For some of us, the things we buy are able to buffer us somewhat against the impositions of a world in which our own personal significance and security seem to diminish more with each passing year.

For example, even though we're crawling along in traffic, in the company of what appears to be about half the population of the planet, on our way to spending eight hours under fluorescent tubes dealing with paper and organizational politics, if we're doing it in the right SUV, we can feel a little "above it all"--in a direct and literal sense, given the height of the vehicle, but also in a more profound and pervasive symbolic way. 

Driving an "outdoorsy" vehicle gives us some of the feeling of the freedom we associate with the outdoors, and allows us to think of ourselves as outdoorsmen as well, with all the strong, self-reliant freedom and independence that implies.

Heck, we might even say to ourselves, we could just kick the SUV into 4-wheel-drive, do a little clambering over and around and through the inconsequential urban obstacles that now confront us, and be off to the mountains in a second, if we so chose.  This realization has a way of stroking and comforting us, and our sense of significance in the world around us.

Likewise, at the end of a day in the employ of a company that could eliminate our job tomorrow, or could even cease to exist the day after that, it takes the edge off somewhat to come home to a "retro"-styled house that exudes an aura of time-worn substantiality and endurance.

Life is considerably different, though, for the person crawling along in traffic beside us in the nearly worn-out car he was just barely able to pay for, and doesn't know how in the world he could ever replace.

The place this person goes home to at the end of the day is likewise neither soothing nor reassuring nor substantial.  He may have drunken neighbors arguing late into the night through thin shared walls.  Or he may be taunted, jeered at, accosted, robbed, beaten, or even killed by the sullen teenage offspring of the people engaged in the argument down the hall.

This person's world bears down heavily on him, with new risks of diminishing or demeaning him virtually at every turn.