[MD] An Empty Stomach of Consumerism

[Peter Corteen]

I wish people in this forum would come to the point and type less!
I look at this forum everyday but cannot give enough time to read all the
posts - if you read all the posts you will read a lot of it twice over and
some even thrice as previous posts are quoted. Often, with a long post, if
I'm not grabbed within the first paragraph then I'll abandon the rest.

Perhaps consumerism is only a symptom of a deeper unease; possessiveness
exists in primitive tribes also. As Case inferred, everyone has to deal with
uncertainty; some fall back to an aesthetic life to cope and others get
respite through the constant acquisition of consumerism; for them, to buy is
to be.

Cheers

On 20/07/06, Heather Perella <spiritualadirondack at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Case,
>
>
> > [SA]
> > Even the homeless are contrasts providing how much
> > everybody else consumes
> > or how little they do.
> >
> > [Case]
> > So do you think they do this on a quota? Like, these
> > scruffy guys wake up
> > hung over every morning going, "Crap, if I'm gotta
> > show another 20 suits how
> > little I can do before noon, I better start pissing
> > in some doorways."
>
>      Not a quota.  Yet, this society, this culture
> offers a space for these people.  It is this way, so
> something has it this way.
>
> > Or maybe you mean the woman who finally gets her
> > three kids away from the
> > father who was sexually abusing them but can't
> > afford day care and a roof no
> > matter how many part time jobs she takes on. The
> > kids probably feel a lot
> > better wearing thrift store school clothes, knowing
> > they are providing a
> > much needed contrast for the SUV crowd.
>
>      Again, this culture provides a space for this to
> happen.  The culture is the mindset of a society.
> This culture provides policemen, too.  Why do we need
> policemen?  Because we have criminals.  The contrast
> is in the culture, not by these individuals thinking
> one day they want to live like this.  Maybe some do, I
> know Kurt Cobain, Nirvana lead singer who committed
> suicide, did live under the bridge before he made all
> his $ and fame.  He liked living under the bridge.
> Monks beg from door to door.  These are examples of
> intentionally living poor, poor considering how much
> most of the population strives to have more and more
> things and must consume to have a healthy economy.
> Consumerism makes for a healthy economy in this
> culture.  The more $ we have to spend and buy things
> the better off this culture is.  This consumerism is
> the mainstay or measure of how this culture thinks it
> is doing.  What is the price of oil?  What is the
> stock market doing?  These are headlines even when
> wars, poverty, and sickness plagues some parts of the
> world.  The answers to these questions are the
> interest of the U.S.  How well or poor the economy is,
> is always a top priority in political campaigns.  Up
> there with war and possible nuclear strikes.
>      The desire to have, have, have, more and more...
> the need for more and more ideas, and then just living
> was the mainstay long before Greek philosophy and
> continued on in many parts of the world until Columbus
> sailed the ocean blue.  Even after all of that, the
> spiritual world and the teachings of the old people
> still are intertwined with the daily and nightly
> activities that are real, the stories have meaning
> even when women make bread or men build houses.  When
> people in for example New Guinea make a house or kill
> a pig ceremonies that feed the mind and provide
> spiritual food also satisfy the souls.  It is not just
> a matter of buying lumber to put up a deck.  When a
> roof goes up in these less consumer oriented cultures,
> a spirit goes up, songs are sung with meanings that
> teach those spaces in our minds, hearts, and spirit
> that are present and want satisfaction that in this
> culture these spaces in our minds, etc... would be
> considered either not real, stories for children,
> and/or not factual, not practical, and thus, have no
> value for what this culture would deem reality.  Yet,
> the persistence and seeking of these spaces (mind,
> heart, spirit) that need to be dug deep inside of us
> and mean something and have a place deep inside of us,
> they are still here.  What are these deep places in
> our soul that no matter how much we avoid or believe
> to be untrue they still persist and live on misguided,
> thinking/believing that consuming a lot will satisfy
> the discontentment?  The desire is present, yet, where
> is the desire guided?  Consumerism is an empty stomach
> that does not get filled.
>      What do you think?
>
> Thanks,
> SA
>
>
>
>
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