Excessive Halloween decorations are distasteful (or am I growing old and grumpy? Am I hypocritical?)

A house on the street where I live (Orange Country, Southern California) got decorated very elaborately. It’s not even a decoration. It’s a very high-tech projector that dramatically changes the house's appearance and simulates sophisticated images and videos. Every night, a small crowd of people is watching the spectacle, and many cars are parked on both sides of the street next to this house. I have to drive very slowly when I pass it. My kids are usually with me, and of course, we try to take a close look at this fancy decoration.

I caught myself thinking: damn, the world is on fire; there are millions of families, struggling to survive amidst wars and natural disasters, and people spend money on this totally unnecessary shit.

But then there is cognitive dissonance.

I don’t live like a monk, not at all. I have my own financial struggles, and they are often acute, but I still spend $270 on running shoes for my races on which I spend money on too. I have wine on some nights. I’d go to Taylor Swift’s concert if I could afford it. I couldn’t, but I’d do it. I’d see U2 at Sphere in Las Vegas. My kids play competitive tennis, and we travel a lot for that. We struggle with the tennis expenses, but it’s tennis, goddamnit! “First world problems.”

I accept that many different things are happening in our world concurrently. It’s okay to be working on a trip to Mars even when…