Consumed

Great interview with Benjamin Barber, author of the book "Consumed- How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole".

Here's one quote from Barber:

You know, everyone loves Wal-Mart as a consumer. So do I. Lots of goods, cheap prices. But it has social consequences that, as a consumers, we don't think about. We know it means low wages, it means low wages without pensions. It means wage earners who don't have proper healthcare. But, worse than that, it means the destruction of mom and pop stores. The destruction of retail. The destruction of those very little shops you were talking about that are at the heart of America's villages and towns.

Bill Moyers interviews Barber on his Journal show. Watch it here, you might get a different view of how you consume in the future.

At first, I thought you were weird...

I've heard that from several people lately. They then finish the comment with 'now I think you're onto something'.

I was talking with my Mom tonight and the whole de-materialization thing came up and she took it a step farther. She said "I thought you were nuts". She figured I'd already paid for all that stuff so why get rid of it now? I told her that I had to have a multi-thousands of square foot house to HOLD it all and that made her stop and say "I didn't think of that".

If you have stuff, you have to have a place for all that stuff too. That's a large part of the 'it's owns you' problem. Owning property as an investment is one thing, but owning a home (or homes) that are just stupidly big because you have all this 'stuff' means you have to worry about all the upkeep, the mortgage, the insurance, security, the HOA fees and the difficulty in just moving away if your neighbor is a dickhead (harder if you have to sell it instead of just handing it back to a landlord).

I've also had a few people say there were 'proud' of me. DeAnna, and old friend, told me this over lunch on Friday and my own Dad told me the same thing. When I ask 'are you going to do it?" they back off though. I understand it. It took me a couple of years of thinking about it and about 6 months to actually do (de-materializing is hard work. Seriously).

Now though, it's pretty much done. I have what I need at my fingertips and no more. If I buy something new, I get rid of sometime that it replaces. (bought some new shoes this week, took them home, took a pair of shoes I wear the least and dropped them off in the shoebox the new shoes came in at the Salvation Army).

Some habit's die hard though. My mom asked me if I wanted one of the comforters that she'd 'saved' for me when they took a bunch of my stuff away.

Mom's, it seems, will always want to make sure you're safe and warm.