It took me until I was in my mid-40s before I realized that I didn’t need a lot of money to be happy (but don’t tell my boss that!). I do need a new bed though, the one I have is giving me backaches .

Companies wedded to the sale of copies will continue to push for DRM, and only discard it when they learn the hard way how it screws themselves. Those companies are desperate to bring back the world they knew and thrived in, when content was not infinitely reproducible at the push of a button. They built their empires on the price of copies, and got so big that they can’t turn back. It’s hard to turn around a big ship.

The traditional media companies face an existential crisis. They can only survive by changing business models, but years of media conglomeration made the industry too centralized to alter course. Maybe a few years ago they could have torn off the band aid and fully embrace the internet, but it’s too late now. DRM prolongs their death for a while.

The BBC will likely survive in one form or another. I can’t say the same for the big 4 labels.

This is one of the biggest, and quite possibly the most dangerous, problems we’re facing in the 21st century. There is this mentality that if having a certain amount of material wealth/belongings makes one happy, then twice as much will make one twice as happy. This is a complete and utter lie of course. Even so, most people seem to have a really hard time seeing that.

I too was once guilty of thinking that way and it took me a long time to finally understand the saying that money can’t buy happiness on anything deeper than an intellectual level. The ill-conceived logic that more is always better can be found right at the very core of some of the biggest problems the human race is facing today. With the human population spinning wildly out of control, our society is clinging to an idea that is completely unsustainable. Yet we all keep plowing ahead in spite of the clear ramifications it is having for all life on this planet.

Taken to it’s ultimate conclusion the idea that more is better, you will be led to the inevitable belief that all one must therefore need in order to have unlimited happiness is unlimited resources. I think it should be pretty clear by now that the human race doesn’t have the luxury of unlimited resources. Even so, the vast majority of society (western society in particular) continues to act as if such a thing really does exist. Sorry, but this is all a fantasy folks. People need to wake up and accept the simple truth that each of us does not need all of the things we’ve been taught since birth to desire.

Those that are raping the world in the name of profit are the same ones telling us what we need, but it is all a lie of course. It is the lie that is told and sold to us to serve but one purpose; make the fat cats fatter and the poor folks poorer. Capitalism would probably fall down otherwise. When we’re young we are force fed this idea (the US government likes to call it the American dream) that you can be anything when you grow up. Simply work hard enough at the rat race and you to can some day be rich just like the pop idols glamorized on TV. Like I mentioned previously, I bought into this fantasy dream just like everyone else does.

It wasn’t until I was almost in my mid-30’s that I finally woke up and began to notice that I wasn’t getting any happier the more I owned. I was however slowly getting in over my head with debt. Ah, the good old machinations of the fat cats. You wouldn’t believe how much less stress I have in my life once I stopped caring so much about material wealth. I would have liked this golden nugget of truth dawn on me sooner than it did, the realization that my constant desire for ever more “stuff” was slowly killing me. After that it didn’t take long to figure out that all one truly needs is a roof over your head (with a comfortable bed to sleep in of course!), warm food in your belly, someone who loves you that you can love in return and by necessity a half way decent job, preferably one you enjoy. Everything else is secondary, although I would recommend at least one hobby you find both rewarding intellectually and relaxing.

The trick it turned out was to divide needs and wants into separate groups and watch out so that your wants don’t slowly creep back into the needs column of your life. It is so easy to blur the line between them, which I’m sure you’ll all agree is thanks to all that “infotainment” we see on the boob tube, clearly designed to help you do exactly that. My biggest fear these days? That this lesson cannot be taught and can only be learned through life experience. If that is true, then the human race may indeed be doomed and that makes me very sad. The fact that a lot of parents use the television as a cheap babysitter fills me with dread. The violence, nudity and foul language all seem tame compared to the real damage I now see it can do.

We like to believe we are immortal, especially when we’re young. I think it makes us feel secure to believe that humanity will always be here, firm and strong. The ultimate truth, whether we wish to accept it or not, is that nature does not negotiate. We can all stick our collective heads in the sand, continuing to believe that more is somehow better and that I’m full of sh!t, but in the end it is nature that will have the final say as to our survival as a species and there is no doubt in my mind that how it treats us when that time comes will be the exact reciprocal of how we treated it.