Your Diagnosis: Greed. Source of infection: Materialism

Perhaps the organic vines of hatred spiraled and sprouted as I moved from Orange County to Los Angeles. These vines were implanted by greed, watered with money, and sustained through the culture of materialism. As the hatred absorbed the satisfactory effects of material pleasures, the vines torpedoed out of control. Perhaps the light of reason or the heat of pressure would kill these vines of hatred, perhaps the vines would turn into weeds. Alas none of this has happened and I await the time that I can scoop the dirt from their roots, and transplant them onto soil that breeds immaterial pleasures, unconditional and everlasting happiness.

In speaking of these vines, I refer to materialism and how deeply I feel against it. Perhaps I align with Sayyid Qutb in his hatred for Western notions of materialism winning happiness, but simultaneously, I align with the third richest man in the world, Warren Buffet who still lives in the same $31,000 house he bought in 1958.

Materialism embodies the American spirit of buy now, pay later, and think about it later. Instant gratification sells! Buyer's remorse exists..

..and Materialism only encompasses the rainbow of brands that so many admire and aspire to own. It is an infectious disease that has taken nations by storm, allowing people to be swept away by price tags and foreign names. What I wonder is: if it doesnt make a difference to a child's eye, a foreigner's eye, or a sheltered eye, then why do you make it such a point to be seen? Brands, that is.

If you somehow ended up randomly one day in the middle of the Polynesian islands and you were wearing a Burberry shirt, would they care that you paid $400? Would they even know what the hell Burberry is? Who gives a shit? And if you somehow landed into the depths of the Alaskan natives, would you eat caviar in front of them to indicate that your food is superior, and appropriately corresponds to the high class society you belong to? If you had to sleep on a concrete rooftop for one night in the middle of New York City, on a high rise apartment building, with only one item to wake up to, what would it be? Would it be a necessity or would it be a frivolous, show-off item? Could a child tell the difference between ice cream that spilled on his $200 coach shoes versus $20 payless shoes? If it doesn't matter to them, it shouldn't matter to you.

Are we cows? For humans to desire brands, to wear them, to be easily identified? Are we THAT alike--so indistinctive, undistinguishable, that we need to brand ourselves? I'm Hugo Boss and you're Bebe. Oh wait, you're Bebe too, so I guess you and I have been branded twice by the same iron. What a dismay.

Are we insecure? For humans to think that they must be defined by subscribing to someone else's tastes, someone else's expression of art, someone else's creation--isn't that called theft/plagiarism/un- uniqueness?! We are so undefined, that we must wear clothes, buy accessories, and show off these BRANDS so that it is easy to understand us. Easy to categorize us. Easy to see which class we are from. And this is all from the surface. Girl meets girl, understands her surface, and quickly turns away. Split-second eye contact, quick judgments, and the disease has spread into a plague.

So if you didn't have your Dolce and Gabbana perfume, your Louis Vutton bag, your Armani Exchange pants, who would define you? Are you that plain, that insecure, that colorless, that you need someone else to decide who you are? Someone that you are willing to pay HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of dollars to, just so that you can wear a name, a brand, and let others judge you? Wow, you must be the most shallow and most fluid person ever. And by fluid, I mean that you are so quickly passing through my fingers that I can't hold you for a minute to get to know you.

What a shame, no? You've been infected by the credit cards, permanently immunized to feed into this consumer culture. You are so brainless that you allow others to make decisions about who you are. You no longer have a real desire to express yourself, you are no different, you are simply a uniform of BRANDS. BRANDS BRANDS BRANDS, that's all you are. You wear watches, you were purses, you think you are better than everyone else.

And you can only stop this disease if you figure out, within yourself, that the cure is a simple realization of time. Time will test you. Time will erode your beauty, your money, your ... life. When you die, and you weren't born into an Ancient Egyptian civilization, you will be buried with nothing but insects and dirts besides you. Your only expense will be oxygen.

So please tell me: What is it about status that so many of us are seeking to gain? Why must we impress people we don't like? Buy temporary fixes to long-sustained, permanent problems? Why do we submit to the commercialization of our emotions--buying chocolates for "love"? No wonder our next generation is so confused about the lines separating love and physical infatuation. Why does buying equal happiness?

How far will you go until your greed is finally satisfied?