ABSTRACT
This chapter explores in greater detail the desire for material things. For many, the love for others and the love for things are symmetrical, sometimes complementary and sometimes competitive. In the popular sense, "materialism" is the desire for things or possessions in opposition to the genuine love of others. The worth of things, except things of sentimental value, is often closer to economic worth and consensual value, while the value of the beloved is not market-based, and is generally independent of opinion and advice. In spite of many differences in the desire for things and others, deeper similarities reveal a continuum of feeling. While Buddhism is a life-path and a metaphysic, not a religion, the relinquishment of goods and a detachment from material pursuits is, in all religions, a preliminary to god-experience. The primacy of hunger is consistent with its frequency and universality compared to the periodicity, relative intermittency, and variability of the sex drive.
