The Paradox of Plenty
or Why I Hate Buying Gifts for People
It's the season, and once again, we find ourselves in a peculiarly modern predicament. The quest for the perfect present—a totem of love, a token of thanks—has become an almost Sisyphean task. Not on account of an excess of need. The rub lies in the opposite. It lies in satiety.
You know the old chestnut, lobbed over cups of egg nog, the cloying custard of holiday overindulgence, about buying a gift for the person who's got it all. This used to apply to the one-percenters in your life, right? However, "it all" is no longer the province of the fat cats alone. The average Joe and Jane, they're sitting pretty atop their own stockpiles of material surplus, amassed over a lifetime of unprecedented plenty.
Hence, the gifting game has morphed into a fraught affair. We're no longer just picking out something nice at the store. We're in the business of spelunking through the depths of desire for that one unattained bauble, that one unforeseen delight our loved ones, in their year-long binge of self-satisfying purchases, haven't already snapped up for themselves.
Gifting has turned into a performance, a ritual dance performed in the temple of consumerism, where the point is lost amid the frenzy.
In this brave new world where the sleigh bells are drowned out by the din of delivery trucks, and Santa's laugh is muffled by the drone of drones dropping packages on doorsteps, we are left to ponder: What is the point of giving when everyone has already granted their own wishes?
My tirade isn't just a case of holiday blues or a miserly heart. It's a call to arms for a return to authenticity. To gift, or not to gift, shouldn't be the question. Instead, we should ask, "How do we make our offerings meaningful in a world already overfull?"
Image: https://depositphotos.com/editorial/santa-claus-smokes-cigar-digital-illustration-631517680.html