Consumption vs. Enjoyment

Let's not confuse unabashed consumption with the lost art of enjoyment. The Wall Street brokers who blow lines during lunch, head back to the office to close the deal, then head off to a strip club where they drink bottles of Cristal and drop $2K on a blow job are not pleasure seekers. They've substituted consumption for enjoyment.

I go out to dinner with a client, this homunculus who made boodles during the first dot com boom—which idiot banker didn't?—and the poor little misguided fuckhead orders a beautiful bottle of wine along with a feast of appetizers and deliciousness. Watching him eat it is horrifying: there is not one moment of delectation, no pausing over a bite or sip to savor or indulge. He consumes; he doesn't enjoy. Europe may be filled with xenophobic anti-semites but at least they understand life—long lunches, a siesta, summer off. But that won't last long: the relentless, soulless tyranny of capitalist speed will soon ensure that the siesta is a quaint thing of the past.

And don't be duped by the hipsters you see skateboarding to work: they signal the end, the full eradication of pleasure. The so-called dot com liberation of the work place was not a liberation at all but a total enslavement. Now work is supposed to be fun, there's coffee and friends; there's no need to leave the office, ever—we even have ping pong! The path to slavery is paved with foosball.