The greater the accumulation, the grosser and more ridiculous the man. Google the evidence! In medieval writing, the devil is described as having a single large-holed nostril through which channel it was possible to see the fires in his brain. Taking it in. Burning it up.
Consumer culture proclaims that happiness is having things and doing things. The advertising industry has from the dawn of its existence parked its considerable haunches on this belief. But having things and doing things is the opposite of happiness. True happiness has no reason.
Some men think they can increase their value by increasing their holdings. This is hand-me-down thinking.
Consumerism is more like a religion than religions are. Its temples, real and virtual, draw millions of adherents on every day and night of the week. All the festivals are celebrated. Nobody is turned away. And via the act of acquisition, we’re happy again.
If everyone seeks to be happy—through pleasure, acquisition, travel, sex, food, religion, drugs and a myriad of other means—then why is that result so seldom achieved? Why don’t we die laughing?
Men's Work 