Part VIII: Materialism
Of course, neither society nor groups nor any of your own efforts can lead to attaining the fulfillment of your own fantasies.
While your awareness is lost and hidden away by these delusions of desire, you are caught up in an endless pursuit to try to find the wrong things in the first place.
The placebo that most people use to try to placate this desire is materialism.
If you cannot achieve your fantasies, then you will at least try to fill your life with things, and cling to these things in greed, paranoia, and jealousy, trying to make these possessions a substitute for what you feel you have lost in your heart.
This materialism is not always for money or physical possessions. It can be intellectual materialism, emotional materialism, or spiritual materialism.
You can treat knowledge, or affection, or spirituality like they were things that you can acquire, possess, show off, or cleave to.
Ultimately, none of the substitutes will truly replace what you are missing.
