Today is “black Friday” and the masses are waiting in absurd lines, dealing with absurd crowds, rubbing elbows in fear and anticipation, waiting to fork out money on “deals,” hoping to buy things for their greedy friends, relatives, and children. Why? Because those desires, those wants, when satisfied by the material goods and gadgets will make them happy, finally, or bring them that much closer to ultimate and final satisfaction. Being the compassionate souls that we are, we want to make our friends and family happy.

Perhaps that was in part what Schopenhauer was getting at: we act as though we want ultimate satisfaction and without it we can’t be happy. We think that once we have, x, y, or z, we’ll finally have what we need to be happy. But, of course, we get x, y, AND z and we are still unsatisfied, either because it is not enough after all or because we have reached boredom. Happiness seems out of reach; ephemeral at best. But we don’t blame the process, the approach; we convince ourselves that we just haven’t found the right thing, person, or product.