, you know, you can't. But that's just a (common) mindset problem and I don't think you're doomed to fall in that trap.
I bet this "rich but unhappy" trope is appealing as a cope for the less fortunate. Thus it gets overplayed as a trope and people wrongly think it's universal truth rather than a cliché.
I cannot relate to joy of struggle for owning things. Maybe the times have changed and often more expensive things just aren't better (although nicer things still are usually more expensive) but while I feel a lot of pleasure from wearing proper clothes, using well-made tech, and living in a stylishly designed apartment, looking for them is almost always a chore I happily outsource to bloggers, HN (thank you!), or my girlfriend. With the one exception of ordering custom tailored clothes which feels like research.
Yeah I think this is just another lie told by Capitalism to keep people satiated. Anyone who doesn't feel fulfillment with unlimited supplies of money just doesn't know themselves very well.
This article reads like something from a conversation you might have with an overconfident plumber who had just read an article in "Popular Science". Or someone who lives by IFL Science. Or TED Talks.
Maybe the author should read some old philosophy.
Another way to interpret what's going on is that people often look for happiness in all the wrong places, or confuse pleasure with happiness. In this case, the author is describing people who believe acquisition leads to happiness. He is describing the thrill of the hunt, that anticipation of a reward that isn't there, followed by disappointment because some nebulous misplaced expectation isn't met.
I have found that instead of wanting things I don't own, wanting to see created things I haven't created yet very liberating.
Since it makes my goals very personal, I can't compare myself on an objective metric with other people and as a result feel less frustrated about not earning more.
Same. For me, the creational mindset led to a sense of freedom and excitement that the problem-solving mindset can never get close to.
Problem-solving mindset: what problem do I need to solve? “Problems” will always arise life (due to other people, random events, our brain always wanting novelty, etc.), so this mindset is a reactive one that leads to anxiety and lack of direction.
Creational mindset: what would I love to create? This mindset can seem harder to get at because of all the conditioning we’ve gotten from society and childhood. But all it takes is a simple perspective shift. It leads to more proactivity, and trust that you’ll be able to do whatever you need to do. All the secondary, tertiary, etc. questions about how get answered relatively easily when you’re clear about what you want to create.
Some of us don’t have to trick ourselves. I own a modest house and modest car, they fit into my budget and put me so far ahead of my peers financially people don’t believe me when I say how good things are.
A car especially is just a tool, I care as much about someone’s car as I do the hammer in their toolbox, but I am not a car person.
It comes down to what you value. Stability, time, and financial freedom matter more to me than any fancy thing I could buy.
> How do you ignore friends who buy a new car every year?
No need to ignore anything. Instead realize that everyone on this planet has exactly the same amount of hours in a day - the poorest and the richest alike. With that understood realize that you can only spend your time on so _few_ things that you better choose what's really important to you.
And thus one may choose to spend time on projects and making stuff, and "friends who buy a new car every year" are simply people that chose differently - there is little point to ordering the choices (or conversely you can always design a metric by which any given choice will be strictly superior to others - thus making such orderings generally pointless).
And in terms of money and even its power to buy time - it's all diminishing results surprisingly quickly. And if you like cars then indeed switching every year sounds like a much better strategy than owning many at the same time.
To each their own. Would be extremely dull otherwise!
I think it depends on what the car represents to you. Are you truly into cars or are you into the status conferred by owning a new car?
If you're genuinely into cars and driving, you might well indulge in buying nice cars and find it emotionally fulfilling. If it's about status, however, you can probably find more fulfilling ways to attain status that doesn't involve purchasing a trinket you don't truly want or need – perhaps by becoming known in the local area as a donor/philanthropist, having the best garden on the street, involvement in local politics or sports teams, being in a band, becoming a busybody on the PTA, and such things. (I admit these things all sound a bit suburban but that's my frame of reference.)
I don’t ignore them I usually view them as someone whose priorities don’t align with mine.
Money is freedom and trading that freedom to get a shiny toy doesn’t make sense to me. I would much rather know I can work on what I want or not work at all than drive to my job in a nicer car.
> How do you ignore friends who buy a new car every year?
The fact you notice and thinks about it means you care. You want a new car every year. You envy it. Be honest to yourself and go get it. That is what you want.
Personally, I have some tricks that seem to help.
I force myself to come up with at least 3 things I am grateful for as part of my daily journaling. I started this some years ago and it really help to change your focus towards enjoying everything you already have access in modern society.
Plus, learning about personal finance, investing and compounding made me think twice before spending. I end up valuing more financial freedom than incremental comfort/status upgrade.
I'd imagine a healthier version of something like: "Simpletons, relying on consumerism for their dopamine rush, they're no different from ants! Meanwhile I am a /creator/ of things!"
> A few years after leaving office, Richard Nixon mentioned that the richest people in the world are some of the unhappiest, because they can afford to never struggle.
Except for those who choose a cause. Bill Gates comes to mind.
> You feel that, gee, isn’t it just great to have enough money to afford to live in a very nice house, to be able to play golf, to have nice parties, to wear good clothes, to travel if you want to?
If that's the vacuous extent of your life, the problem doesn't lie with the money.
> Something you can easily afford brings less joy than something you must save and struggle for. “The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys,” Dawson wrote.
Except that it's not true. I was easily able to afford the air fryer that I bought two years ago. Every single time I use it, I'm amazed at how easy it makes preparing certain meals, and I am thankful to the friend who recommended it. Every single thing I buy is carefully thought out (sometimes over months) to improve a specific part of my life. And every single thing I own is valued because it has a specific purpose. Dawson may have thought he'd stumbled upon some great wisdom, but all he was actually doing was looking in a mirror.
> Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.
Uhh wuuuuut? That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. What's the point in getting "stuff" over and over? You're not going to have any use for it.
> When you get a $10,000 car you dream of the 20,000 car.
Uhh no. I have a $5000 car and have absolutely no desire to buy another one until this one becomes too expensive to fix. I could buy a $50,000 car tomorrow, but what would be the point?
All I'm seeing in this article are confessions of a greedy person.
Good comment that matches my experience. I find that if the things I own are well made, and fill reals need or reasonable wants in my life, then I continue to enjoy them to a large extent, even if their novelty wears of. And this is true whether they were gifted to me or I struggled for them.
> Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.
On the contrary, I find myself avoiding hedonistic consumption more and more as the years go by. I scrutinize planned purchases for months, even if I can easily afford them, and I do wish the the world was less of a place where the solution to every problem seems to be to purchase something.
"Good comment that matches my experience. I find that if the things I own are well made"
That matches my experience too. With a bad, cheap guitar or shoes or a computer, I yearned for a better version thereof. Now I am playing a good guitar that I bought 10 years ago and I do not really feel any need to buy a more expensive one.
Spend money on experiences, not things: shows, concerts, meals, travel. Rarely if ever have I regretted spending money on one, and nobody can take them away from you later.
My memory sure can, stuff a decade ago might of well have not happened for all I can remember. I remember the basic stuff, but none of the details.
Anyway I’ll add to this that you don’t have to like all experiences. I have tried to force myself to like travelling, but I’ve come to accept I just despise every aspect of it. Other people find it weird, but whatever.
Same. I had plenty of so-called life worthy experiences, and nothing would make recommend that lifestyle to someone.
To be happy or at least satisfied and content, it takes a lot of introspection and creativity on how to pursue what you really want, which is also rarely in a permanent state. This is often overlooked in favor of taking oversimplified life advices and time consuming setting of life goals
This approach never worked well for me. Food and travel is so forgettable; it perishes much faster than nice clothes or shiny toys.
It also seems like people chase the dragon; keep going to restaurants and resorts. If experiences are so unforgettable, why would you repeat them each year?
And for most people it (for the outside) looks fraught with stupid dysfunction; the White Lotus kinds of things where everyone is just struggling to make it worth what they believe it is, and strain their relationships and lives in the process.
A resort is a vacation, travel is giong on a safari in African, trekking around the Khailash in Tibet, do a road trip through Uruguay. A resort doesn't give you experiences worth remembering, truely travelling and getting to know new cultures and regions does.
I mostly agree, but sometimes the THING (and the act of acquisition) is the experience. Example: I really like coffee table books. Reading them is enjoyable but finding them, seeing them and just owning them also makes me happy.
I also think you should go farther than just the experience component and pair it with physical objects that keep the memories alive, vibrant and reliveable.
Frequently the thing is a proxy to experiences. E.g. a bicycle, kitchen utensils, a plot of land to grow a garden in, music instruments... You get the idea.
Meanwhile many „experiences“ is just staring at others or consuming prepared products. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to find out what other people did. But making/doing stuff yourself is much more rewardable in the long run. On top of that, we've to provide experiences to people around us as well. Not just consume experiences provided by others.
My intent in asking isn't just to be dismissive, but rather to point out that there are complex, overlapping reasons. It can be incredibly difficult to even pinpoint your own motivations, to say nothing of those of others.
A simplistic answer might be "because they want to have their thoughts read by others." Beyond that could be altruism, a desire for notoriety, wanting to change behavior, or many other intermingled goals. Most likely, the author didn't even consider "why" but rather, like all of us, just felt an intrinsic need to be heard. See also: social media.
Readit News
Do you want a new and better car? Actually, you don't want a Ferrari, you want dopamine. Do you feel attracted to someone younger, better looking, funnier, more interesting than your current partner? This is a trap. Well, I would love to have a Ferrari and I would love to be in the company of the best partner I can find. Call me a dopamine addict if you want.
Although my experience is not necessarily generalizable, it may offer the perspective of someone who, through working in the tech industry, has gone from having little to having more. Having better things makes life more interesting, bigger, and reduces the likelihood of having annoying problems. On average, mind you, and that is how we should look at people's behavior (we should also look at variance, but that would require a longer commentary).
We have all experienced the Gatsby syndrome, either personally or through other people. Having everything we want except one thing we obsessively desire, perhaps a woman or a man, a full head of hair, a few inches, the genuine appreciation of others, fewer years on our shoulders. It is the limiting factor of a chemical reaction. Does this make the possession of things irrelevant? No, it just tells us that they are bottlenecks, limiting factors, that can keep us from enjoying the material or the easy. But if you get rid of the obsession, you will find, as I did, that a 5-star hotel is better than a 2-star hotel, natural fabrics better than polyester, first class better than knees touching ears in economy, a Ferrari better than a 25-year-old Ford. Just lived experience.
It is objectively a better experience being depressed in my hilltop hot tub over looking acres than the 1bd apartment the 20yr old me had.
Now, after how much money we reach a plateau for the outcome being considered (happiness, the best care in case of illness, sending children to the best colleges, traveling the world in 80 days), whether there are trade-offs between the money obtained and the ways of obtaining the money are examples of topics that may be more interesting, and they are all context-dependent. But if someone wants to give me money as a gift and makes me choose between $10 million and $50 million, I choose $50 million. And I might have the temerity to ask if there is by any chance also the possibility of getting $100 million.
And it is the same for all positive traits or qualities, which are, in fact, considered positive because they make it more likely to achieve the goal being talked about.
Then we can discuss more interesting matters of trade-offs and let people like the author of the article enjoy a nap instead of offering the usual trivial contentions with his writings.
There is a “mindfulness” angle. Instead of taking it always for granted, pay attention and make time enjoy your stuff.
Thoigh if you keep realizing the things you have worked hard for don’t end up making you happy, that might be hopeless.
Being satisfied with what you have is what “poor” people (people who can’t have everything) do in order to be happy. What’s the benefit of being rich then?
Freedom.
Owning better material items is only meant to facilitate freedom. I'm not a collector and never will be, even if I inherit two billion bucks tomorrow.
Examples:
- I'll get an expensive bike so me and my wife can go on an impulsive picnic in the outskirts of the city.
- I'll get an extra house in rural France so we're free to go there if we need the scenery for a few weeks (but will otherwise allow a local family to take care of it).
- I'll just invent stuff in my shed -- or compose the programs I always wanted to write on my computers -- if I'm never worried about money in the future.
---
Rich people getting bored and even unhappy is just lack of imagination, intellectual and physical laziness.
Being rich and unhappy is entirely on them. It can be much better in every way but they're too busy complaining about non-issues to see it.
It's the ability to do what you want with your time, and to (increasingly with more wealth) say fuck you to people who try to force you into this or that.
It's also the increased ability to change things (for you, others, your city, or even your whole country) towards what you want to happen, aka power and influence.
"Being able to buy nice stuff" is the benefit of being rich that poor (or well-offish but still mostly aspiring to greater wealth) people think being rich is about...
And there will always be sometjing you want but cannot have, regardless how much money have. E.g. art, the Mona Lisa will never be up for sale. Or some other unique piece of art. Accepting that fact makes you a happier person, or at least doesn't hurt.
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- Consuming is usually bad for the environment, even if you're rich. Being satisfied conserves resources.
- The work you devote to something gives it its value. I appreciate good food, good art, good engineering and good woodworking because I have repeatedly attempted them. If you just buy stuff without consideration, you rob yourself of a finer experience.
The point of being rich is to have all the good stuff.
To get there, it helps if you're not too easily satisfied.
Alas, many rich people go overboard on not being satisfied. When they get all the good stuff, the have forgotten how to enjoy it.
But if you're smart about it you can make sure you enjoy stuff, and also get more stuff.
You are allowed to (gasp) enjoy your previous victories, without getting complacent. You can be happy about your yacht and also work hard to get a jet.
Unless, you know, you can't. But that's just a (common) mindset problem and I don't think you're doomed to fall in that trap.
I bet this "rich but unhappy" trope is appealing as a cope for the less fortunate. Thus it gets overplayed as a trope and people wrongly think it's universal truth rather than a cliché.
Maybe the author should read some old philosophy.
Another way to interpret what's going on is that people often look for happiness in all the wrong places, or confuse pleasure with happiness. In this case, the author is describing people who believe acquisition leads to happiness. He is describing the thrill of the hunt, that anticipation of a reward that isn't there, followed by disappointment because some nebulous misplaced expectation isn't met.
Happiness begins with virtue.
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Since it makes my goals very personal, I can't compare myself on an objective metric with other people and as a result feel less frustrated about not earning more.
Problem-solving mindset: what problem do I need to solve? “Problems” will always arise life (due to other people, random events, our brain always wanting novelty, etc.), so this mindset is a reactive one that leads to anxiety and lack of direction.
Creational mindset: what would I love to create? This mindset can seem harder to get at because of all the conditioning we’ve gotten from society and childhood. But all it takes is a simple perspective shift. It leads to more proactivity, and trust that you’ll be able to do whatever you need to do. All the secondary, tertiary, etc. questions about how get answered relatively easily when you’re clear about what you want to create.
A car especially is just a tool, I care as much about someone’s car as I do the hammer in their toolbox, but I am not a car person.
It comes down to what you value. Stability, time, and financial freedom matter more to me than any fancy thing I could buy.
No need to ignore anything. Instead realize that everyone on this planet has exactly the same amount of hours in a day - the poorest and the richest alike. With that understood realize that you can only spend your time on so _few_ things that you better choose what's really important to you.
And thus one may choose to spend time on projects and making stuff, and "friends who buy a new car every year" are simply people that chose differently - there is little point to ordering the choices (or conversely you can always design a metric by which any given choice will be strictly superior to others - thus making such orderings generally pointless).
And in terms of money and even its power to buy time - it's all diminishing results surprisingly quickly. And if you like cars then indeed switching every year sounds like a much better strategy than owning many at the same time.
To each their own. Would be extremely dull otherwise!
If you're genuinely into cars and driving, you might well indulge in buying nice cars and find it emotionally fulfilling. If it's about status, however, you can probably find more fulfilling ways to attain status that doesn't involve purchasing a trinket you don't truly want or need – perhaps by becoming known in the local area as a donor/philanthropist, having the best garden on the street, involvement in local politics or sports teams, being in a band, becoming a busybody on the PTA, and such things. (I admit these things all sound a bit suburban but that's my frame of reference.)
Money is freedom and trading that freedom to get a shiny toy doesn’t make sense to me. I would much rather know I can work on what I want or not work at all than drive to my job in a nicer car.
The fact you notice and thinks about it means you care. You want a new car every year. You envy it. Be honest to yourself and go get it. That is what you want.
How do you ignore friends who write a new book every year?
Except for those who choose a cause. Bill Gates comes to mind.
> You feel that, gee, isn’t it just great to have enough money to afford to live in a very nice house, to be able to play golf, to have nice parties, to wear good clothes, to travel if you want to?
If that's the vacuous extent of your life, the problem doesn't lie with the money.
> Something you can easily afford brings less joy than something you must save and struggle for. “The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys,” Dawson wrote.
Except that it's not true. I was easily able to afford the air fryer that I bought two years ago. Every single time I use it, I'm amazed at how easy it makes preparing certain meals, and I am thankful to the friend who recommended it. Every single thing I buy is carefully thought out (sometimes over months) to improve a specific part of my life. And every single thing I own is valued because it has a specific purpose. Dawson may have thought he'd stumbled upon some great wisdom, but all he was actually doing was looking in a mirror.
> Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.
Uhh wuuuuut? That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. What's the point in getting "stuff" over and over? You're not going to have any use for it.
> When you get a $10,000 car you dream of the 20,000 car.
Uhh no. I have a $5000 car and have absolutely no desire to buy another one until this one becomes too expensive to fix. I could buy a $50,000 car tomorrow, but what would be the point?
All I'm seeing in this article are confessions of a greedy person.
> Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.
On the contrary, I find myself avoiding hedonistic consumption more and more as the years go by. I scrutinize planned purchases for months, even if I can easily afford them, and I do wish the the world was less of a place where the solution to every problem seems to be to purchase something.
That matches my experience too. With a bad, cheap guitar or shoes or a computer, I yearned for a better version thereof. Now I am playing a good guitar that I bought 10 years ago and I do not really feel any need to buy a more expensive one.
Anyway I’ll add to this that you don’t have to like all experiences. I have tried to force myself to like travelling, but I’ve come to accept I just despise every aspect of it. Other people find it weird, but whatever.
To be happy or at least satisfied and content, it takes a lot of introspection and creativity on how to pursue what you really want, which is also rarely in a permanent state. This is often overlooked in favor of taking oversimplified life advices and time consuming setting of life goals
It also seems like people chase the dragon; keep going to restaurants and resorts. If experiences are so unforgettable, why would you repeat them each year?
And for most people it (for the outside) looks fraught with stupid dysfunction; the White Lotus kinds of things where everyone is just struggling to make it worth what they believe it is, and strain their relationships and lives in the process.
I also think you should go farther than just the experience component and pair it with physical objects that keep the memories alive, vibrant and reliveable.
Deleted Comment
Meanwhile many „experiences“ is just staring at others or consuming prepared products. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to find out what other people did. But making/doing stuff yourself is much more rewardable in the long run. On top of that, we've to provide experiences to people around us as well. Not just consume experiences provided by others.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutor,_ne_ultra_crepidam
Everyone has a lived existence.
Everyone is trying to optimize their lived experience.
Are you saying a person’s occupation should preclude them from asking “What’s the right way for me to live?”
My intent in asking isn't just to be dismissive, but rather to point out that there are complex, overlapping reasons. It can be incredibly difficult to even pinpoint your own motivations, to say nothing of those of others.
A simplistic answer might be "because they want to have their thoughts read by others." Beyond that could be altruism, a desire for notoriety, wanting to change behavior, or many other intermingled goals. Most likely, the author didn't even consider "why" but rather, like all of us, just felt an intrinsic need to be heard. See also: social media.
Deleted Comment