intellectual properties

mountain escapism pt. 2

(this is related to part I: the yosemite trip report, but is separate enough in content to be its own post.)

“nothing is more bourgeois than being afraid to look bourgeois.”
-andy warhol.

comment in response to a long and very involved thread (see below) about some of the (sub)cultural issues in my little community. thread probably not interesting to much of the general public, but that quote is fabulous and pretty much dead on.

it also dovetails nicely from the recap of my weekend, as one of the things that was incredibly obvious, sitting on a patio of a campground where “tent cabins” are $100 a night in Yosemite valley, is that being “outdoorsy” is a hobby only afforded by the Affluent.

part of the reason we chose to do this trip now was not only because it was my birthday, because i’ve wanted to climb Half Dome for a while, and it was a less-crowded time to go to Yosemite, but also because jay and i needed to get the fuck out and spend a weekend doing something else, something outside, something away from internets and cities and parties and work and the world we live in most days.

the discussion that references the Warhol quote centers around cliquish behavior in this small community that is more or less based on fashion choices, some of which are only attainable with ample amounts of disposable income, and what that means or represents about the community’s values as a whole (valuing “hotness” over “goodness”, valuing doing something “artsy” over doing something “real”, etc.). this is, of course, a subject close to home for me, as someone who thinks a lot about what clothing means to our culture, it’s hard to get my head out of that specific thing and into what the greater issue is, because honestly: it’s not the fashion that the problem.

as my friend stephen pointed out, and with a lot of community comment, and as i have written before, particularly after burning man 2006, there is a lot of tension in my community (in simplest terms: the burning man community) as we all struggle against classism, white privilege, affluenza, and, i guess, one of the great weights of privilege, existential angst. i think this weighs heavily on all of us. what do we do with all this opportunity? all this time, all this money, all this freedom that we have as members of the American upper middle class, most of us without children? year after year it’s discussed in the burning man community: what is the best use of this context we were so lucky to have been born into?

while it is a privilege and a gift to be born into this and i’m sure many question “how can you worry about this when there is so much else to worry about in the world?”, as we’ve seen with many a celebrity who has lost it all via excess and has been culturally documented in hundreds of Great Gatsby/Less Than Zero type pieces of modern art and literature, wealth does not mean happiness, and often, it brings a great amount of stress and weight (which often also leads to apathy/ennui) to those who are conflicted about what to do with it. many a rich kid has gone down the path of excess to the point of no return, and many a person of disposable income in my community is severly conflicted about what to do with it. do you spend your hard earned dollars on hedonistic adventures like burning man, fancy clothing and travel because you deserve it? or should you be doing something else for the world, and if so, OMG – WHAT?

it’s a heavy question, and we then start to quibble and judge each other on the choices made in this context: judging those who choose to spend all this time and money on their own personal art and leisure (calling them vain and hedonistic) vs. spending it on, say, working for or developing a non-profit that services those outside of your own circle of artists/dancers/musicians. and then those who invest in art and leisure and not public service defend themselves with the (valid) argument that art is important to humanity and if it were not for art, life would be incredibly utilitarian and boring and so much beauty would be lost – and beauty does indeed have great value in this world.

these tensions start to show up in the sort of conversations that happened there – many pointed out, and on some levels i agree, that even HAVING such a lengthy discussion about such a subject as “the cool kids aren’t being nice to the not-as-cool kids on the dancefloor” is sort of silly on the surface, but stephen’s point was that the way we are treating each other within our community is symptomatic of how we treat those outside our community, outside our class, outside our culture, and that it is not good.

i’m gonna leave the discussion of that subject at that right now, but how this all ties back into our trip to yosemite is that when we were looking at photos of Half Dome earlier this summer, it looked like a frickin’ REI convention. everyone is dressed the same in the ubiquitous hiker uniform: khaki shorts, North Face fleece, hiking boots, sun hat….and often with lots of hiking-specific gear and gadgets attached to them. i realize that much of that is due to functionality, but does it have to be so predictable? isn’t there just as much of a wardrobe cult among the outdoor-gear heads as there is among the trustafarian peacocks? sitting in Yosemite Valley on Saturday afternoon watching the crowds of mostly white families herd through the campgrounds, i was hard pressed to find ANYONE who wasn’t wearing the Hiker Uniform and everyone looked Upper Middle Class. before we left, jay and i had repeatedly half-joked that we were going to wear some of our more outrageous but still entirely functional disco-camping gear to the top of half dome out of rebellion against this conformity and throw a little mini-rave when we got to the top. because the weather was so cold when we did the ascent, i wasn’t able to fully put on the outfit i had packed for that occasion, but was wearing my furry fleece hat and the bottom part of an outfit by Bad Unkl Sista. on the hike down that afternoon, i was able to wear more of a non-traditional hiking outfit, but due to wearing my backpack wasn’t able to fully buck the Hiker Uniform then either.

why so much resistance to this? why so much resistance to the “mainstream”? as i get older, as many other people can also attest, you get more and more pressure to “conform”. maintain a regular job. buy a house. get married. have kids. look normal. i guess i’m feeling that pressure more and more, not from any particular source, but just….from society…and the more i feel the pressure and am not conforming to it, the harder it is to make choices about things without feeling conflicted, especially when it ties back into this idea of the privilege/responsibility of my class. is spending our time,energy and money doing the things we’re doing just a juvenile sort of rebellion without any real impact on the real problems of the world, or is being part of a counterculture contributing to the world in a meaningful sort of way? (interesting side-link: The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can’t be jammed)

when i got back and read that quote by warhol it really struck me: is my fear of appearing to be one of the American Bourgeois – whether it’s the version that is the hikers on Half Dome or version that is the Feathered Hat Mafia at burning man – just a huge sign that i AM part of the bourgeois, and that brings so much weight i can’t deal? (this reminds me: after having a similar discussion to all of this at a campout with this subculture earlier this summer (Raindance), we had (jokingly) assigned two complementary essay topics to some of our campmates: Part I: “What is Real?” and Part II: “What’s Your Damage?”)

being out in the wilderness did nothing to resolve this for me, by the way, as i more or less opted not to think about anything much while i was out there except how beautiful it was. ah, the luxury of escapism. something else the white and privileged are really good at.

art: consumption: fashion

as i mentioned, my friends’ house burned down in tahoe earlier this week. i’ve been getting emails from them, and they’re being very zen about it. both R and J are very utilitarian and almost minimalist – not incredibly attached to possessions. they got a couple of car loads of stuff out before they had to evacuate. they didn’t take their wardrobes.
what do most people grab when their house is on fire?
photos, keepsakes, family heirlooms, pets.
i bet hardly anyone takes anything from the kitchen.
the only thing (besides the cats, obvi) i would take is my wardrobe.
i am very attached to my clothes. i have almost nothing else of value.

in this PBS series art:21 (netflix) (note: unless you’re really into art and the methods/thinking behind why people create what they create, this is probably really boring), which gives 15-20 minute glimpses into the lives of various 21st-century artists and categorizes them into themes by the way their art addresses modern life (“place”, “spirituality”, “identity”, “power”), one of the artists in the “consumption” theme (along with Matthew Barney) is Andrea Zittel, aka “A-Z Administrative Services”. during this filming, the thing she is working on is called a “pocket property” – a small floating island one could anchor offshore, sort of like a houseboat, but with the aesthetic of an island. in her interview she explained why she resorted to wearing only 2 outfits a year, which she makes herself:

“I’ve been doing this uniform project since 1991. It started because I had an office job and I was supposed to wear something respectable to work. But I didn’t have that much money and so I was thinking about how most of the time we can afford one fabulous outfit that you really love to wear. But there’s some sort of social stigma against wearing the same thing two days in a row. So I decided that, in my case, variety seemed more oppressive or restrictive than continuity. So for each season I’ll make one garment. That’s my fantasy garment or my favorite thing that I can imagine at that period in time, and then I’ll wear it every day for for six months.”

she then went on to talk about how some modern freedoms after a while begin feeling constrictive – too much choice, and the cultural expectation that you take advantage of as many of those choices as possible (particularly with fashion: if you wear the same thing every day, you’re considered fashionless) is, for some people (and some would argue for everyone), oppressive. this has been discussed at length in the press recently regarding electronic gadgets and other consumer goods — it could also be labelled affluenza.

i, of course, what with my previous statement that the only non-living thing i would save if my house were on fire would be my wardrobe, found this quite interesting – not so much that the idea was so surprising – of course fashion is oppressive – we all know that – but that she’d not only chosen to downright ignore it but to make such an extremely committed anti-fashion statement. in other cultures, this would mean almost nothing; the concept of a “wardrobe” itself is almost totally foreign, and people own only one or two changes of clothing. in our culture, however, it’s pretty powerful to say “i’m not going to buy into this.”

i’ll admit i have a consumption habit in terms of clothing. i don’t buy furniture. i don’t buy books. i don’t buy home decorations or kitchenware or anything you might find at Williams Sonoma until i absolutely need it, and then i’ll usually try to find it used a the Goodwill first. i also buy most of my clothing used, but that doesn’t mean i don’t spend more than i should on it. i spend 98% of my excess income on clothing (after debt, food and shelter). “thrifting” can be just as much a shopaholic problem as hitting the mall every payday – perhaps even moreso, because if you’re a thrifter you have to search a lot more/harder for things that that fit and that you like. i regularly hit up my favorite thrift stores by popping in for 5-10 minutes to check the racks. my wardrobe rotates rather constantly. i wouldn’t say i am necessarily “proud” of it, but given the amount of time/energy invested into it, my wardrobe is worth more than anything else i own, certainly.

i recognize that this is often a source of cognitive dissonance for me, and there are definitely moments when i FEEL what she means by it being oppressive. i certainly KNOW what she means: pressure to look good is at a ridiculous level in our culture right now, and we’ve seen the negative impacts of the fashion-consumer industry on our society in various hideous ways. i do not deny that, but for myself i’m fairly anti-consumerism when it comes to everything BUT wardrobe, and then with wardrobe i have a set of rules for what i think it’s ok for *me* to buy, and as long as i follow those rules i am ok with *my* consumption. but the thing is that for me, it’s not just consumption: it’s also expression of self. i recognize that this is not true for everyone, and i don’t expect it to be true for everyone, but it’s true for a lot of people, and i’m of the opinion that it’s sort of innate and healthy, the desire to make oneself attractive physically, or at least represent oneself in some manner or another. and with this belief and since it IS true for me, and because of my particular shopping rules/habits, it somehow seems less “bad” and more ….artistic?….than if i were just blowing money on clothes from Macy’s every month. it then becomes sort of a philosophical question: is consuming “consciously” any better than consuming mindlessly? am i just making excuses?

werk and maturity

remember the thing about G’rups, which determined that Gen X/Yers are refusing to grow up due to various changes in cultural expectations and influences? and then there was the conversation i had about how adolescent the club scene is, despite the majority of clubbers being well into adulthood, and THEN there was the article on memory that concluded “wasted youth” is no longer such a bad thing because regret is held onto long after indulgence guilt has long faded away in your mind.

so now there’s this: “…to so many peers I encounter, work is worse than a four-letter word: it is psychologically troubling, a squirming emotional sore spot they live in denial of and avoid discussing. With unsettling frequency, I find that my generation can only identify and embrace success if it stems from self-expression, to such an extent that people are numbing and abusing themselves through drink and drugs to suppress frustration and a crushing sense of failure for having a job.” — full (~via)

his theory is that the baby boomer generation was the last to have to work real hard for a living, and they were on the cusp of seeing that the World 2.0 was going to offer opportunities to NOT WORK – IF you were smart enough and had the right opportunities. formerly a privilige only for “old money” and royalty, now anyone who did the right things could work for themselves or not really work at all. think the rise of pyramid schemes and Amway in the 80s. they themselves were born a little to early to take advantage of this globalization benefit, and so from the time our generation was born, we were taught to believe that if you’re special enough and smart enough, you can find a way to get out of having a job. and, of course, all parents believe their children are special. so now that Gen X is nearing middle age, there’s this expectation that if you’re still working for The Man, you missed a turn or something. you should be working for yourself by now, either as a proprieter or an artist or by playing the stock market on the internet. working a 9-2-5 is for suckers!

in many ways, i agree. i just had a conversation the other day about how so many of our friends are self-employed, and how amazing it is. and inspiring. and, if you’re not one of them, a little depressing.

in addition to this theory of baby boomers rearing their children with these expectations, along with every American’s feeling of entitlement, i think there are definitely other factors in play in determining how the younger generations feel about working. for example, on NPR yesterday they were talking about Ford buying out over half their US workers in order to become profitable. like many blue collar union workers, these employees began working for Ford with the expectation that they’d be working there for 30 years, and then taken care of for the rest of their LIVES with big fat pensions. now, many of them, middle aged and with limited skills sets, are out of jobs and have to find new careers. my uncle worked for a factory in indiana for the past 20 some years and was recently forced into early retirement. now, despite a bad back, he’s painting houses to help pay the bills as his pension doesn’t cover his costs of living.

so, in yesteryear, going to work for The Man paid off. it meant a solid future. it meant healthcare and not having to worry about what to do when you got too old or sick to work. now, no one has that security anymore. US employers are outsourcing to asia and laying off people all the time. no one i know goes into a job thinking it’s going to be their lifelong gig. so why should we be expected to commit to working for corporations when really there’s not a whole lot of reason to anymore? why not see if you can work for yourself? if you can’t depend on a corporation to pay your pension when you’re old, why give them your youth?

so many of my friends are making their living as independent photo[url=http://www.alexanderwarnow.com/]graphers[/url], clothiers, web designers, hoopers, jewelers, massage therapists, writers, and all other kinds of trades. while i agree with a lot of what mr. ott wrote on his blog there about a shift in how we view work, and perhaps i also agree somewhat with why, i have to disagree that it’s taking the easy way out or some kind of spoiled-brat, trust-fund, bobo privilege. most of my friends work their asses off, and while i technically work for someone else, i help to run a small business, and it’s no easy feat keeping it afloat. i have to disagree with his statement that says “Ultimately, our parents’ drive to deliver a better childhood is proving a mistake, if a well-intentioned one. We are a generation embarrassed to have day jobs, embarrassed to work for a living. Embarrassed not to be kings and queens.” i think it’s just the opposite. seeing all the long years our parents and grandparents put in at factories and offices and in fields so that one day we could work less than 40 hours a week for a living, and then seeing how that turned out for them has made us realize it’s not worth it. it’s not that we are “embarassed to work for a living”. we’re embarassed to work for companies and employers that don’t care about us, that don’t care about our futures. instead, we’re taking that into our own hands, and to me, that seems pretty damned grown up.

consumer disorder

The trade group anticipates an increase of 5 percent in sales to $457 billion during the holidays, compared with a 6.1 percent increase last year. — sfgate

$457 billion.
BILLION.

in toxic, disposable, unnecessary consumer crap, while at the same time citizens decry the government for not providing health care, education, and other necessary social services. sure, that $457B will produce a significant amount of sales tax which will hopefully (not) be (mis)used on these things that need funding, but what if that money were funneled directly to schools and hospitals and libraries and community projects instead of into Playstations and flat screen TVs and overpriced goods made in 3rd world countries? what kind of world would this be? and, dare i even say it? what would jesus think of that staggering figure? would he applaud the celebration of his birthday with reckless consumer spending, or storm into Wal-Mart and start throwing shit around, a la the moneychanger incident?

this annual consumer madness is almost like a sickness. not almost – it is: affluenza. it defies logic to spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need while basic cultural and human services are struggling every day. while people are starving in our backyards, schools are shutting down, and the sick can’t afford their medications, the privileged are standing outside in line at 4:00am so they can buy a new cheap television. the fact that citizens have been taught to value commercial goods over improving their communities, that consumer culture is “the american way”, that one is entitled to these things despite their inherent toxicity and maleficence is killing us. it’s killing our planet and our society and our humanity. it’s absolutely debauched and sickening, and it makes me ill to see it celebrated on the front page of the paper like these people accomplished some kind of commendable feat.

way to go, america. stay the course.

i, on the otherhand, like last year, won’t be buying gifts and will instead make charitable contributions to local organizations that do good work. any gifts i receive i’ll just give to the goodwill, and i convinced my mom to give me cash instead of goods to a) enable me to visit my family for the holidays and b) pay off my debts, and i encourage others to do the same. if people insist on giving you things, ask them to give you cash, and then use that to do something good. who needs more crap, anyway?

please me have no regrets

much related to my post about affluenza and redefining the “American Dream”:

i spend a lot of time pondering the ways i spend my time. should i be working harder? should i be “doing something with myself” besides running around like a motley fool, participating in charades and games of hide and seek and ruminating endlessly about who i should be camping with at burning man and how might i be able to get a job with the circus?

apparently not. according to this study (download the PDF for the full study- quite interesting, with lots of charts and graphs), i’m doing it right. living it up. older generations regret working too hard and not playing enough. as older generations age and realize their regrets, “wasted youth”, previously defined as partying too hard and sleeping too much when you should have been “building your career”, has been slowly redefined as sitting in cubicles in uncomfortable clothing waiting for the clock to hit 5 and not exploring the world or partying ENOUGH.

“This article proposes that supposedly farsighted (“hyperopic”) choices of virtue over vice evoke increasing regret over time. We demonstrate that greater temporal separation between a choice and its assessment enhances the regret (or anticipated regret) of virtuous decisions (e.g., choosing work over pleasure). We argue that this finding reflects the differential impact of time on the affective determinants of self-control regret. In particular, we show that greater temporal perspective attenuates emotions of indulgence guilt but accentuates wistful feelings of missing out on the pleasures of life.”

in short: in retrospect, as time goes on, you will regret not having enough fun more than you will regret not working hard enough.

when jay and i were in michigan in may, we had a great talk with his mom and stepfather in which both of them agreed that living life to it’s fullest WHILE YOU CAN is much more important than goals pertaining to money, real estate, or professional kudos. while many parents might be dismayed at their 30 year old children being unmarried, childless, unwealthy, and uninterested in playing society’s games, both of them expressed that they were just happy that we were happy, and that most importantly, we have no regrets about the paths we’ve chosen. it was really great to hear them say that, particularly considering some of our differences in faith and lifestyle, and also so that i don’t feel like i’m just convincing myself that i’m doing the right thing so that i can keep on doing what i feel like doing. outsider affirmation is very nice to hear.

i wonder if there is a cultural shift going on with our generation in thinking this way, after seeing our parents and grandparents work decades thinking they would be happily retired only to find that come up short-changed, or if people from all generations throughout time have felt this as a personal shift once adolesence was gone for good and my crew is just starting to experience it now in our 30s. this also leads me to wonder: are “mid-life crises” coming a decade earlier now that we’ve all seen what’s coming?

i feel badly for some of my friends who seem to be lost in a high stakes game of “keeping up with joneses”, rolling the dice with mortgages and investments and half-baked marriages, spending way too many days exhausted and nights on the couch and only allowing themselves 2 or 3 weeks of vacation every year.

this is not to say that i think EVERYONE should give up their day job and join the circus. of course not. i take my day job pretty seriously and enjoy having a bit of professional satisfaction out of having my income be the result of doing work i believe in. but, regardless of your lifestyle, if you’re unhappy with your life choices, if you feel like you’re MISSING OUT, don’t let societal pressure keep you where you are. be responsible about your choices, but allow AMPLE room and time for fun, even if it means letting some of those other “responsibilities” slide for a bit.

the true American Dream, after all, is to just simply be happy.

with that said, have a GREAT 4th of july weekend, and celebrate all your american freedoms to the fullest possible extent. i know i will.

nothing: it’s what you’ve been looking for

i just ran across this again:

Af-flu-en-za n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

http://affluenza.org/
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/ – (have you seen this PBS special? i haven’t. i want to.)

the happiest people i know think the american dream – as generally defined; i know we all have our own idea – is bullshit and wrote it off as a “life goal” years ago. the unhappiest people i know are still looking for that white picket fence.

i particularly like definition #3. i was watching some interview – part of the movie “The Party’s Over”, which was really pretty good if you haven’t seen it – i think it was Billy Baldwin in the interivew, or maybe it was Eddie Vedder. .. anyway, Philip Seymour Hoffman asks him what he thinks is wrong with America in 10 words or less or something like that, and the answer was: “Americans have been fooled by prosperity”. or maybe he said “blinded by”. but the point was, Americans have been educated to associate prosperity with goodness, with truth. and, told that the pursuit of prosperity is a noble one, worth investing your life into and worth risking and taking lives over. to the point that we dont’ know when to stop, when to draw lines. to me, outsourcing jobs to asia in the name of cheaper disposable consumer goods has crossed a line. to others, it’s a global market strategy that will allow affordable goods to reach everyone in the world.

religious traditions teach quite explicitly that good people will obtain wealth, and the reason that the poor remain poor are because they are sinners and they don’t work hard enough. so America must be doing good, right, because we’re the richest and we work hard?

“addiction” is a strong word, but ask someone to stop buying things they don’t need some time, and see how hard it is for them to stop. (that someone may be you.)

i’m rambling.

anyway – affluenza. don’t catch it. live simply so that others may simply live and all that.

on philanthropy

What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?:

I used the example of walking by a shallow pond and seeing a small child who has fallen in and appears to be in danger of drowning. Even though we did nothing to cause the child to fall into the pond, almost everyone agrees that if we can save the child at minimal inconvenience or trouble to ourselves, we ought to do so. Anything else would be callous, indecent and, in a word, wrong. The fact that in rescuing the child we may, for example, ruin a new pair of shoes is not a good reason for allowing the child to drown. Similarly if for the cost of a pair of shoes we can contribute to a health program in a developing country that stands a good chance of saving the life of a child, we ought to do so.

Perhaps, though, our obligation to help the poor is even stronger than this example implies, for we are less innocent than the passer-by who did nothing to cause the child to fall into the pond. Thomas Pogge, a philosopher at Columbia University, has argued that at least some of our affluence comes at the expense of the poor.

indeed. don’t just take. give.

g’rups

Up with Grups

“This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag, with two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano….”

~via mighty.girl, who is irked by the article.

i found this article interesting because i’ve recently come into a place where i go into Old Navy not to buy anything (ohhellno), but to see what NOT to wear. i don’t actually WANT to appear as though i’m trying to look 17, or even 21, but how does one dress fashionably, or SHOP fashionably, without looking like a Gen Xer trying too hard? my recent answer to this question has been to start making my own clothes, or buying clothes that my friends make. “off the shelf” looks are so… off the shelf.

and it’s not just clothes – i completely refuse to walk around with those white iPod buds hanging out of my ears, and if you ever see me with clothing with an obvious label/brand on them, i’ll be embarassed. i’m not into looking like a young mallrat. however, according to the article, lots of other “yipsters” are, and those old conventions about “how to dress in your 30s” (as opposed to how you’re allowed to dress in your 20s), are out the window, and it’s causing confusion amongst those who like to think of humans in terms of their age, not to mention marketers and advertisers.

the article is long and goes on and on about all the various trends aka status symbols that 30-something yipsters/yindies/grups are into these days that were designed for teens&20s, so if you’re one of them who notices you and the 14 year old girl at the bus stop are wearing the same sweater from H&M, it’s of mild interest. the article also references the exactitudes project and how everyone trying to be “alternative” still ends up looking the same, which i blogged about … what? 3 years ago?

anyway, there’s a point in the article somewhere, although it’s hard to find, about generation gaps and expectations and all that….i think it’s a great thing that people in their 30s are no longer feeling forced to look/act/smell/eat/think/taste like a “grown up”. if you ask me, it’s how rock and roll has saved the world from becoming full of suburban robots. or …wait…. do they just dress differently now? i can’t tell.

the compact

out of the retail rat race:

While many people will spend countless hours this year lining up at Wal-Mart and maxing out their credit cards at Nordstrom, a small Bay Area group has declared it will do just the opposite.

About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 — except food, health and safety items and underwear.

“We’re people for whom recycling is no longer enough,” said one of the members of the fledgling movement, John Perry, who works in marketing at a high-tech company. “We’re trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, because consumer culture is destroying the world.”

They call themselves the Compact. They have a blog, a Yahoo group and monthly meetings to reaffirm their commitment to the rule, which is to never buy anything new. “I didn’t buy a pair of shoes today,” said Compacter Shawn Rosenmoss, an engineer and a San Francisco resident of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. “They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable, and I haven’t bought new shoes for a while. But I didn’t buy them. That’s a big part of the Compact — we show that we’re not powerless over our purchasing.”

Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, Craigslist, freecycle.org, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand.

interesting – i made a very similar “pact” with myself to get out of debt this year.

in order for everyone to buy things used, someone has to buy them new. if you’ve been to 2nd/3rd world countries, it’s striking how they reuse every single bit of everything.

i totally agree that america’s current “disposable society” is horrid- the amount of waste we produce is sickening and IMO morally wrong. the idea that our economy would collapse isn’t something immediate and i’m tired of that pro-capitalist/pro-disposable argument. we would certainly adapt over time and return unneeded mass-production laborers to fields of work that were more needed and are perhaps currently filled by outsourcing – so in order to sustain our economy it shouldn’t be a RESUSE only thing, but also a BUY AMERICAN and reuse thing.

as for taking jabs at the guy cuz he’s in marketing: hey – this is what he’s doing. perhaps it will change his whole way of life after a year and he will get a new job once he realizes he’s part of the problem. what are YOU doing?

more joy, less stuff

another birthday, another time to reflect.
phone calls from friends.
measuring your life’s happiness.
simplification.

http://www.wordspy.com/words/joy-to-stuffratio.asp:

You’re not really spending money when you spend money, Joe and Vicki say. You’re spending the life energy you put into earning that money. You only have so much life energy. What do you want to use it for? Commuting? Shopping sprees? Going for walks? Playing with your children? Serving your community? Taking that question seriously does wonders for one’s joy-to-stuff ratio, decreasing stuff, increasing joy.

—Donella H. Meadows, “One woman’s search for the American dream,” The News & Record, July 17, 1995

~via kottke