Consumer Nation

As much as I'd love to comment more on the obesity of America and their fat, fat, fat belly folds, I've chosen to dwell on a finer sense of consumption. The kind that involves a purchase or in some cases, theft.

The holiday season is approaching quickly and despite whatever economic problems this country may be in, or headed towards, people are going to buy hams, yams, Christmas and Chanukah presents, and a whole host of other products that will serve as vessels for the spirit of giving. Or the spirit of greed. Or the spirit of mindless buying instigated by advertisers, marketeers, and corporate scum. That took a little turn, now didn't it?

It's not that I have anything against purchasing this or that but I can't help but feel like today's society is definitely in an unstoppable whirlwind of unnecessary spending. Granted, we need to buy certain items: food, shelter, toilet paper, concert tickets. But what about excessive clothes, rhinestone studded thong underwear, tattoos, belly dances, pleather, electronic doodads -- the list goes on. I know it's fun to buy things and all that jazz but why are countless people running up behemoth amounts of credit card debt, buying things they can't afford, taking loans they can't pay back, and allowing more and more houses to fall into foreclosure? Why can't people stop wasting money? What is this unstoppable urge to continuously spend beyond our means?

Before the monetary system, people still worked hard but they relied on barter between products and services. In my opinion, it was a more simplistic time where people were more involved with each other rather than this overly separated culture that we've fallen into. Now everyone has a "thing" to work for rather than someone to work for. With barter, there's more of a relationship and it feels more like you're working for a person. With the current system, you may work for someone but in reality, you're working for that paycheck. Why do we work so hard for that piece of paper? So we can spend it. Why do we care so much about this piece of paper? Because we're selfish.

In the eyes of this corporate society, we are nothing more than dancing lemmings trapped in a consumer nation. The focus of everything is to try and get us to buy this, or rent that, or lease this, or layaway that. I feel like a common whore except I'm not getting paid. Whatever happened to the true essence of living? How did it become this disarray of clustered buyers wandering around stores and online shops like mindless zombies? I like zombies but sooner or later, they have to get shot in the head.

The funny thing is that there's nothing we can really do about it. Sure, we can come to some conclusion and step outside the box but eventually, we'll be back in the store, buying chocolate covered banana chips and leg warmers. We don't need all that much but it takes serious dedication to revert to an older and simpler style of life and let's face it, we're lazy and comfortable. That's why today I'll buy something I think I need and tomorrow you'll convince yourself that that one thing you want more than anything else will complete you. Lie to yourself all you want. I don't mind. It's just nice to step outside the box every so often and see how manipulated we as humans can be.

Work, get paid, consume, repeat.

Monday

Unlike the ominous glowing orb that rises in the east each morning with its two scoops of boulder sized raisins, I do have a choice of whether or not to get up and show my face to the world. Yes, I know, it feels like we have things we must disrupt our natural process of rest for but in reality, we don't. It's all choice: work, leisure, sex (which can be considered leisure I suppose), school, interpretive dance class, housekeeping, gardening, driving, gratuitous violence, spying, creating artificial accidents, and what have you. The only things we have to do are consume fuel and defecate. Although we can starve ourselves, sooner or later we will let loose in our pants. But rest assured, you don't "have to" clean up after yourself. But I digress.

Today is Monday and I find myself at work, wondering why in God's good name I am subjecting myself to this unholy occupation of time. My job has one hundred percent nothing to do with what I love, my dreams and ambitions, or what I ultimately want to do with my life. I don't have to go in. But then again, I don't need a cell phone, or a car, or those one point five ounce each calf implants that are guaranteed to get me laid. What a conundrum. For some reason I continually show up -- Monday after Monday. And I never fail to question my true motivation. It's simple really.

Monetary Satisfaction. Self Indulgence. Retardation.

It's my own fault. It's my inherent wanting of eternally useless material and product that direct how I experience the majority of my life and where I choose to do the majority of my daydreaming while practicing the art of escapism. Unfortunately, when I snap back to reality, it's always the same disappointment.

"But what am I doing this for?" I say.
"Money, you dolt."
"But I don't need it."
"You're right."
I vainly add, "But I want it."
"But you're not seeing the big picture."
"But what is the big picture?" I ask.
"The fact that you can't say anything without using 'but' as a preface. That's your problem."
"Not-uh."
"You're an excuse machine. You make excuses to obtain what you want rather than what you need. Your tunnel vision is blinding you. All these sentences have one common problem. You."
"But why are we fighting now?"

I rest my case.

Here's the thing -- gold will only get you so far but at the end of the road, it's a worthless piece of metal on a giant rock floating in the middle of what is mostly incomprehensibly vast empty space. Think about how matter is mostly empty space. Every "thing" you see is made of mostly nothing. I'm talking about the atomic level if critical thinking isn't your strong suit.

Everything is mostly nothing.

That's profound and that's the conclusion I come to when I'm at work. All this work is for nothing in the end. But I show up and I suffer physical pain, mental disturbance, and emotional feelings I wouldn’t feel otherwise if I were sitting my the pool, sipping mojitos while getting an oily foot rub from an illegal immigrant.

So I keep in mind that I am weak and constantly let myself succumb to the ridiculous social order that we have come to. It's rather amazing to think that out of all the possibilities for society to turn out, this is what we got. There's a reason for that. This is obviously not what we wanted. It's what we needed.

We need everything made up of mostly nothing because if we had been given nothing, we would have everything and crave nothing, and life just wouldn't be as fun.