Conspicuos Consumption

Be advised this writing is not intended to offend or insult, but rather, to challenge.

It is, I suppose, my Kyros.
 I know, that is a rare word, huh? But it's a good one. It is Greek in origin, and is a second word employed for time. 'Chronos', being the first.
'A critical and decisive point, that, when taken boldly, becomes fateful. For example, "He who sees the helm of fate, forces fortune."
Logically, it could also be used on those various occasions of lesser importance or circumstances less grave than 'the helm of fate'. Like when people sometimes have continuing problems on this or that and when the burden or inconvenience becomes more than we are comfortable with, we make adjustments. Rather predictably, I might add.
Kyros is also a time that we like to declare ultimatums, because we have been inconvenienced, and we are not so very happy about This or That or Whatever.
I don't do ultimatums because I happened to notice that it makes people look like a jackass in the 80th percentile.
"I will Never speak to that son of a b***h again!...Ever!"
"You will Never see me in That store again, I can promise you that....."
And so on.
But a week later she is fornicating with the son of a b***h again, and I did see dude in that store. Anyway, that is another story.

What I would like to share with my fellow carbon based lifeforms today is simply something I have noticed that can't be seen from your perspective. My motivation is Gemini in nature. On the one hand, this research and writing is my hobby, and no matter what, I could never call it 'work'. That would take the fun, and, my interest, right out of it.
On the other hand, being an 'American', I am also obligated. I noticed a couple of years out of high school that the world was not progressing at all like I had anticipated. I also was enlightened on the fact that the curriculum, which is a nice big, important sounding word, was about half bullshit. If someone would have asked me back in 81' what the world would be like in 10', I would have proudly speculated that given such a long time, we could be assured that disease, war, and famine would have been eradicated.
I really believed that too. Maybe it was because the staff and other authority figures did a pretty good job of convincing me. One of the things I learned pretty young, though not at school, was that it is good to learn much. And when we are in the habit of doing so, we gain Wisdom.
Wisdom, my Grandmother told me, was shadowed by Responsibility. Thus the other half of my Gemini motivation.

So as it turns out, a whole bunch of things didn't seem right to me, from a tender age. And I was not afraid to bring it up. My questions were logical and often not welcome. Which only provoked me to deeper thinking. After many years of attempting to 'go with the flow' and having a remarkably difficult time of doing so, I finally went on a much needed vacation, a sabbatical, maybe.
I went to Mexico and it changed me. Again. I learned to live simpler, and freer. I did things that even surprised me. And it was all because of day to day impressions that were made upon my eyes and my heart.

When I first visited this one tiny fishing village, with it's cardboard shacks, dirt streets, and strange smells, I was awakened from a sort of illusion, by 3 kids.
They were playing swords or light sabers or something in the street. They were having a lot of fun. It was quite a dangerous thing they were doing, what with three sticks flying all around rather unpredictably. They were oblivious of this and screamed with delight as the sticks waved in the face of consequence.  I stood in the shade of an old oak and watched. A strange thought that has stuck with me ever since, passed my eyes.

 "How can these kids be so happy and healthy? Don't they know how poor they are?"

Immediately, I saw a piece of my own ignorance and arrogance. Because of what I was told, and erroneously had confidence in, from the history channel, classes in high school, and ads and articles everywhere about poverty, I had placed these kids in a box checked "I understand" instead of reserving the information until I could 'verify'.
I believed until that day that poor kids would be dirty, miserable, stupid, and more than likely, very mean. All of which were completely at variance with fact.
Taking this thought one step deeper, I associated their misery, again from propaganda, with lack of things.

So, now that I have lived in a veritable state of poverty for a sufficient length of time, I think it is reasonable for me to ask my fellow Americans to take a good long look at the things in their lives and world. And take an inventory. Because believe me, you are buying a lot of bullshit you don't need, and that is horribly taxing on the rest of the world, particularly in environmental terms. It also flies in the face of your constant declarations that you are the
"greatest country in the world".

At this point in the game, it's really f*****g annoying to just about everybody.

Author's Note

That ought to piss someone right the hell off. And if not, well........

Reviews

[Desert Dreamer]

This is great writing! I envy your poverty, although I would prefer to consider it a richness in something other than money. I am following a path of dwindling income, intentionally, and at one time earned a large enough income to buy anything I wanted and had plenty to spare, no longer...became discusted by many things, didn't want to participate any longer...I am still on this path and still stuck in consumerism to some degree. Loved reading this.

[Raef C. Boylan]

p.s. cheers for teaching me a new word [Kyros]

[Raef C. Boylan]

"my fellow carbon based lifeforms" - if they ever make me Prime Minister, that is how I shall begin all my speeches heh heh.

I would like to race about playing swordfight with some sticks and a bunch of kids...without getting arrested lol. Sorry, I know a remark like that is kind of missing the point of your piece, despite my meaning it 100%. But yeah, if i asked my younger cousins to join me in the garden playing stickfight they either wouldn't hear me, too absorbed in their Nintendo DS games, or would look at me with contempt, before returning to their Nintendo DS games. What does 'DS' even stand for anyway? Tsk tsk etc.

This is yet another good piece of writing, both entertaining and challenging. I could take a cop-out by saying I'm not Anerican, but it's the same thing, Western materialism, Capitalist consumption blah blah. I could live without a lot of the stuuff in my life: books, music, comedy...althout I like to think they enrich me a little as a person[?] Either way, yeah you're right. Think I need to go to Mexico.

I found the stuff you said about the education system interesting too. We're screwed because we have to learn what they teach us to be considered intelligent, when dismissing at least 70% of it in exchange for more enlightening knowledge would be a far more intelligent act. Glad you learnt that early on. It shows in your thinking.

I could read you all day, man.

p.s.
"with it's cardboard shacks, dirt streets" [its]

[Ed Hart]

poverty was a principal American export, though i understand we're starting to import it now, made in china....i've been (semi)wealthy twice and poor three times...you do the math...another good write, my friend