For myself, with little American conditioning worth speaking of, I have to say a good part of it is simply that I get bored --- but that's just me! I crave sensory variety in all things, and at the same time, I love 'comfort' anything, so I also repeat a lot. It's *remixing* --- seeing the same old in a new pattern --- that's hardest for me; but I get a thrill out of it when I manage (what VC said about new challenges, mastering your first perfect-form push-up/squat/loaf of sourdough?).
It goes like this. I can't bear to eat the same breakfast every day, because it bores me to tears --- BUT I'll happily eat the same brekkie everyday if I'm (a) in a hurry AND (b) it's one of my favourite foods. This happens to clothes, drapes, sheets, crockery --- most things in my life. With a crucial difference. Food is *meant* to be consumed and you're left with nothing till you buy or make more --- and for the most part, food doesn't get 'discontinued' often. At most, I tire of my favourite and put it on the back burner for a few months --- knowing I will go back to it. On my iPod, I tend to hear the same top 50 over and over... until I really tire of them, though... when I go to something else for a while, and then come back to the same old again in a few months. Again, this is like food, where there is little angst over fit and replacement.
With my wardrobe, there is a strange push-me, pull-you. Want to wear one of my favourite things --- but what if it wears out and I have *NO* favourite things. So find something else to wear instead?
I have to say for me VC has a point about the 'not-quite-there' closet. I notice I don't tire of my absolute favourites --- the garments that feel good, look good, combine well with several others or with key basics --- and I hang to them even when they're tired and ratty; I do tire of the rest far more easily, and it's like I'm hoping the next thing will be an improvement: look better or feel better or combine better with something else. On my iPod, I tend to hear the same top 50 over and over... until I really tire of them, though... when I go to something else for a while, and then come back to the same old again in a few months. Again, this is like food, where there is little angst over fit and replacement.
These two reasons, the innate craving for novelty and variety (it's healthy to crave a lot of different foods) and the need to 'perfect the recipe', are relatively uniform across cultures and demographics I suspect.
The media and peer pressure do exist and do impact me. In the media, people dress for the studio --- you don't see real people dressed in real ways even on reality TV some days! (And having worked at TV studios, it still does not cease to amaze me that the newsreader has a spanking new jacket on from Wardrobe, but is wearing her pajama bottoms under the desk!) As for peers, I've actually had co-workers who regularly made snide comments about their colleagues: 'why can't he wear something other than that pink shirt?' or 'oh look, Sad Shirt is here'. In environments like that, where you're constantly faced with people buying new clothes every week and never repeating outfits, the pressure does tell. Not sure what to wear to Event X? 'Just get something new, man!' with its implication that it's uncool or worse unthinkable that you can't afford to *really stings*. It's not just that you look poor --- it's that it is abhorrent to look poor, because you're then outside the herd, you're making people uncomfortable (how dare you? so impolite!), you're unsuccessful and old-world, and professionally, the appearance of unsuccess can lead to failure very literally! (Hence the whole idea of dressing the part.)
However, but I don't think media and consumerist peer pressure are the whole story. After all, sometimes I have gone for months without seeing more than 10 people, and I don't have TV, and it doesn't stop me craving change. It's more an evolutionary issue, I suspect, than an American one.
Where it might be more First World or American is that you arguably have fewer challenges and unpredictable events as basic logistics are taken care of --- and so the hunger for variety is underfed. You don't notice these little things, but your roads are smooth underfoot, your supermarkets reliably have the same foods week after week, having a power outage or taps running dry is a surprise of unusual proportions because it is really rare etc etc. At some level, we *want* that daily obstacle course; it's depressing when *nothing* changes, nothing new happens for days, right? For me, when I don't know if I'll get from point A to point B in 10 mins or an hour some days, or I can't plan a grocery shop because you never know what's at the wet market today, there's already a degree of challenge in my day that satisfies or dulls the need for change a little; on the other hand, it does little to feed the *aesthetic* craving or the craving for comfort (and pretty, just like tasty, can be comforting too).
