tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816286233655907006.post1197566890870971835..comments2023-08-24T11:42:21.155-04:00Comments on Two Square Meals: 7 Quick Takes-Just Stop Buying Stuff and Grow Something!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7816286233655907006.post-91766490510411929132009-09-29T11:04:19.431-04:002009-09-29T11:04:19.431-04:00My in-laws were visiting the other day and they st...My in-laws were visiting the other day and they started talking about my mother-in-law's aunt, how horribly unclean her house was. It was so bad that when someone went to visit her once she waited in the car for them and visited with them on her porch so no one would see inside her house. Then she paused, and pointed at the piano, and started talking about how this aunt could just sit down at a piano and play and play, and such beautiful music.<br /><br />The consumerism stuff is overwhelming, it's true. And part of the problem is that any time someone starts moving in the right direction, it gets co-opted by the thinking already in charge. The bag thing -- I've heard tell that supermarkets have shrunk their cart sizes over the years, the idea is that they don't want someone coming in and buying food for a week, they want visits every few days, because a huge proportion of their sales are of impulse items. I'm wondering if the bag thing is part that, too -- come in with a couple totes every day instead of buying in bulk? <br />Even the least consumerist people I know are buying stuff all the time. Honestly, I think the only thing that curbs me at all is when I have no money, and the thing is that as long as there are credit cards I'm never in a place where I don't "have money", of a sort. I think part of anti-materialism, though, is enjoying the things you do acquire, but enjoying their use as things. You know, the old love people, use things instead of loving things and using people deal. I do find that the fewer things I buy (or buy for the kids) the more I appreciate what is in the cart.<br />Also agree on the hope for a change from the depression and a fear of the hasty propping. Guess we all have a choice,eh?<br />Dan Brown -- have you ever read Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum (sp?)?Marienoreply@blogger.com