I wasn't always on the whole "Material possessions are shit" track. I would love to have a big house and a brand new car even now but what I always find is that money and resources are better put to use than the way we often find uses for them in our culture. Instead of asking ourselves "Who will this impress?" perhaps we should be collectively asking ourselves "How will this impress me?"
In the end, we are left alone with our choices. Ferrari makes one hell of a car and I would love to fucking drive one but of what use is car like that to me as a possession? I can tell you, it's only use is to make people look. It has been my experience that those who wish to see the looks on people's faces as they are driving by tend to desire that feeling more than they desire common sense. For the cost of one $250,000 luxury sports car in fire engine red, one could purchase enough brand new dependable vehicles that will serve the same essential function of getting one where they need to go, to last a lifetime.
My drawn out point is this. It is not enough that those who are wealthy should enjoy their success or their trust fund or their lottery winnings. We are taught in this culture that we need to look and act a certain way when we have resources because we are entitled to do so. If I were to win the lottery, pay off my home, buy a modest vehicle, keep enough of my resources that my family and I could live relatively comfortably for a long time, I would basically only have to spend a few million dollars and that is a pretty cushy life. If I wanted to boil it down even more than that, I could. The rest could go to causes or charities. The only people who would care would be the ones that were happy because I was sharing my wealth and the others would be people of the wealthy elite who enjoy privilege because their lifestyle is what separates them from the "undesirables". Them and maybe the government because you can't have people offering handouts other than them, it might effect how much control they can establish in the future by maintaining a permanent underclass. Ouch...that was political wasn't it?
True story:
A person I know began a new job and during training they had to do a rotation on the overnight shift. So one night they began mopping the floors because under training they weren't technically counted as staff and therefore they were unable to do anything else but observe. The regular staff person they were paired with for the night asked this person I know, what they were doing. When he replied he was bored so he was washing the floors, he was told to stop. I'm paraphrasing a bit here but the explanation he was given was essentially that if he started washing floors, then he would make everyone look bad and eventually the overnight people would be expected to do it every night and he wasn't being paid to wash floors.
Essentially, this story really explains a lot to me about position and privilege. Most anyone who works an overnight understands that there is a lot more down time than on other shifts but we also make sacrifices as well. After all, who has a normal life staying up all damn night? This was a person who became defensive of the fact that they did not want someone who did not understand their privilege (in this case the privilege of free time for whatever) to take that privilege away. He was establishing that the overnight workers need to protect themselves so that their privilege is not threatened. When I understood that, I looked around and saw that it exists everywhere and in all spheres.
The closer you get to the top of the pecking order, the nicer the amenities. Poor or rich, we want privilege and we make privilege in whatever social structure we cling to. It exists as both micro and macro. With that elevation in social status come amenities that we need to be seen with in order to have other people confirm that social status for us. In essence, the rich are not rich because they have money, the rich are rich because they have money and make damn well sure that we know it.
The worst thing that we could do to the wealthy, status driven elite is to stop buying the shit their corporations shove down our damn throats. Grow vegetables for the year, have a goat or two, trade services for amenities and stop buying gas to get to jobs 40 miles away. By the way, I am currently doing none of these things myself. That however is the same problem that many of us face. It is all well and good to say that we should or should not do something that will prevent others from riding our collective coattails to the finish line only for them to jump off before the last bend and trot through the finish line without breaking a sweat but that is exactly what we are doing. It all looks good on paper but when push comes to shove, you need to pay your electric bill and your internet provider so you can make coffee to sip while you are reading my blog and remarking on what an intelligent and intellectually stimulating person I am to write such things...go ahead, soak it in, I don't mind...really.
I am in a place in my life, despite the obstacles, where I am more interested in looking at the money (resources) I commit to owning things than I am to actually owning them. Sometimes I see something I would really like to have, like a sword, and I need to ask myself what the cost/benefit ratio is. After all, I could buy a $20,000 Katana because that would be one damn nice Katana, it may even pick up the house after me for that much money, but what is it likely that I will use a Katana for? If I strap on my Katana and walk out the door one of two things will almost certainly happen. I will either be questioned by the local police at length about my fashion sense or the next person to own my sword will be pointing a gun at me and making some ridiculous comment about bringing a knife to a gun fight. The third possibility might be that either of these two options will end up with me being the tragic story of a man and high speed lead projectiles. Either way, I only wear my sword for certain reasons and none of them include accidentally scaring the shit out of your 70 year old Grandmother at the grocery store. The point is that owning something that works for me is not the same as owning something that works for you to be impressed with. I Love my Katana, don't get me wrong and I will brag that thing up like an agent trying to sell Disney the next boy band but it is definitely not a $20,000 sword and unless I have a wealthy Nipponese uncle I don't know about, I doubt I will ever get close enough to even handle one that costs that much.
So right now, I need to remove some clutter and that's going to mean looking at all of the things I "Own" and deciding what to keep and what to give away or sell. That is a solid first step in making an impact because the nicest thing in my living room is my sword and the next nicest thing is the pile of rocks I brought home from the beach. Both of these "things" have meaning to me that they may not to others. In between there are a lot of things I don't need. What the wealthy elite often take for granted is that we are all looking at their fancy houses and cars and asking "Why can't I have that?" which is what they want us to think. It distracts us from the concept that we don't really need any of it. Why have we forgotten that value is subjective?
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