On this day after
Thanksgiving, with our stomachs still full of yesterday’s feasts, we will be pounded
by the siren song of unabashed consumerism. This should be
distinguished from a consumption of what we need to survive or even that which
will make us happy. Consumption is necessary for survival, consumerism is not. Indeed,
this is a particularly vicious consumerism that will draw our very identities
into question only to supply a manufactured – and inevitably costly –
replacement.
Buying Into Myths of Inadequate Lives
We will be told that our lives
cannot be happy unless we have the newest bells and whistles of technologies
with ever shorter shelf lives. This guarantees an ongoing downward spiral of
consumption of goods manufactured from rare metals and toxic plastics at great cost to the Earth.
We will
be told that people will not love us unless we demonstrate our love with the consumer
goods we have been assured will win their hearts and insure their ongoing
affection toward us. We will be told our social
gatherings will be unbearably dull without sugar and fat laden food and
beverages we will purchase for people who will arrive wearing the latest
mass-produced “fashions” and gaudy jewels pitched through the smarmiest of names
and sentimental ads.
They will come wreaking of bottled scents bearing exotic
names we are told will transport us from our pedestrian lives. And they will drive the latest earth-destroying vehicles we are told will convey
our status and reflect our fondest childhood wishes to our gatherings .
Ironically, many of us will purchase all these commodities to commemorate
the birth of a Christ-child born into poverty whose most memorable teaching
began “Blessed are the poor…”
Many of us will gladly respond
to the siren song on this Black Friday. Indeed, before the last food from our
Thanksgiving feast was stored in freezer bags and dishes were washed and put away
last night, the local consumerist cheerleading masquerading as news was already reporting
that people were beating down the doors of big box stores. Live coverage showed
shoppers frantically sprinting down store aisles to join the feeding frenzies
around bins of goods temporarily marked down to prices slightly above the cost
of production plus a modest profit.
You see, they’ve figured out
the game. The know those marked down goods in inevitably limited supplies won’t
last. Indeed, they are merely the lure ultimately designed to insure bait and
switch sales to higher priced goods once the mark downs run out and well trained consumers feel
they cannot leave the stores empty-handed.
And thus the Oracle of the gods of consumerism
was very clear last night: You, too,
should join the throngs – Do it NOW!
Our senses of inadequacy and
vulnerability have been carefully cultured by a skillful consumer advertising
industry and a hypercompetitive society which proclaims to be meritocratic but
in fact is largely stacked against the vast majority in favor of the privileged
few. Those senses of inadequacy will be pimped this day with a vengeance resulting
in a mindless orgy of acquisitiveness.
But it is a drivenness doomed
to disappointment. The truth is that there will never be enough material goods
in this world, no matter how new, improved or remarkable, to fill the holes in
our souls, those places where gratitude for lives of plenty, relationships with
the Other(s) and awareness of the good creation we share should rightly reside.
Giving Something of Value
So, why not part company with
the herd and do something countercultural this day? Why not celebrate Buy Nothing Day instead?
Why not spend the day mindfully considering the things you might actually
need rather than be pimped into confusing needs with wants artificially
cultivated by consumerist advertising? Why not consider giving things that
actually mean something this year – your time and your undivided attentiveness?
Why not put the damned cellphone away (yes, your addiction really can wait) and
be fully present with the Other(s)? Why not give yourself the gift of downtime,
time spent alone to sort your thoughts and feelings, time spent outside,
becoming newly aware of the natural world that you pass through each day
unnoticed which waits patiently to impress you with her wonders?
If you must give material
goods to show your affection (and a truly thoughtful gift – as opposed to
guilt-driven consumerist purchases – is often appreciated), why not give
something you’ve made, grown, created? How much more valuable is a gift that actually
embodies your life capital as opposed to the artificial currency in your
pocket?
And if you feel you simply
cannot spare the time and energy to do that (a real warning sign about both your time management skills and the
quality of your life), consider that there are 363 other days a year (minus
Black Friday and Christmas Day) to carefully and thoughtfully consider what you
wish to buy.
Corporations may be worried about their bottom line on Black
Friday, hoping to meet the insatiable demands of stockholders for ever greater
dividends even among profitable companies. But the stock clerks, checkout
agents, waiters and management of these establishments work year-round - many
of them working without ongoing guarantees of full-time hours and the salaries
and benefits that go with them. All of them benefit from your business
year-round. Take the time, money and life energies that you’d
spend in an orgy of ruthless hypercompetitiveness on Black Friday and spread it
out across the year.
On
this day after Thanksgiving, I wish you well. I am grateful for your reading my
thoughts and for those of you who will actually consider them. And I close with
thoughts from a Buddhist tradition which has long recognized the dangers of
materialism and attachment:
May all beings everywhere be happy
and free,
and may the thoughts, words, and
actions of my own life
contribute in some way
to that happiness and to that
freedom for all.
- Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu Sanskrit prayer of blessing for the world
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Harry
Scott Coverston
Orlando,
Florida
If the
unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it
religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most
things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
For what
does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk
humbly with your G-d? (Micah 6:8, Hebrew
Scriptures)
©
Harry Coverston 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment