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If you are like most people, you probably see work as a necessary evil, spending all day hoping 5pm arrives as quickly as possible so that you can go home. Unfortunately, once home, the TV gets turned on and a deluge of commercials aimed at chipping away at your personal insecurities guarantee that you will go out and buy crap you don't need to feel better about the emptiness of your existence.

Of course, buying stuff creates debt, and to get out of it, you must work longer hours, making you hate your life that much more, thereby forcing you to buy even more crap you don't need to feel better about your poor life choices. Lather, rinse, repeat. Consumerism thrives on your self-loathing.

The following Academy-Award nominated short film depicts the story of a lonely inventor who dreams of making a meaningful difference in the world and simultaneously escape the dehumanizing job in which he is trapped. His attempt to make that meaningful difference, however, is permeated by the very same consumerist culture to which he belongs, ultimately showing him that real happiness cannot ultimately be bought in some store.

If you were thinking this film feels like a Tool music video, you weren't alone. This is what it made me think of:

Bad ass, huh?

Check out The Story of Stuff to learn how corporations conspire to make you their willing slave, and some of the ways in which philosophy can help you attain happiness, or at least make you more interesting...
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