I read this
article in the New York Times magazine today and it got me thinking. That last sentence is especially chilling. "For too many people, the cycle of craving and debt that drives our treadmill existence simply can’t be broken."Should I really pity the Joneses' because they are trapped in a merciless cycle, unable to regulate their impulses...?
Or do I fear them because bullets always trump gold. If people really have issues with impulse control, best not to flaunt. And by flaunt, not even mention that you don't have the same issues they do.
Bad times means that when the cycle of that fever breaks it will be a miserable desperate situation for too many people. I wonder how many people that is ... and are they all concentrated in New York City?
June 21st, 2010 at 01:58 pm 1277128736
June 21st, 2010 at 04:53 pm 1277139194
"I AM what I wear. I AM which width lapel I am wearing. I AM the best shoes I could find. I AM the earring that glitters but not too gaudily on my ear. I AM what I drive. I AM what level of cleanliness or dentedness that car has.
I AM what I decorate my house with. I AM the sophisticated color I recently re-painted my dining room. I AM what I eat. I AM what activities my children do in the off school hours. I am the $30 water bottles they carry to sports practice. I AM the fresh faces my children have because of the hair cuts and styling & grooming products and services I buy them.
I AM my exquisitely threaded eyebrows. I AM my hard, medium-long, polished nails. I AM what square footage house I live in. I AM a well stocked home library. I AM my cool home theater. I am my state-of-the-art, perspiration-wicking, seamless, aerodynamic bicycling clothes.
I AM my golf clubs--the ones I upgraded too this year, not the crude ones I used for some years before that. I AM my glasses-free lasik-eyed, youthful face. I AM my freshly stained two story back yard deck with matching perimeter fence. I AM my Italianate bombe table in the vaulted entry hall of my home and also the studied vignette of mercury glass lamp, basket of knick knacks, and art print from TJ Maxx which sit on that table.
There is just so much to me. I am a complex, fascinating person. I can tell this is true because I CAN BUY so much that tells me that I AM somebody. I AM worth your respect. I consume, therefore I AM.
What?! Where's my job?! My money?! How can I be a real person if I cannot buy like I am meant to? Consumption makes you real, dear Velveteen Bunny. Perhaps I will just have to take your stuff. It would be to save my life, you know. If I don't continually renew my stuff, I will die, evaporate, roll up in a miserable ball, shrivel nastily and vanish."
June 21st, 2010 at 04:55 pm 1277139339
June 21st, 2010 at 05:02 pm 1277139728
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 pm 1277211340