“It’s a happy pursuit, the inscription of oneself” – Dr Haggard from Dr Haggard’s disease by Patrick Mcgrath
When I hear humans describe ‘consumerism’, I imagine nostrils flaring as things get sucked as they inhale and consume.
Such an ugly word Consumerism. Yet I guess it’s an appropriate term. The idea of being a ‘consumer’ consumes me with repulsion.
I picture plastic bottles being squeezed in sync with a human sigh of desperation for more.
I went through a phase where I’d listen to podcasts about topics that essentially amounted to the politics of consumerism and ‘consumerist’ rights. I always felt a twinge of discomfort when I heard them say the words, “We the consumers”, or “Our consumerist rights” because all that played in my imagination was a reel where peoples nostrils opened up and consumed without thought.
The irony is that by listening to a podcast about these things, I was consuming media they produced and so my own nostrils were doing the same thing.
And that is what repulses me the most in the end, that no matter how much I hate the idea, I am a consumer! What I’ve often found ironic about people like myself who shit on the idea of so-called ‘consumerism’ is that we’re often just as much a consumer as everyone else. You see it behind these peoples back on their youtube videos while they talk about the ills of society and this wretched world of the constant need for ‘goods’.Yet behind them, they’ll have a mess of nonsense stuff that comes to no use whatsoever other than for aesthetic purposes.
But perhaps I’m expecting too much on the part of people who see the ills of this world while also taking part in it.
It’s something I find myself doing a lot when on the youtubes. I find it absolutely fascinating to see the interior of the room they’re filming in, the objects they have on their shelves and the things they have hung on their walls. Some of them like to make it appear as if they just simply put their camera on and roll with it, but I suspect even they take some care as to what can be seen in the background.
To some extent, i guess I idealise the idea of merely leaving society and going off-grid, living in a log cabin and ultimately having that self-sufficiency to survive on one’s own without help.
Unfortunately, I’m not deluded enough to believe I could manage this feat. The woods aren’t wheelchair friendly for one, or very friendly to anyone who uses walking aids for that matter, not to mention all the medication I need just to be alive.
I guess I am just another consumer after all.
