Everything you wrote rings so true! I also think Americans are trying to have a good time all the time and in the absence of accommodations that lead to natural good times (reasonable working hours, short commutes, vacation time, money) everyone's trying to fake it with tangible items. For instance, when I was growing up, it seemed to me that everyone bought a Christmas tree one or two weeks before Christmas. Now most people I know have a store-bought tree they put up the day after Thanksgiving - these same people all have (or had, I guess?) strong hippie tendencies otherwise. I really feel that people are playacting happiness!
I do think you're on to something -- shopping is a temporary placebo for the illusion of agency, and there are a lot of studies linking a sense of autonomy and agency to a sense of well-being. A lot of those studies are rooted in remote/hybrid work surveys, but the need to feel as if you have some say in how to spend your life isn't confined to just one area of your life, is it?
As someone with vaguely hippie tendencies: We do get our tree from a local place the first weekend in December, but that's because I love having something to make the darkest month of the year feel special somehow. The lights make me very happy at what is otherwise a very professionally demanding and personally exhausting time.
Everything you wrote rings so true! I also think Americans are trying to have a good time all the time and in the absence of accommodations that lead to natural good times (reasonable working hours, short commutes, vacation time, money) everyone's trying to fake it with tangible items. For instance, when I was growing up, it seemed to me that everyone bought a Christmas tree one or two weeks before Christmas. Now most people I know have a store-bought tree they put up the day after Thanksgiving - these same people all have (or had, I guess?) strong hippie tendencies otherwise. I really feel that people are playacting happiness!
I do think you're on to something -- shopping is a temporary placebo for the illusion of agency, and there are a lot of studies linking a sense of autonomy and agency to a sense of well-being. A lot of those studies are rooted in remote/hybrid work surveys, but the need to feel as if you have some say in how to spend your life isn't confined to just one area of your life, is it?
As someone with vaguely hippie tendencies: We do get our tree from a local place the first weekend in December, but that's because I love having something to make the darkest month of the year feel special somehow. The lights make me very happy at what is otherwise a very professionally demanding and personally exhausting time.