Welcoming in the debt cycle
The door opened and in they stepped and from the get-go, started their inspection and evaluation of the surroundings with a look of disdain on their face. The taste in colors was a handful of years old, the floor had some chips and dents, the painted walls a mark or three from a young child.
They continued inward and into the open plan kitchen and lounge and cast their judgmental eyes on all they saw. That old kettle had boiled far too many cups of tea, the vase of flowers neatly arranged on the dining table was cheap and unbranded, the couch looked a little too small and the monstrosity of a plasma TV was 14 years old, if it was a day.
After pointedly and loudly remarking on all of the things they could remove and all of the options they would fill the void with, they turned their attention to their host who had welcomed them inside their castle, their home.
That shirt, those pants and even the socks upon your feet are out of style and need to be replaced. You need a better haircut and a facial treatment for your aging skin. We recommend you get some exercise equipment, go to the cinema and eat at our expensive restaurant. Don't think we didn't see your car parked out side either, we did and, it has to go. You can do better. Take our advice and buy as we instruct and we can improve this disaster of your life and make you feel better about yourself.
Until we visit again next week, next month and every quarter to reevaluate your possessions and judge them inferior, outdated and remind you over and over until you replace them. And then, we will be back with the new version, the incremental change to degrade your belongings and whet the appetite again.
We are the catalogs, this is what we do.
One night we could be comfortably sitting on the couch watching the TV with a glass of wine and or feet on the coffee table, and the next morning a catalog that arrived in the mail makes us believe that a different couch, a new TV, a better glass to hold our wine or the latest style of coffee table will improve the experience that we were content with just a few short hours earlier.
This is how I see the catalogs that people welcome into their homes in the search for savings. All they do is increase the judgement of our possessions as inferior and make us feel that replacing them will increase the standards of living, improve our lives and make us better people.We invite these into our home to make a mockery of what we own and then thank them for offering us a discounted solution to problems we never had. What the catalogs are designed to do is to remove what we were contentedly eating and make us hunger for what they are selling.
For anyone trying to break habits of consumerism and end the personal debt cycle, the first order of business is to remove the catalogs and advertisements from the home. Pay attention to the difference between need and engineered desire.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Sometimes I feel mild physical sickness when I see ad catalogs. When I go to our mailbox outside, I separate the ads from the proper mail and put them in the boot of my car. When there are enough of them, I take them to a recycling container at the parking area of the nearest Citymarket.
We have the "ei mainoksia" sign, and what does slip through gets recycled unopened.
When I took bags full of gardening waste including rotten apples to the waste center the other day, those ads came in very handy as material to spread on the floor of the boot of the car. The bags they were in turned out to have small holes in them through which pretty foul stuff leaked.
The people who have "ei mainoksia" are my heroes. Whenever I see new one on my route, it makes me smile :)
I have tried "Ei laskua" also but they keep coming.
Lol, people always wish I didn't bring bills – I'm just the messenger, dude! :D
Oh, I get that mild "sick" feeling too. I think that once paying attention with some knowledge of the intention and process behind things, that sick feeling is common.
What's actually tragic is that many people's gainful employment and their sense of purpose and dignity depends that marketing effort succeeding and that stuff getting bought.
Most of the jobs in this world are quite useless for our survival as a species. It would be great if one day all the necessary and mundane was done by machine and we as humans can focus on human creative processes.
I actually disagree. That would make things much worse in terms of uselessness of the work done. People who do necessary and mundane work are often capable of deriving a sense of meaning from their jobs. On the other hand, the production of many goods and services, for which demand has to be engineered painstakingly and with great cost, involves many creative processes.
I find a future where everyone is forced to earn a living by maximizing their creative potential a living hell. Creativity cannot be forced and most people are not terribly creative to begin with. The creative professions can take quite a toll on people's mental health.
I read a story of a woman in I think the Philippines who spent 12 hours a day inspecting glass bottles for dirt. She derived no pleasure from that job.
As said, creative human pursuits can still go into design processes.
You can always find some extreme example to present as anecdotal evidence. Besides, pleasure does not equal meaning. Typical jobs that are mundane and necessary exist in transportation such as driving a van or a truck (driver is the single most common men's job), medicine (most of what nurses or even doctors do at the typical general clinic is routine), cleaning, construction etc. The list of jobs that have to be done but involve little creativity is very long.
Creativity is not some holy grail of happiness or meaning even for those people who excel at it. As a hobby without any pressure to perform, sure if it is enjoyable, but the creative professions can and often are extremely demanding.
In a hypothetical world where disease was cured, does that mean that someone who enjoys nursing can never be satisfied again? There are other things that one could do that satisfy the same needs.
Its a short walk from the letterbox to the recycling bin.
Yep, that which slips through doesn't get opened here.
This reminds me of a short story I started but never finished. the story was about a small town where advertising was illegal. but soon the business owners get together and devise a way to advertise their products and services through peoples sub-conscious through hidden ads and whatnot. soon the people, who are not use to the constant bombardment of ads, began to go crazy and obsessed with the products. they fight each other, break into buildings and basically riot to find these services. once the services run out of supply the mob turns on the owners.
this is just a brief run down of the story... I need more coffee to explain it better. although Now I think i may try to write it again.
Advertising kind of works like dreams made to feel real, they hijack emotions and create desire. And... The root of all suffering...
Just as the Buddha taught 😉
Be honest about it Taraz... They hire people like you to write the content! ~ no insult intended, just saying, I am one of those people they would hire to craftily use words to affect perceptions that lead people to buy what they already have and are satisfied with. But we make them want with the words of the content the newest whatever it is... Images are a big part of advertising as well.
As someone who went to school for graphic design I can definitely agree to this. Words, colors, placement all play a role in selling us something.
I think that will be an amazing story. You should finish it!
I think I will do just that, hopefully get a start on it tonight.
I think I will do
Just that, hopefully get a
Start on it tonight.
- meditations
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
People can come to my place to feel better about theirs 🤣
Catalogues are awesome. For cutting pictures out of to make collages 😄
My problem is that spending makes me feel better at times. I know I should have better uses but it just happens. Luckily, I have not been going to the mall as much lately!
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It is a common enough thing, like eating when sad. The way we process or emotions have plenty of physical manifestations, some better than others.
Have you tried heroin instead? :D
or maybe a walk in the park?
@newageinv If the heroin doesn't work... you can try what @shanibeer suggests.
Another masterpiece Taraz... Thanks!
Since the HF I decided to focus more on content blogging for big online retailers. I got the idea from STEEMIT blog platform where all the Google Ads pop-up.
So the artful idea you gave me is to deal with real-life issues that real everyday people are struggling with... I think I can twist things to a coherent consistent niche for the U.S. public debt which fits nicely with the new release of my book later this year titled PayGO the 28th Amendment...
Stay true to the art of blogging!
That sounds really interesting. I reckon that there is going to be an explosion in the marketplace for knowledgeable and talented crypto folk over the next few years. What people learn here is going to be leverageable in the real world and earn much ore than the average blog.
Absolutely correct @tarazkp ...
... as I don't profess to be wise enough to calculate the effect of this on "Welcoming in the Debt Cycle," but I think it is unquestionably considerable! Being content in life is an uhhh ... "acquired taste" ... And the sooner we acquire it, the better off we are going to be long-term ...
This topic was definitely on my mind during my recent "Road to Recovery" trip. I wrote down my reflections on it here - Immense Wealth! Yet, still the "pursuit of more". My beloved lifemate and I are working "hard" ... 😉 ... on being content with living simply ...
I think it comes down to a "you are what you eat" process, and if what one is consuming are adverts, the chances of being a consumer are high. Some people surround themselves with what helps them accomplish their goals, others with what tends to avoid accomplishing goals.
Yeah It's amazing what HGTV does to people. Yes it's nice to look at those beautiful homes that they fix up for people, but is that really a house that we NEED to live in.
Do you really NEED granite counter tops with custom cabinets and bathrooms that have tile from floor to ceiling?
My wife would argue yes that she NEEDs all that stuff, but if I had my way we'd be saving the money investing it so maybe I could one day retire a few years earlier than most.
It is nice to have a nice home, but what is nicer is not having to worry about losing it due to an economic collapse. :)
Sadly that's true. There's a rule that some people self impose, to not buy anything you don't need to use RIGHT NOW. I fail at doing that half the time.
I fail often too, but I am getting better.