Just in Time for the Holidays...

A friend of mine forwarded me a link to this web site, with a 20-minute movie on consumerism, environmental degradation, and sustainability. Nothing too new or earth-shattering (at least I hope this information is all obvious to my friends), but it was a nicely put-together presentation of the basics--worth watching.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. [It] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Yes, I know--if I were the average American consumer, the economy would have haltingly ground into a recession long ago. Bad consumer! Bad American! You're hurting growth! [smile].

EDIT: A New York Times op-ed ("You Can Almost Hear It Pop") that I wanted to record with a citation here:

This recession will be deeper than the shallow contraction earlier in this decade. The dot-com-led downturn was set off by a collapse in business capital spending, which at its peak in 2000 accounted for only 13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The current recession is all about the coming capitulation of the American consumer — whose spending now accounts for a record 72 percent of G.D.P.

I drive a car built in 1992, and ride a bike of a similar vintage (albeit made mostly of replacement parts). The car gets out of the driveway maybe once a month... less money to the House of Saud, yay. Also (a somewhat lame argument) my iPod is a 2002-era second generation 10 GB model... as Leper once put it, "...man, I think Dennis Hopper had a newer one on his motorcycle in Easy Rider." (yes, it would be more convincing not to own an MP3 player at all). I live in a 900 sf apartment with one roommate. I actually don't own a TV now (the set is JMD's, and I sent my TV to live at my parents' place). I still wear some clothing from high school (black Levi's 505s, in case you had images of Back-to-the-80's-Bats).

So it amazes me just how much useless crap people do buy, I guess. I don't feel particularly deprived, or like I'm living any type of ascetic existence. It just pains me to see what goods people buy, and think, as they wheel it out the door of the big box store, "How long is it going to be before that piece of plastic and sheetmetal gets landfilled?" Like, say, these things.

Now please, I'm not trying to hold myself up as any type of anticonsumerist, antimaterialist paragon. I love power tools, and think little about dropping big bucks on them. My motives for buying new glasses were both to update my prescription and for vanity (semi-rimless frames). I have enough income to support a Calphalon habit, and have succumbed. And I shudder to think about all the energy that went into distilling and shipping my single malt collection (although a friend of mine promotes his taste in beer as, "drink local!").

But stuff (or lack thereof) has been of a particular interest to me since returning from Canada. I only took a subset of my possessions (maybe half) with me when I moved up there in 2004. Since moving back in early 2007, most of it has been in storage, so it's surprising to realize that the essentials are pretty sparse. I've become a big subscriber to the "bits, not stuff" way of life. It's an experience I'd recommend to everyone--perhaps a little bit freeing (although Chuck has me beat by a mile on that front).

EDIT: Another experience that informs my attitude towards stuff was cleaning out Fred Fenning's house after he died in a plane crash in 1997.


He was 44 when he died--not too far from my current age, and he had set up a life that is similar to where I see mine going. A small house, not far outside of town, living alone, with a great and organized electronics/machining/woodworking shop in the basement. So dealing with his estate was a bit like seeing what it would be like after I check out. It makes all the organizing, collecting, acquiring seem a bit pointless. Hence a bit of my "bits not stuff" attitude (nobody feels bad about just chucking out a hard drive... or it might just end up being archived anyway). Or as an NPR commentator put it, “You live, you die, your stuff goes out to the curb.”

As a last discussion before heading to bed, one segment of the video covered the "life treadmill" folks get onto. I.e., gotta go to work, to buy more stuff, then come home wiped out, sit in front of the TV, and get brainwashed into thinking our lives suck, but that buying more stuff would fix it... so off to work again, repeating the cycle. One soundbite was that people now have the least amount of free time since feudal days (fact check, anyone? I'm curious). In contrast, I don't have a mortgage (or even a lease), or dependents (heck, the cats are JMD's, not mine), or debt--so it's not like I'm scrambling to keep up. But I still work a fair amount (and stress myself out disproportionately), even though I don't particularly want to. Perhaps I do need to see if I can put the "half the pay for half the work" plan into action. Ambition? Feh.