One does not have to agree with the capitalist credo of ‘greed is good’ to find value in covetous desire. The human drive to obtain can also apply to holding dear. We do not have to value the new and disposable. We can have greed for nature, beauty, friendship and community.
People who live by adoration, who collect lovers, are assumed to be users. But does it have to be so? Could they also care deeply for people in all their oddness and mystery? Perhaps they aren’t using at all, they are collecting and preserving, finding a way to keep hold of everyone who affects.
To find a balance in nature and commerce is to live sustainably. Many wonder if we need to define new human values to teach this concept, if human nature must be repealed. No, simple greed will do, the greed of oenophiles, vinyl enthusiasts and clingy lovers.