A Day In The Journey

Having allowed the following thoughts to carom around in my head for a couple of weeks (all the while shunting other thoughts around and through), I think I've formulated a post. haha. As I mentioned in the last post, I've been thinking about how we as Americans, as Westerners, too often find ourselves expecting to have things "personalized," and how our educational experience enhances or discourages this need to have every thing we own or do personalized. Now there are a couple of disclaimers that I must make before beginning:
1) I am only addressing this aspect of American life because it's the only culture with which I have personal experience. I suspect, by observation, that this need for personalization is present in other cultures (especially as it presents in multiple cultures here within the US regardless of cultural origin). However, I cannot speak to these cultures because I have only observed and not lived.
2) I am not here to decry all desiring to have things "your way." People are different from each other, have different likes/dislikes, and different senses of aesthetics. This post isn't about desire, it's about expectation. So please don't accuse me of trying to inflict sameness on the world. haha

So the reason this topic came to my mind was...myself. About four months ago, I bought a new MacBook to replace the iBook that was constantly full. 50G of space just isn't what it used to be. :-P As I pondered which to get and what to add to it, I was also pondering something else: Colorware. For those who don't know, Colorware provides a fantastic personalization service for the owners of certain electronics: they will take your product and custom-color it by applying a polymer-based coating. It's awesome. And $500. And yet, my desire to have a significantly unique MacBook found me with my mouse one click away from "Purchase." At which point I stopped myself. $500 dollars to give my lappy a custom color-coating when I could satisfy my need for a unique, personalized lappy with an amazing decal for a hundredth of the price? I did, however, discover another way to personalize my computer: one candybar purchase and [redacted] hours later, I have [redacted] sets of options with which to personalize every icon used by my computer. As the reality that I had spent [redacted] hours hunting down just the right icons for my lappy set in, I began to ponder the phenomenon of self-centeredness that seems to pervade society today. I have some ideas as to how it happened, mostly beginning with doting parenting, but nevertheless, we have a large group of people who do not merely desire to have things their way, but expect it. In fact, in some/many cases has become an extreme: my way, or else. These are the types who send back their hamburger because it came with pickles despite being ordered without when they could just take the pickles off. So the question becomes raised: Is the problem having the freedom to have things uber-personalized? I don't think that's the problem.

***To be continued in a second post...

*I mentioned some copywrighted and patented things up there. Those companies own that stuff, k? :-P