Unabashed Consumer Materialism...
I hate when I wake up with a point to make.
I hate it more when I don't feel like I have an audience to make that point to. These are the moments I want my journal to be public.
Last night I had a conversation with my Lifepartner. She and I talked about Christmas and the amount of money we're spending, the amount we still have to spend and how in the living fuck we are going to be able to justify spending this money.
Christmas is here. Just as we finally get freed of the relentless badgering and mud-slinging screaming yelling of this years election, we're now bombarded with mindless screaming toy commercial, computers, technology, gadgets, etc. On the radio we hear normal commercials converted for Christmas Season. Stores don't mention what they sell, but dammit they're selling it earlier than I've EVER been awake in my life. They call these "DoorBusters" sales in shopping malls. I've heard of Price Buster savings and we all know Ghost Busters, but DoorBusters? Doesn't that invoke the image of peace and serenity and the teachings of Jesus? I'm not sure I see a saviour, or a menorah, or even a towering magestic pine tree.
I see a mob of unruly soccer moms and overfit grandparents, waking up well before the crack of dawn, smashing glass doors down in a stampeding effort to grab any and everything that someone might want just because it's on sale. Door is officially busted. Smash and grab and get two cause someone might want one and not make it here, or even better, get 3 and sell one on EBay for it's actual MSRP cause people will pay any amount for anything just to have it. Cause we need more stuff. We can never have enough shit. Until I have more shit than you have I'm gonna need to get a bunch more shit.
Has anyone here NOT seen the video of two women, seemingly upscale and decorous actually fist-fighting over the last *insert rare-trendy-underpriced-obviously-high-demand-gift here* in some store where the cameras can catch our total unabashed descent into consumerism? We've seen it. Repeatedly, and some of us, live and in color. We've seen it, though occasionally the women are older, younger, richer, poorer, blacker, browner, and even, honestly, Men. We've seen it and we've all asked ourselves the same question.
No, not, "How did we get to this complete and total NEW LOW in our collective conscious?" Nope, we ask ourselves, "I wonder what they were fighting over?" Cause it's interesting to know what provoked these seemingly normal suburban gin bottles to become a Springer Show. Actually, no again. We want to compare our own debauchery.
Were they fighting over something I'd fight over?
Would I smack a bitch for the last tickle me elmo?
Would I whoop someone over a plasma TV?
Would I end up on NBC5 at 10 with a handful of hair and a bloody nose for that item for that price?
Eventually, on a linear curve, the answer will always become yes. If you're giving something valuable enough away cheap enough we all let our inner Iron Mike's out for a little one on one with another person.
I sit around and PRIDE myself on NOT buying into that idea. I am above consumerism and materialism and monetary wealth. I'm a humanist and a $6 million bra makes me a little queasy thinking of all the starving poor children you could feed. I don't buy into super-luxury boats, or super TV's or Hummers, or ANYTHING that I don't need. Dammit, ERIN HENNESSEY doesn't even own a single piece of furniture that she's bought for herself.
But I have a $400 phone.
I have a $2500 Super Computer, bought SOLELY for the purpose of??? The fact that it's SO FUCKING COOL, and it has a 24" FLAT LCD MONITOR!!! It doubles as my TV and my DVD and my Cable box. It's amazing and I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!
I'm not sure if everyone here knows, but I do know some of you are ALL too familiar with the story of the Sebring. It's the car I couldn't afford. For a while, that fucking car took my whole check, plus part of my next check to pay for. There were times, even while I worked that I couldn't make the payments and afford GAS! But I scrimped and saved and -guilted my parents into making the payments- to keep the goddamn thing. Cause I HAVE TO HAVE IT?
Do I have to have a Sebring? A Sidekick 3? A SuperComputer? A new Cannon DS 200 Proshot SLR? Nope. The material is totally insignificant.
I, Erin, have to have the best. I have to have the best car, phone, computer, shoes, and anything else, anyone else has, I have to have the best, the better and the usually more expensive. Cause that makes me more worthy, more viable. I can email and surf the internet while away from the supercomputer, then come home and see what I've done. I can drive and talk, hands free, or listen to music and stop and take a 6MP picture of something lovely on the way home from my job where I make... Well, sufficed to say probably more than you'd imagine.
In reality, on the surface, under the brush strokes and the pretty little painting I have going on, I am complete.
I have a new apartment, nice electronics, "I had it all. I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was close to being complete. " I have a great phone, and am working on stopping the furniture fiasco of NON-ownership... up to and including the ability to make a statement from the starting gate!!! "I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"
I have a great car, that has almost bankrupted me, almost been repoed and almost cost more than my fucking rent!!!
I have a White collar, corporate, sit on my ass and occasionally think job that affords me health insurance, tax incentives, retirement and FINALLY... Fringe benefits that I didn't know existed.
But really, do I love any of it? Do I feel better finding the Shower Curtains that sum up the "Erin" in a spray of colors and patterns? Does anyone ever walk into an apartment and think "I love this person because of her amazing Photoprinter?" What in the fucking hell do my goddamn shoes have to do with me as a person? What the fuck do I care if I can multi task on my phone?
Why do i give a big shit? I don't like what I do. It bores me. I sit around and try to surf until I'm inspired to write something here! I sit until I'm provoked to provoke. I still sleep at my mom's cause I wanna be with my mom. I have on gym shoes with holes in them cause I love them, not cause they look cool, and I never wear the $300 perfect dress shoes that went perfect with the outfit and defined my personality, perfectly. As a matter of fact, the last time I wore the outfit, I wore the shoes for 1% of the time. Then I carried them.
Yesterday I hit rock bottom. Yes, ROCK BOTTOM. Let me tell you what happened. This is how I came face to face with my intense overactive self consumerism.
I am Jack's overinflated sense of Self-Importance
While on the phone with Aimee, discussing Christmas I offered to help her out. I offered to pick up a few things for her so she doesn't work herself into a coma. I offered to lend money, wrap presents, or do whatever it takes to make her Christmas easier. I started thinking of my own gift buying and SUDDENLY in all my excess I felt I was underdoing Christmas. I felt like I wasn't giving enough and I began to panic. My first instinct wasn't to promise myself I'd begin looking for more thoughtful gifts, or that I was still OK and Loved regardless of what section of my pay went to others stuff this holiday. Nope, my first instinct was
I can forgo paying my car payment and shop more...
Cause the more I give, the more people love me. The more I spend the more it shows my love for them, the more I do the more they need the more I give the better friend I become!!! I can send everyone a car and everyone will think I'm the GREATEST!!!
I'll get my mom something wonderful and expensive, and I'll buy for everyone and do everything and I'll be the BEST! Which will be important to remember, that I was the best, so as soon as they unnail me to the cross I can remind everyone what I did for them.
That, my dear friends was the low point.
Then, it got worse.
Two weeks ago, I turned 28 and decided that I'd grow up. No, I wouldn't do this rapidly or hastely, jumping into adulthood, rather sticking a toe into it and seeing if it was really as cold as I fear it will be. I arranged the apartment, I started a budget and I began throwing myself into tieing up life loose ends I needed tied.
At this birthday, I received the greatest gift I've ever been given. Ever. Hands down.
(Please bear in mind that I've been given cars, a house, tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry and several expensive pets in my life, so to call this the GREATEST gift is really, well, impressive.)
This gift was a cookie jar. It was actually 2 cookie jars. Yes, one was a penguin, which I do think defines me as a person, but it was also a red cookie jar. I don't like the color red.
When the jar opened there were at LEAST 365 rolled up pieces of paper, miniscule in size, wrapped in different colored ribbons. Each piece of paper unfurled to show a small quote or memory regarding my friendship with Aimee. I have no idea what this cost, and she has no idea the value. Each day, I open one of those little rolls and read something that makes me choke up. Each day, I'm reminded of just how special she thinks I am. Each day, no matter what wake up knowing that I am loved. No amount of money, no amount of spending, no purchasable gift in the history of the world could duplicate that feeling like that cookie jar does.
I have spent thousands buying presents for people. I have spent hours shopping for people looking to find the perfect gift to make someone feel like I felt when I saw this and realized the magnitude of this present. That is my problem. That is OUR collective problem.
I'm looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I'm looking to solve a problem I can't identify and when I realize what the problem is, I'm unable to solve it properly so I hide my inadequacy in material goods.
The cell phone. Here's an example. I hated my Nokia 3220. I've come to realize why I hated the Nokia. Not because of any inherent fault of the phone, but because each time it would ring, it wasn't the person I wanted to talk to. It wasn't Mr. On again Off again... It was always someone else. My phone would ring and it wouldn't be him. I objectified my phone to take the anger I felt toward him, for being a douche bag. The phone did exactly what it was supposed to do, and then some. It made calls, it received calls and it even took pictures, recorded voices and was totally customizable. It wasn't a bad phone. Tom's just a dick.
He started calling in September and all was good. He called when I had the Nokia and then SK3. It didn't matter. He doesn't call now, and I'm getting fed up with my phone. I'd get pissed at my mom for calling cause when I'd see her name on the caller ID instead of his, the few small hopes I'd gotten up were crushed, again.
I am not me.
I'm defined by my posessions.
I'm consumed by a persona I want to portray. Smart, together, successful, connected and independent because I think that's what people want me to be. I don't care that I'm living a total lie, with a heart that pounds for more-different-changing lifestyles than what I have.
I cannot decorate like Nick, cause, though she is who she is and that is who she has ALWAYS been, I keep changing, trying on new persona's until someone justifies one of them and I can stay there -until something else makes me change direction again.
I have a good grasp of who I'd like to be and who I want to be and it seems they will never root into who I really am. Perhaps if I could discover who I am without the clutter of my projections, or my material getting in the way I could drop the vanity and concentrate on more important things.
I don't know where I got the idea that money made a damn difference. Everyone I know is poor. My friends are all poor, my family, the people I associate with are poor and we all sit around thinking, well, I'm not as poor as them. What's wrong with being poor? What's wrong with not having a lot of shit? Why do we feel like we have to apologize for our finances?
Why do we make grandiose claims about family members who aren't poor and who still don't ever contribute to our well being, or do and make us feel shitty about it?
I'm tired of this.
If I get anything from anyone for Christmas, anything that costs money, I swear to God I'll shatter it. The real present will be the destruction of the ideal that something of value, real honest value can be purchased. It can't.
I love Christmas eve, and Christmas lights, and Decorating and laughing and wrapping and everything but shopping. I want to love the holiday and not open a goddamn thing. Give me a few wrapped empty boxes. Help me remember.
Take your kids to a soup kitchen. Take them to a zoo. Take them away from the TV they're being plugged into so they keep quiet. If you must present a gift, try buying your goddamn kids a book. If for no other reason, buy them a book so you can be amused at the look on their faces when they open it and try to shove it in the DVD // PS3 // Microwave. That, my friends is art.
Oh, and Don't ever read a single word written by Chuck Palahniuk. Never, ever ever, otherwise, you become me. And I'm at rock bottom.
I'll have more when I get home. I can post from there, since they just installed my high speed modem and digital cable.
-dies-
I hate it more when I don't feel like I have an audience to make that point to. These are the moments I want my journal to be public.
Last night I had a conversation with my Lifepartner. She and I talked about Christmas and the amount of money we're spending, the amount we still have to spend and how in the living fuck we are going to be able to justify spending this money.
Christmas is here. Just as we finally get freed of the relentless badgering and mud-slinging screaming yelling of this years election, we're now bombarded with mindless screaming toy commercial, computers, technology, gadgets, etc. On the radio we hear normal commercials converted for Christmas Season. Stores don't mention what they sell, but dammit they're selling it earlier than I've EVER been awake in my life. They call these "DoorBusters" sales in shopping malls. I've heard of Price Buster savings and we all know Ghost Busters, but DoorBusters? Doesn't that invoke the image of peace and serenity and the teachings of Jesus? I'm not sure I see a saviour, or a menorah, or even a towering magestic pine tree.
I see a mob of unruly soccer moms and overfit grandparents, waking up well before the crack of dawn, smashing glass doors down in a stampeding effort to grab any and everything that someone might want just because it's on sale. Door is officially busted. Smash and grab and get two cause someone might want one and not make it here, or even better, get 3 and sell one on EBay for it's actual MSRP cause people will pay any amount for anything just to have it. Cause we need more stuff. We can never have enough shit. Until I have more shit than you have I'm gonna need to get a bunch more shit.
Has anyone here NOT seen the video of two women, seemingly upscale and decorous actually fist-fighting over the last *insert rare-trendy-underpriced-obviously-high-demand-gift here* in some store where the cameras can catch our total unabashed descent into consumerism? We've seen it. Repeatedly, and some of us, live and in color. We've seen it, though occasionally the women are older, younger, richer, poorer, blacker, browner, and even, honestly, Men. We've seen it and we've all asked ourselves the same question.
No, not, "How did we get to this complete and total NEW LOW in our collective conscious?" Nope, we ask ourselves, "I wonder what they were fighting over?" Cause it's interesting to know what provoked these seemingly normal suburban gin bottles to become a Springer Show. Actually, no again. We want to compare our own debauchery.
Were they fighting over something I'd fight over?
Would I smack a bitch for the last tickle me elmo?
Would I whoop someone over a plasma TV?
Would I end up on NBC5 at 10 with a handful of hair and a bloody nose for that item for that price?
Eventually, on a linear curve, the answer will always become yes. If you're giving something valuable enough away cheap enough we all let our inner Iron Mike's out for a little one on one with another person.
I sit around and PRIDE myself on NOT buying into that idea. I am above consumerism and materialism and monetary wealth. I'm a humanist and a $6 million bra makes me a little queasy thinking of all the starving poor children you could feed. I don't buy into super-luxury boats, or super TV's or Hummers, or ANYTHING that I don't need. Dammit, ERIN HENNESSEY doesn't even own a single piece of furniture that she's bought for herself.
But I have a $400 phone.
I have a $2500 Super Computer, bought SOLELY for the purpose of??? The fact that it's SO FUCKING COOL, and it has a 24" FLAT LCD MONITOR!!! It doubles as my TV and my DVD and my Cable box. It's amazing and I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!
I'm not sure if everyone here knows, but I do know some of you are ALL too familiar with the story of the Sebring. It's the car I couldn't afford. For a while, that fucking car took my whole check, plus part of my next check to pay for. There were times, even while I worked that I couldn't make the payments and afford GAS! But I scrimped and saved and -guilted my parents into making the payments- to keep the goddamn thing. Cause I HAVE TO HAVE IT?
Do I have to have a Sebring? A Sidekick 3? A SuperComputer? A new Cannon DS 200 Proshot SLR? Nope. The material is totally insignificant.
I, Erin, have to have the best. I have to have the best car, phone, computer, shoes, and anything else, anyone else has, I have to have the best, the better and the usually more expensive. Cause that makes me more worthy, more viable. I can email and surf the internet while away from the supercomputer, then come home and see what I've done. I can drive and talk, hands free, or listen to music and stop and take a 6MP picture of something lovely on the way home from my job where I make... Well, sufficed to say probably more than you'd imagine.
In reality, on the surface, under the brush strokes and the pretty little painting I have going on, I am complete.
I have a new apartment, nice electronics, "I had it all. I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was close to being complete. " I have a great phone, and am working on stopping the furniture fiasco of NON-ownership... up to and including the ability to make a statement from the starting gate!!! "I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"
I have a great car, that has almost bankrupted me, almost been repoed and almost cost more than my fucking rent!!!
I have a White collar, corporate, sit on my ass and occasionally think job that affords me health insurance, tax incentives, retirement and FINALLY... Fringe benefits that I didn't know existed.
But really, do I love any of it? Do I feel better finding the Shower Curtains that sum up the "Erin" in a spray of colors and patterns? Does anyone ever walk into an apartment and think "I love this person because of her amazing Photoprinter?" What in the fucking hell do my goddamn shoes have to do with me as a person? What the fuck do I care if I can multi task on my phone?
Why do i give a big shit? I don't like what I do. It bores me. I sit around and try to surf until I'm inspired to write something here! I sit until I'm provoked to provoke. I still sleep at my mom's cause I wanna be with my mom. I have on gym shoes with holes in them cause I love them, not cause they look cool, and I never wear the $300 perfect dress shoes that went perfect with the outfit and defined my personality, perfectly. As a matter of fact, the last time I wore the outfit, I wore the shoes for 1% of the time. Then I carried them.
Yesterday I hit rock bottom. Yes, ROCK BOTTOM. Let me tell you what happened. This is how I came face to face with my intense overactive self consumerism.
I am Jack's overinflated sense of Self-Importance
While on the phone with Aimee, discussing Christmas I offered to help her out. I offered to pick up a few things for her so she doesn't work herself into a coma. I offered to lend money, wrap presents, or do whatever it takes to make her Christmas easier. I started thinking of my own gift buying and SUDDENLY in all my excess I felt I was underdoing Christmas. I felt like I wasn't giving enough and I began to panic. My first instinct wasn't to promise myself I'd begin looking for more thoughtful gifts, or that I was still OK and Loved regardless of what section of my pay went to others stuff this holiday. Nope, my first instinct was
I can forgo paying my car payment and shop more...
Cause the more I give, the more people love me. The more I spend the more it shows my love for them, the more I do the more they need the more I give the better friend I become!!! I can send everyone a car and everyone will think I'm the GREATEST!!!
I'll get my mom something wonderful and expensive, and I'll buy for everyone and do everything and I'll be the BEST! Which will be important to remember, that I was the best, so as soon as they unnail me to the cross I can remind everyone what I did for them.
That, my dear friends was the low point.
Then, it got worse.
Two weeks ago, I turned 28 and decided that I'd grow up. No, I wouldn't do this rapidly or hastely, jumping into adulthood, rather sticking a toe into it and seeing if it was really as cold as I fear it will be. I arranged the apartment, I started a budget and I began throwing myself into tieing up life loose ends I needed tied.
At this birthday, I received the greatest gift I've ever been given. Ever. Hands down.
(Please bear in mind that I've been given cars, a house, tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry and several expensive pets in my life, so to call this the GREATEST gift is really, well, impressive.)
This gift was a cookie jar. It was actually 2 cookie jars. Yes, one was a penguin, which I do think defines me as a person, but it was also a red cookie jar. I don't like the color red.
When the jar opened there were at LEAST 365 rolled up pieces of paper, miniscule in size, wrapped in different colored ribbons. Each piece of paper unfurled to show a small quote or memory regarding my friendship with Aimee. I have no idea what this cost, and she has no idea the value. Each day, I open one of those little rolls and read something that makes me choke up. Each day, I'm reminded of just how special she thinks I am. Each day, no matter what wake up knowing that I am loved. No amount of money, no amount of spending, no purchasable gift in the history of the world could duplicate that feeling like that cookie jar does.
I have spent thousands buying presents for people. I have spent hours shopping for people looking to find the perfect gift to make someone feel like I felt when I saw this and realized the magnitude of this present. That is my problem. That is OUR collective problem.
I'm looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I'm looking to solve a problem I can't identify and when I realize what the problem is, I'm unable to solve it properly so I hide my inadequacy in material goods.
The cell phone. Here's an example. I hated my Nokia 3220. I've come to realize why I hated the Nokia. Not because of any inherent fault of the phone, but because each time it would ring, it wasn't the person I wanted to talk to. It wasn't Mr. On again Off again... It was always someone else. My phone would ring and it wouldn't be him. I objectified my phone to take the anger I felt toward him, for being a douche bag. The phone did exactly what it was supposed to do, and then some. It made calls, it received calls and it even took pictures, recorded voices and was totally customizable. It wasn't a bad phone. Tom's just a dick.
He started calling in September and all was good. He called when I had the Nokia and then SK3. It didn't matter. He doesn't call now, and I'm getting fed up with my phone. I'd get pissed at my mom for calling cause when I'd see her name on the caller ID instead of his, the few small hopes I'd gotten up were crushed, again.
I am not me.
I'm defined by my posessions.
I'm consumed by a persona I want to portray. Smart, together, successful, connected and independent because I think that's what people want me to be. I don't care that I'm living a total lie, with a heart that pounds for more-different-changing lifestyles than what I have.
I cannot decorate like Nick, cause, though she is who she is and that is who she has ALWAYS been, I keep changing, trying on new persona's until someone justifies one of them and I can stay there -until something else makes me change direction again.
I have a good grasp of who I'd like to be and who I want to be and it seems they will never root into who I really am. Perhaps if I could discover who I am without the clutter of my projections, or my material getting in the way I could drop the vanity and concentrate on more important things.
I don't know where I got the idea that money made a damn difference. Everyone I know is poor. My friends are all poor, my family, the people I associate with are poor and we all sit around thinking, well, I'm not as poor as them. What's wrong with being poor? What's wrong with not having a lot of shit? Why do we feel like we have to apologize for our finances?
Why do we make grandiose claims about family members who aren't poor and who still don't ever contribute to our well being, or do and make us feel shitty about it?
I'm tired of this.
If I get anything from anyone for Christmas, anything that costs money, I swear to God I'll shatter it. The real present will be the destruction of the ideal that something of value, real honest value can be purchased. It can't.
I love Christmas eve, and Christmas lights, and Decorating and laughing and wrapping and everything but shopping. I want to love the holiday and not open a goddamn thing. Give me a few wrapped empty boxes. Help me remember.
Take your kids to a soup kitchen. Take them to a zoo. Take them away from the TV they're being plugged into so they keep quiet. If you must present a gift, try buying your goddamn kids a book. If for no other reason, buy them a book so you can be amused at the look on their faces when they open it and try to shove it in the DVD // PS3 // Microwave. That, my friends is art.
Oh, and Don't ever read a single word written by Chuck Palahniuk. Never, ever ever, otherwise, you become me. And I'm at rock bottom.
I'll have more when I get home. I can post from there, since they just installed my high speed modem and digital cable.
-dies-