The age of accessories has dawned

The action figures I played with in my youth came with little toys

that made them seem so much more important. Batman came with a gun,

sonar, and the Batmobile. Teenagers now come with cell phones, credit

cards, and an Escalade. Suddenly people are like those miniature

plastic figures, with more and more accessories hanging next to us on

Toys R Us’ shelves.

We start as the single figure, a lone person who is bare, then we

throw in more and more stuff to blur ourselves and make things much

more complicated; and somehow this is impressive. When Batman comes

with the Bat Cave, then it is ever so much better. When a teenager

comes with a mansion, they are ever so much better, too, right?

We look around the room and society for the newest trends or fads

to complete our image, which will never be complete. Like that pair

of sunglasses from C by Karina that we have to have, we promise that

if we have that one pair, our lives will be perfect. Suddenly,

teenagers are looking around to find what others have and they don’t:

the new Motorola V80, the limited edition Nike shoes and the new Sony

Vaio. Every so often, something new comes along, something better,

brighter, flashier, and pricier.

These things that we have to have suddenly take over our lives. I

have known people who got so mad over that seventh pair of jeans that

they started to cry or screamed at their parents. I am not pointing

the finger; I do have a terrible fetish with hair gel, Nike athletic

shoes and sunglasses. But when does our love turn into an obsession?

The close line that seems to be branded upon the world in which we

walk is the difference between excess and classic.

Whenever I drive around looking at houses or running errands, I

always look into houses, and wonder why people leave the lights on

when they are not home. I look into these windows, like looking into

a television; I see the million and two different garnishes sitting

on end tables, but I never see any people. It is like they want you

to look in there houses and envy them.

Suddenly, we have removed the competition for work and applied it

to wreaths, cards and presents. It seems that suddenly our direct

purpose is not only to buy all the things that we think a perfect

existence requires, but also to show the world that we have them. We

have become a society so in need of approval from the critics of the

world that desperate measures are taken. People will do anything to

please another, just for the purpose of looking better. Are we that

insecure?

In this world of “new,” why isn’t the old just as appreciated? Why

are we so fast to abandon those things of the past and approach the

new? Being trendy has never been highly regarded in my book, but

being classic has. People who acquire things they really love will

never have the feelings of trying to escape the past thing. Maybe the

truth is that we are not content with the things that we posses.

Maybe we are trying to find our true identity in the objects we place

around our houses and in our car.

But are we really that shallow that our existence is wrapped

around a car that will become obsolete in a few years? I know one

Newport Beach girl who chased every fad and every fluctuation in the

fashion magazines that lay around her four-poster bed. Soon her

craving for the newest trends turned into a full-blown obsession. She

had this thing that she couldn’t wear the same thing to school twice.

When her parents saw the bill from her American Express was around

$25,000 on clothes, an intervention was due. She lost her credit card

and never saw another fashion magazine again.

But, how can we blame her? Her parents bought the newest sports

cars so their neighbors would be jealous. Her mother redecorated her

house so her circle of friends would like her more. We all can easily

fall into the treacherous cracks of obsession, but to escape all of

this, we must realize that what we already have is fine. The gadgets

that fill the desk, the jeans that fill the closet, and the empty

wallet are sights too commonly seen.

You are not all of those things. A person is not the car they

drive, or the flowers over the mantle, or even their bank account.

Because in the end, it doesn’t matter. It matters who is good. In the

end, if all you have is a Ferrari and a nice sofa, no one is going to

envy you or even care. A person is the things they love, and the love

returned.

* MICHAEL A. WALEK is a Sage Hill School sophomore whose columns

will appear occasionally in the Forum section.