I think one of the interesting things concerning consumer consumption, that we didn't talk that much about the other day in class, is how it differs in our country from subculture to subculture. Our society is not only stratified by economic means, but the development of leisure time and conspicuous consumption has created an entirely new class structure within different interest groups. Whatever you're into doing with your free time, there's the haves, have nots, and somewhere in between. You can find it in everything from mountaineering to adventure racing. I used to do a lot of both of those activities, and it was crazy how much your experience could differ depending on the amount of money you had to spend.

Take mountaineering for example. You can spend an easy thousand dollars just to get started with your basic gear and kit set up. If you want to start doing actual expeditions, where you spend multiple nights out camping, etc., you really start piling the money on. Most people I know that are into this type of activity, accumulated their equipment over time, as their experience and ability levels grew. What always pissed me off is that on the flip side of this you have people with way too much disposable income who saw something on TV, or got invited to go climbing one weekend, and they go out and spend thousands of dollars on equipment that they may use once or twice. Now obviously they may take to a sport or activity, but in my experience most people like this jump from one thing to the next, mainly so they can say they've done everything under sun. Nothing aggravates a bunch of people, who scrape everything little bit of money together to pursue their passion, more than some idiot who shows up decked out in the latest and most expensive gear, but yet knows absolutely nothing. That's also how people typically end up getting hurt or dying. I've seen some incredibly stupid things occur, because somebody thought their expensive equipment would make up for a lack of experience and ability. Unfortunately that's not how it works.

In our culture of instant gratification people don't want to wait on a slow Internet connection, much less years of practice and determination to become good at something. I find this a sad state of affairs, because no matter how much money you have to throw around, most things that are worth doing take a long time to become even somewhat good at them. I hope this type of behavior is not enculturating us to become a nation of quitters, or people that always look for the easy way out. I also hope our increasingly short attention spans won't prevent the next generation of Americans from making progress in solving the problems that we've already created. If we lose our respect and support for those who take the difficult path with the best of intentions, we're going to be in serious trouble.