IKEA--I Don't Need Ya

Several times throughout the movie Edward Norton’s character mentions that his stuff was his life. I think this is a very strong statement. To equate inanimate, material objects with your living life is very sad, and demonstrates the effect our media and consumer culture has on us. However, this depressing thought that our life’s worth is a result of our possessions is not necessarily an innate personal thought. This notion is force fed to us daily through our commercials, billboards, magazines, and shopping malls. Our countries advertisements constantly tell us ‘in order to be this, you must have this’, or ‘to be cool, buy this’, and ‘to live a happy full life, you’ve got to have one of these’. This current bombardment of material messages sooner or later, but inevitably seeps into our minds and we begin buying. We buy till our wallets our empty, our credit cards maxed out. We buy until we are so far in debt that once we die our kids and even grandkids will still be paying off our leather couches and Hummer cars.

Edward Norton’s character is no different from most of us. His constant search through the IKEA catalogues is just his unfulfilling search for himself. However, this method of finding himself will end without reward. He will never stop searching and buying because he is looking in the wrong place. Material objects have no effect on who we actually are. Think about your favorite object that you own—an expensive shirt, an autographed poster, your car—now imagine if that object disappeared. Would your personality be changed at all? Would life as you know it crumble and fall down around you because this item is no longer in existence? Would everybody in the world now hate you and never speak to you again? I would guess that the answer to all of thee questions is no. If that item was gone, you as a human being, a person, would not change. It is all a mental game that the media and our consumer culture play. They attempt to trick us so that we put our lives into the items we buy. They are only things—lifeless, meaningless things. The only meaning they receive is the one that we have allotted them. Thus, if we place no meaning on these objects except for possibly aesthetic value, perhaps we may free ourselves. Perhaps we may free our lives, their meanings, and hopefully do so without developing a second personality.