No, not the wasting disease of 18th and 19th century novel heroines who, on their deathbeds, bravely said goodbye to their tearful lovers. The kind we do every day. The buying "things" kind.
I've been thinking a lot about consumerism lately. I think it's brought on in part by the drastic reduction of consumerism in my own life, and in part by my visit to Cairo, where consumerism as we know it doesn't exist for a healthy portion of the population.
I wish my lack of participation was a conscious decision brought on by an eco-friendly duty to "waste not, want not," but it's out of necessity. I just
can't buy things, so I don't. I want to buy things - a comb, some better shoes, a thick rug for my floor and heavy fabrics for my walls, hair products, a comforter for my bed, big pillows for the floor, organizational furniture for odds and ends, the list goes on and on - but I am constrained by my finances to those things I truly
need. Occasionally I'll break down and buy something frivolous, because some days you just get tired of saying "no" to yourself, but it's usually a package of $2.00 cookies. This life sucks because there's constant consumption going on around me in this city, 24 hours a day, but I'm not sleeping in a ditch on the side of the road like some children I saw in Cairo. We're ridiculously wealthy here, even the poorest of us.
Sometimes it sucks to watch others do what you'd like to do, i.e. buying things without thinking twice about it. But the silver lining of my limited financial resources is that I'm much more aware of where my money is going. And I'm much more aware of where the money of others is going. Before I purchase something, I think, "Do I really need this right now?" If the answer is no, I put it back. I see so many people buying just for the sake of buying. There might be, somewhere in their brains, a moment of "Do I need this?" but that question never gets answered because that part of their brain is beaten up and stuffed in a closet by the Want Faction of the brain. So they buy, buy, buy. And what do they get for their money? More crap. Endless piles of "stuff," of "things" that serve no purpose.
I don't know why we're so attached to "things." I'll admit that I am. There are items in my possession that serve no purpose other than looking at them gives me pleasure. I don't grudge anyone that, but how many purposeless objects do we really need? I've moved a lot, and every time I move I'm shocked by how much crap I have. I keep getting rid of things, and somehow, in the months between when I move, I've accumulated more crap. It's disturbing, really. How much "stuff" do I really need?
And yet, I do. I do need "stuff." I'm not the richest participant in our economy, but I have an apartment, and therefore a bed, and a desk on which to place my computer and notebooks. I have shoes, and clothing, and those things need a place to go. They
could lay in a pile on the floor, but then they'd be wrinkled and dirty and my prospects in securing future employment would plummet because my appearance did not line up with that corporate culture's expectations.
If I were to relate this post to what's happening in our economy now, I would point out that the rich have always lived on credit. The landed gentry in England were always in debt to someone or other and that's why they had to "marry well," i.e. someone with more money than they had, to continue their current standard of living (thank you, last night's viewing of
Sense & Sensibility). The investment banks survived on credit for years and years. They bet big, and sometimes they won big. They had a standard to uphold, so they consumed and consumed. Eventually, though, everyone realizes that they're just tulips, and the whole thing gets blown away like a dandelion puff.
I'm rambling, but what I mean to say is that to live in this country and not live on the street or in the forest in a glade somewhere is to be a consumer, and there's no escaping it, and that makes me a little bit sad.
Labels: consumerism at its finest, sad, soapbox riot
