It’s beyond culture. We seek to fill empty space with stuff instead of being content with what we have. Fill empty moments, empty spaces, empty time, empty hands. We’re psychologically embedded with this. It takes active effort to notice it and act against it.
Open up a blank page in a notebook, look at it and observe your thoughts.
I don’t think the urge to strive/fill is a problem. You might call it the urge to live, actually. Living things are striving things. Humans are unique because to striving/living well is not automatic. Living poorly/wastefully … seems to be the default. Defaults I think are largely driven by culture, unless one bucks this trend and develops his own defaults. Current culture channels striving/living toward consuming/mindlessness/predictable behaviors that that benefit the “matrix”
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