There’s a common meme doing the rounds- the idea that “People don’t want stuff, they want experiences”.
Welcome to the age of “Living Fully”.
What this means is, instead of getting a normal job and working for a living, the beautiful people are on Instagram, posing for selfies in front of the Taj Mahal or Yosemite’s El Capitan.
Basically, it’s a modern, middle-class version of the “The Grand Tour”, something the English upper classes started doing in the 18th Century. Once you finished with university, your parents sent you off to the Continent to see Paris, to see Rome, to see the Louvre, the Parthenon, Pompeii, Hag Sofia, and the Great Pyramids, so you had a good, first-hand exposure to civilization and culture.
But the idea was always, after a year or two, for you to come home. You came home and married someone and fulfilled your duty to the family business. If you stayed away too long you’d end up like Lord Byron, embroiled in some ghastly foreign cause, dying young, far away from home.
Advice to the young: Sure, there are rare exceptions, but looking back, your most productive, creative years will probably have everything to do with long hours of toil in an office, and very little to do with living in a van or looking good for Instagram. Plan accordingly.
