add to cart, add to suffering
why buying things won’t save you
Jul 17, 2025
having just moved to miami, the line between wants and needs is getting blurrier by the day, warped by heat, neon, and algorithmic suggestions. it’s sensory overload, online and off.
i just spent $72 on things i didn’t really need and somehow feel worse. not guilty. worse. like i scratched an itch that was never there. like i fed something in me that only got hungrier.
facepalm. i just met the will.
according to arthur schopenhauer, the 19th-century philosopher who thought life was mostly suffering (vibes!), the will is the blind, ceaseless drive behind all human action. it wants. that’s its entire job. and when you satisfy one want? congratulations. it spawns five more.
it’s capitalism with a philosophy degree.
🛒 the cart is never empty
every time you buy something online, especially when you're bored, tired, lonely, or half-watching selling sunset, you’re not solving a problem. you’re trying to outrun a metaphysical engine that whispers:
this isn’t enough.
you’re not enough.
but maybe…
if you buy that night serum with salmon semen in it…
the will feeds on desire. and the second a desire is fulfilled, the pleasure dissolves and is replaced by another desire.
that moment after you check out? where you feel a little let down? that’s not buyer’s remorse. that’s just reality, baby.
📱 your phone is a pocket-sized temple of maya
schopenhauer borrowed from hinduism the idea of maya, the illusion that the material world is real and meaningful. which is cute, because in 2025, maya is now wearing a etsy-personalized trench coat and trying to sell you mushroom coffee.
the entire internet is a shimmering hall of illusions. the “for you” page is not actually for you. it’s for the version of you who might convert into a paying customer. the endless scroll is maya doing a runway walk in fast fashion.
and the weird part? we like it.
makes me think of the book white noise, where don delillo writes about jack gladney, an impostor-syndrome-death-obsessed narrator who literally feels his existential worth increase with every item he adds to his shopping cart at the grocery store. not satisfied, but worthier. like the act of consuming validates his being.
“I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it. I sent clerks into their fabric books and pattern books to search for elusive designs. I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I’d forgotten existed. Brightness settled around me. We crossed from furniture to men’s wear, walking through cosmetics. Our images appeared on mirrored columns, in glassware and chrome, on TV monitors in security rooms. I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums. These sums poured off my skin like so much rain. These sums in fact came back to me in the form of existential credit. I felt expansive, inclined to be sweepingly generous, and told the kids to pick out their Christmas gifts here and now.”
if schopenhauer read that, he would’ve spat out his lentils.
we shop not because we’re hungry, but because we believe fulfillment is somewhere in the transaction. spoiler alert: it isn’t.
🛍️ retail therapy is just suffering with better lighting
we tell ourselves shopping is a form of control. that we’re choosing joy. but most of the time, it’s ritualized distraction. a tiny performance of agency inside a giant machine of dissatisfaction.
the will doesn’t care what you buy. it just wants you to want.
this is why “retail therapy” works for 45 seconds, and then you’re back on instagram saving another photo of a bookshelf you’ll never own. it’s not therapy. it’s just the will in a cuter outfit.
⬜ minimalism is schopenhauer with an instagram filter
to escape the will, schopenhauer suggested radical abstinence. monastic living. renunciation of desire. in some cases, he hinted at art as an escape, specifically music and its ability to distract you for the length of your playlist from the endless wanting. but that’s not exactly the plot of your average lifestyle reel.
somewhere in there, minimalism was born. sort of. now it’s all beige sweaters, shadowless kitchens, and $60 compost bins.
real minimalism, philosophical minimalism, is not an aesthetic. it’s ascetic. it’s a rebellion. a way to say: i see the game. i’m logging off. i don’t need another giant stanley with a straw.
but of course, capitalism eats rebellion for breakfast. and now you can buy “minimalist” stuff that still feeds the will, just in neutrals.
🤷♀️ so what do we do?
honestly? you can’t kill the will (and thats a strong can’t). schopenhauer didn’t ever say that you could.
but maybe, he thought, you can notice it. maybe you can see the absurdity of trying to buy your way out of emptiness, and smirk.
as camus said, “the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.” he was talking about sisyphus pushing his rock. but he could’ve just as well been talking about amazon prime.
you wake up. you feel a little hollow. you put a thing in your cart. but next time, delete it. walk outside instead. the sun feels real. the breeze doesn’t want anything from you.
the grass doesn’t ask for five stars. the sky isn’t trying to convert you. no one’s upselling the clouds. it’s just you, and the world, and the quiet hum of being alive.
and that?
that’s you smirking at the will on your own terms.
😏 postscript
desire doesn’t end at checkout. it regenerates. like a metaphysical hydra with a sephora membership.
so next time you’re tempted to buy something just to feel something, remember:
you are not your cart.
you are not your cravings.
you are not your tiktok-suggested lifestyle.
you are the one who notices the will.
and that’s kind of hot.