Second Thoughts

The thought just popped into my head that my impulsive desire to buy book after book, to have them in my posession, without the ability or time or temperment to read them all, is a kind of capitalist-driven commodification of the worst kind. I like to imagine that owning and buying these books is a literary comfort, a high-minded form of participation in the materialist cycle which is uncriticizable--hey look at me, I spend my money on knowlege instead of big screen TVs. But it's still, I think, a form of materialism, however (thinly) disguised in intellectualism or academia or all those thing which are supposed to be exempt and pure. Beyond the fact that the the whole thing smacks of being a poseur, I dislike the way I'm possibly more interested in owning the things than reading them. The commodification of knowledge.