Safe addiction?

I could never understand how people could spend entire days or weekends on shopping. Or worse, window shopping. The mere thought of browsing for hours and hours through endless retail windows, looking for something you don't really need so that you can pay for it with the money you don't have and get into a debt you shouldn't create, is not exactly my idea of a fulfilling life.

Or maybe I am just not sophisticated enough.

My friends are used to the "tattered clothes" I wear (most of which are gifts or hand-me-downs) and most appalled at the way I purportedly treat my appearance with disdain, ie, not combing my hair (but that's because I got a great coiffeured, "maintenance-free" haircut) and not taking care of my face (can I help it if I look 15 years younger without serious renovation?? Yeah, right).

But I am not without faults. I love movies. I spend a lot of money on them, and still don't get enough. Ok, so I have yet to run into debt because of that, but what's there to stop me?... ugh... what a horrible thought! My other Archilles' heel? Books. I consciously tell myself that I should NOT be acquiring more of them and have even resorted to borrowing... but that's not the same. So, I struggle on.

Today, as I made hasty visits to several shopping malls around town, I was struck by the numb countenance of the shoppers. Most of them were going about their businesses with blank, hollow faces - telltale signs of the ravages of mediocrity. Souless, decayed, rotting.

Ugh, is this what consumerism and materialism will do to us? Numb us to a point of no return and tighten the noose with our own hands? Scary.

Perhaps then, we should have shopping rehab facilities. Why not? Since drug rehabilitation centres abound these days, and some even offer top-notch resort facilities in their drug treatment programs.
And lately it seems, students in the USA can even apply for Federal students' financial aid despite a drug conviction. Not to mention solutions for alcohol abuse for those driving under the influence.

With the way things are going, shopping rehabilitation may not too far-fetched an idea after all.