I just finished reading Not Buying It: my year without shopping by Judith Levine. Jenny read it first, and I finished up last night. As Jenny mentioned in her post, it's a pretty liberal politically charged journal of one couple's year of not buying anything but the essentials (food, generic toiletries, etc.) I think the book could have been a third of the length and still made the point minus all the Bush-bashing and feminist pro-choice rhetoric. Anyway, I thought I'd share one point that I thought was well made.
"Our economy is fueled by desire, ignited and fanned by advertising and easy credit. Yet the satisfaction of our desire by the relentless production and marketing of goods is depleting the earth of its air and its animals and putting some of the world's people under the others' boots. We have enough stuff; most Americans have more than enough. Yet capitalism needs us to want what we do not have. Desire for what we do not have is an infinitely renewable resource."
Granted, our family depends on "marketing" to put food on the table since that's what I enjoy and have chosen as a profession. I don't feel too bad, though, since I do business-to-business marketing and not business-to-consumer. Anyway, the point is that we do have enough stuff, more than enough. And while I think capitalism is a far better way to live than some of the alternatives, it does need us to want more. I feel a little more empowered now to resist and get by with less.
I decided to change it up a little and for my next read chose to pick up Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. My great-grandmother sent me the book when I was in third grade and I never read it. Last weekend I was going through some stuff in the garage to purge some of those things I don't need and came across the book whose pages had long since turned yellow and brittle. I started it today and hope it keeps my interest. I've always felt kind of bad that I never read it when she sent it to me, so I can cross that guilt off my list if I finish it now. Eli has been wanting a dog for a long time, but we keep telling him that dogs are a lot of work and cost a lot of money. Jenny and I used to say that we'd get a dog as soon as we bought a house. The beginning of chapter 2 made me laugh, and I read it to Jenny.
"I suppose there's a time in practically every young boy's life when he's affected by that wonderful disease of puppy love. I don't mean the kind a boy has for the pretty little girl that lives down the road. I mean the real kind, the kind that has four small feet and a wiggly tail, and sharp little teeth that can gnaw on a boy's finger; the kind a boy can romp and play with, even eat and sleep with. I was ten years old when I first became infected with this terrible disease. I'm sure no boy in the world had it worse than I did. It's not easy for a young boy to want a dog and not be able to have one. It starts gnawing on his heart, and gets all mixed up in his dreams. It gets worse and worse, until finally it becomes almost unbearable."
Poor Eli. Guess the memory of caring for Rexy for a week this summer will have to sustain him until his mean mommy lets him get a dog. I guess the boy in me misses having a dog, too, and I appreciate the "gnawing" Eli feels.
