ready to pop...

Sometimes I am tempted to make a comparison between the consumer-centered lives we live with that of David Vetter. I do this with great sensitivity, undoubtedly, because, after all, he had a tragic, incapacitating rare genetic condition called severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) that purchased for him a sterile existence in a bubble. The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, remember? For the majority of us, we are wrapped in plastic in this extensive derivation, in a sense. There is the easy parallel to a "plasticized" world - credit cards, impenetrable #6 plastics, and single serving size snacks. These are all for our convenience [except those highly dangerous packaging techniques that are used for products like batteries and Dora the Explorer dolls] and a sensation of ease. Along with the ease and the convenience, we are surrounded in a bubble of obtuseness, conscious or subconsciously. Yet this isn't always a self-imposed disregard for the reality of things, sometimes it is a habit so deeply ingrained and entrained of the acceptable and expectable procedural steps of human living that we feel neither right nor wrong at our current method of owning. Hence, a bubble.

For starters, we are far removed from the production of the things that pepper our living room buffet. Rarely do we know who stitched our pants, harvested our potatoes, bottled our soda, or installed our cable television. We are given no biographical sketch of the life of the item we are about to make our own, forgetting all together that it is even a dynamic example of living and dying, regardless if it considered an inanimate object or not. Even the most synthetic and unnatural of products have been handled with human hands, connected to real bodies that are less unlike our own than we give them credit. Although it feels like election time is all the time and we are just puppet's in some politicians imagination, we are casting ballots with fiber-like regularity. Ever dollar we spend is a check in some box, supporting an unseen crowd of profiteers and bulls in neckties. I must ease a bit at my jeering for I honestly do not believe we are a people of evil intentions and disrupted agendas. I do, though, think we are wounded wills wiggling and writhing against corruptible systems that have nothing in their periphery that resembles are "best interest". So we (collective usage) look for peace of mind in expressions of power so as to take that periphery and narrow it, in the very least, to our targeted "needs". Yet, by some strange design, the world is incomprehensible in thought which makes it easier to forget that our Gap sweaters are the long days of some other individuals in a land that hot-topic media will never advertise.

Another interesting discord is the relative ease of which we are able to acquire products. If I see something that I have a primordial drive to buy, I do and it is done. Rarely am I looking to purchase something that would require a bank statement approval, so I consult nothing but the internal compass of my daily "need". Sometimes there is little deliberation. Other incidents merit full-blown rational conversations with the Platonic form of Consumer Me. You can see there are ulterior motives involved here. I recently witnessed this in my early obsolescence managing days. At my school, an organization was set to sell reusable coffee thermoses. Immediately I commented to a friend that I would like to be the new owner of one of those shiny mugs - I mean, I fully support the travel mug as a top player in the waste management of coffee shops. Only five seconds had past in my mentation before I envisioned my hands around the metal, smiles glued on my lips and a happier an environment because of it. As quick as the imagery came in, it left in my remembrance of a little project I am undertaking here. But I was not ignorant to what transpired. Even though the reasons why I wanted to buy this particular thermos were pure and edifying to a greater cause like mother earth [that, and my philanthropists twin was eager to make an appearance], I was still battling against the truth of that matter : I did not need this coffee cup. I have one already. So in and out went that purchasing urge, yet it left in it's place something I don't really like to admit. I really am that spoiled, youngest child "gets anything she wants because she's a girl" girl. My brothers were right.

If we are in a bubble, oblivious to the pre-purchasing days of our material gains, then I figure we are in a bubble with our post-purchasing days of waste and obsolescence. In the same song and dance, we rarely think about where our garbage goes. I cannot remember the last time I visited my local landfill but I am sure no one has done that for a first date. In Kansas City I learned that roughly 80% of what finds a home in the permanent landfills is actually recyclable, an abhorring response to inconvenience, I surmise. There is this expectation that if we put our shit in a receptacle, someone else we take it away. We can't be bothered with the afterthought of our indulgences. So just like that we have little connection to the consequence of over packaging and needless consumption. If I don't want it anymore, I rid myself of it.

This reminds me of a little story called The Story of Stuff. If you have twenty minutes, I would suggest an investment in this epiphany. Even if you sense political undertones that may not piece well with that which you are comfortable with, I challenge you to at least think critically of the larger picture. It may release some built-up tension in that bubble we comfortably keep about us, just in case.

I sense there is a connection between the disposable nature we are trained to live and the way we make, keep and terminate relationships in our lives. More on this to come.

In the meantime, it feels so tiring to be in charge of consuming but never approached to be part of the creation. I think my creating crafts are craving for camera-time this year.