No way of really knowing if our ideals exist or if we got them we'd appreciate achieving perfection. , i can only be happy with what i got and forget about all of what I don't (or had and lost), and that's no easy task for most people from what i see, with the materialism, conspicuous consumption, GAS, shiny new objects, etc.
I devised methods for this, it did not just come organically, nor do I think it ever does, except perhaps through tragedy, transcendent hallucinogenic experience, or drastic life changes. Start with something very basic, like clean potable water, I don't appreciate it every time I take a sip, but planting the seed of appreciation eventually turns into a habit, and periodically I feel intense gratitude and luck for not having to worry about something that many people around the world have to struggle to obtain to even survive. Once something so unappreciated becomes a source for appreciation and satisfaction, everything else is easy to appreciate. I always tell people I have one of the best if not the best cellphones that ever existed, which is just a cheap outdated LG. But I deeply contemplated what i had in my hand, and how throughout most of human history, such a device that is commonplace in our society that is able to access a (functionally) infinite amount of information that even relatively insignificant (to us) facts such as that germs cause disease, would have been a gift to humanity from a benevolent god (horribly written run on sentence). How many lands would napoleon have conquered, how many people killed, how many treasures paid for what we consider trivia just to get this precious fact of surivival, much less get a short glimpse of this sorcery we call a smartphone?
What if we found god, what if we found heaven, what if all of our dreams came true? I think we would just look for the next version of it, or maybe go back to the old analog god for it's warmth and character because everyone is using the new god.
The best I cannot be more appreciative of an electric bass than mine, it is part of me, it's what I consider now to be my last and only bass, and the 10 year old strings continue to sound the exact same while growing on me more and more every time i play. That is due in no small part to choice supportive bias, owner's bias, etc, but that feeling of having the perfect instrument is, no matter how contrived the steps and self deception needed to get there, is highly inspirational. I am free from gearlust almost completely, at least in the musical realm, and that might be the first time in my life. Maybe now i will start outputting music at an unprecedented rate.
