internal management

Although my words have been away, my commitment has not. I have kept diligently to the ways of obsolescence management since I last wrote, communing with my higher ideals on issues of consumerism and being consumed.

In early March, I set prints of my feet abounding in the city of Seattle. To celebrate another break in the academic world, I answered the pleading requests of my travel intuition and finally took a trip to a land I knew was destined to feel like home. The choice to travel was easy, the mode of transport was not. I attempted, unsuccessfully, to travel by land with the familiar buses of greyhound. In a series of slightly nondescript events, a vague sense of opposition to the 35 hour bus ride arose in me. Commute by train was never a plausible option and neither was gassing up my own mid-size Ford machine to make the cross-country excursion. So, I finally succumbed to the air. Not that I oppose travel by plane absolutely, I just recognize the insane amount of resources needed to get me from starting to end point. I assuaged my own apprehension by purchasing an itinerary that didn't involve a quick trip to Atlanta, GEORGIA [see map] before heading west-bound. This inefficient system of the airlines doesn't bode well for increased consumer confidence in plane travel. All the same, I attribute my choice in the flying method to some of the most noteworthy experiences of my spring break. Perhaps the most memorable, and fitting for this outfit, was the chance meeting of me and William M.

William M. is the musical director the Church of Stop Shopping, a la Reverend Billy Talen. I first became aware of this political activist group last Christmas season with the release of What Would Jesus Buy?, a Morgan Spurlock documentary about the woes of mindless overconsumption and empty relationships burdened by unnatural materialism. It followed the Church on a one-month cross-country tour, ending in Disney World on Christmas morning. Obsolescence management '08 began the fertilization process under the direct influence of this documentary and a few choice experiences that followed shortly after. William and I met waiting for a bus at the Seattle airport. It was uncomfortably late in the night for me to be making harmless chat with strangers. I consider myself an available person at most times to situations like these, yet I chose to play the scene a bit more cautiously. Although we boarded the same bus, we parted ways without a second thought in my mind. William and I met again at our shared hostel downtown Seattle. We both laughed at this coincidence and I sensed the world getting smaller by the second. The small talk that resulted was enough to sustain a further conversation the next morning at breakfast, where we met for the third, unplanned, time. Upon this meeting, I learned of his fame. It was difficult for me to contain the natural, albeit partially awkward, excitement to this news. I knew of the Church, I supported the mission. I even participated in a small mimicry of their mission in my own town, just days before Christmas [my friends and I did some anti-caroling at a popular shopping area, encouraging patrons to spend time, not money]. This had to be enough to make a friendly connection. I was not disappointed. Later that day, I joined the choir at their performance on the University of Washington campus and took in actively the powerful message of this comical group. A late dinner was shared even. William and Co and myself belonged to a community of believers that seek to understand the ways of our shopped-out world. Not because we detest the economy of our country. Not because we claim to adhere to certain political beliefs or religious commitments. But because we all are desperate for real relationships with each other. This includes the invisible hands that stitch our jean pockets and the CEOs of those Fortune 500 companies. It is truly tragic to what great lengths have been transgressed to win the approval of others. When we operate with a mindset that implores us to look a certain way, donning strategic garments and flashy technologies, and praises the hands that juggle the most, we have surrendered the pure, some say divine, bond that could (and so eagerly wants to) exist between us all, authentically. It is not our perfecting souls that find one another but rather our tanned bodies and retail therapy sessions.

I did buy something new: a padlock. I needed it for my hostel stay in Seattle. This was not realized until hours before my departure and I could find no padlock for loan. I morned this sacrifice but I recognized the reasoning behind my need for said new item.

As of late, the dwellings of my intent have been on obsolescence management on the inside. It has only been of recent years that I have accepted, and now embraced, the introverted ways of my organic personality. I mistakenly thought a quiet disposition often misinterpreted as shyness was a lack of confidence. This is destructively wrong, of course, as the examined individual realizes that the internal world is much more complex than a high-school mentality of popular and not. Our society is built on the convenience of disposables - water bottles, one-use cameras, cheap friendships to be used and discarded. Such are our intuitions and emotional intellect. We praise the masculine attitude of strength and action and decry the feminine attitude of reflection and receptivity. Never shall you admit a wounded wing or tender heart, lest you look weak and emotional. My current activity of the latter: repaying evil. How do I compensate that which I perceive to be evil - done to me, others, entities, ideals, my religion? Goethe writes, "If you treat a man as he appears to be, you make him worse than he is. But if you treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, you make him what he should be."

The power of our mind's perception can fuel an obsolescence management - with materials and humans. It can be the source of authenticity.