Sunday, December 25

Celebration and Consumerism...Yay!

I just spent so much time writing clever things for a profile on a web site that I don't even care about and I lost it.
It was clever I tell you.
This website is called
New American Dream, and it's all about conscious living and making your own choices for living instead of living off the inertia of decisions and ideals made generations ago. It's basically giving a new thrust for it's own brand of future inertia. I think they have good intentions, don't get me wrong, but you can't just start running Mac programs on a PC. You just can't. And that's alot of what I think they're trying to do. They want to make changes, but just a little bit. They want to change just enough so that they can stay comfortable. Which reminds me of some Fiona Apple lyrics from the song Extraordinary Machine.

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes, and
I certainly haven't been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot, it's a slow climb
But I'm good at being uncomfortable so I can't stop changing all the time

I noticed that my opponent is always on the go, and
Won't go slow so's not to focus and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide as long as they go fast from whence he came
But he's no good at being uncomfortable so he can't stop staying exactly the same


I thought it was relevant.
So, an example of what I'm talking about is that this website, as well as other magazines, books, and organizations I've encountered, focus so much on what is good for you to buy, and how the things you have been buying are bad, but I think that they're completely missing the point. It's the buying, the constant consuming that's the problem. There is such a thing as an organic, free range, fair trade, local buying consumer whore. If you are buying, you are using limited resources.
But as long as people can still buy as much shit as they want, and ease their consciences a bit by making responsible product choices, then I guess we are making real progress, and real changes, and all is bright and sunny wonderful in the world.
Mostly though, I just don't like organizations telling people how to live and what to think, be they religious (the most obvious target), ecological, political, psychological, societal, cultural, gastronomical, commercial, musical, or rectal. I just don't like it. And I don't like that people are so lazy that they subscribe to these things, with barely, if any, a consideration of how they feel themselves.
Anyhow. I don't really care about this stuff really. That is one of the "clever" points I was making on my late profile. One of the little boxes that you were supposed to fill in asked "If you could, what corporate of governmental policies would you change?"
To that I said that the data available to me, and the brain available to me for processing data, are both too limited for me to know what changes I could make for the better. My scope of the big picture is far too narrow for me to anticipate what sort of repercussions would result from even the most minute change I might make. I would have to be omniscient to answer that question rightly. What might seem wrong, ugly, and appalling to me, may be a natural and necessary part of the future of this planet. As we "liberals" are so fond of saying to the "conservatives", just because it's my opinion and I believe it, doesn't mean it should be law.
So I've taken to AA mantra as my own in this regard. I am accepting the the things I can't (and maybe shouldn't) change, and I am trying to have the courage to change the things I can. And the only thing I can change, the only thing I have control over, is myself.
So I can't be bothered with the fuckedupedness of the world. It's out of my hands.
I'm just trying to have a happy life. I'm trying to be the woman of my dreams, living the life of my dreams.

Now I'm eating some Christmas dinner leftovers, and I'm feeling a little more relaxed. I was feeling a bit high strung there for a minute. I needed another dose of tryptophan to calm me down. I better write quickly. I'll soon be in a coma.
Christmas was good. Last night we had home made hot cocoa, played board games, and listened to corny Christmas songs on one of the television music channels. Then we all exchanges letters we wrote to one another. I wrote, what I think was, an especially inspired and lovely letter to James. No TV watching, not computer-ing. We just spent quality Christmas Eve family time together.
Today there was alot of eating and gift opening. I don't really care too much for gift opening. I think the gifts are so much more lovely the night before, all beautifully wrapped, sitting under the sparkley fake tree, glowing with all the anticipation of the next morning.
Then, the next morning, the gifts are all unwrapped and under appreciated, everyone is tired and maybe just a little disappointed, and all the accrued anticipation of the days leading up to then, is scattered around the living room in wads of crumpled, festively printed paper.
It's like really great sex, topped off with an orgasm that's just kind of, eh.
You know what I'm talking about.
But Christmas was good. I got a Henkel paring knife, a gift card for a cooking class at Central Market, a cook book, and a hundred dollars, with which I'll buy jeans.
Christmas with my family is tomorrow. I sense a Barnes and Noble gift card in my future.
Anyway, Zoe is getting antsy. I think she needs a walk.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

mother? is that you? i didn't die in a fire. it's been a few years. what is up my nukkah?:)


QUESS WHO?