Consumerist withdrawal

[featherynscale]

I'm at an odd phase in the whole consumerist/anti-materialist tug-of-war.

I need a pair of tennis shoes. This is a legitimate need if I'm going to do this fencing thing, since my boots don't so much have traction on the bottom (which encourages me to slide rather than pick up my feet -- my first Bad Habit! -- and will no doubt one day trip me up, causing me to collapse in a heap with my foil up my nose). So I think I'll go pick some up today. No problem - legitimate need, legitimate purpose. The problem is that I think if I'm going shopping, I should hit a few more places. Now, I don't need anything else, and in all likelihood I won't buy anything else, but I can't resist the temptation of going to look, even though I know I'm not going to buy.

I guess this is a form of cheap entertainment, so on the scale of the world's evils, pretty minor, but still. What a waste of an afternoon.

Comments

Like Rob was saying...

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

In the interests of allowing others to shower me with blessings, if you happen to see a good deal on lightweight hikers with good ankle support (no steel toes necessary), would you let me know? That's what I used for fencing -- and they're marvelously useful shoes to have. Because what I really need are more boots.

XOXO

Re: Like Rob was saying...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Will do. IIRC, you're like a size seven?

Re: Like Rob was saying...

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

7.5, if it matters.

You are not your sneakers.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

What a waste of an afternoon.

Or you could always, you know...resist. Or counteract it by banishing things from your room in equal quantities...

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I think you missed the point -- I'm not buying anything. No new useless shit will occur. I just have to *look*.

Also, yes, things are going to be banished in significant quantities. Hence why I was asking you this morning whether you would voice assent to using our lawn as a yard-sale base when it turns yard-sale season again.

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[cameellie.livejournal.com]

There is no harm in looking. In dact, examining what is in stores may give you ideas on how to repurpose and combine items that you already own so that you can avoid buying more things. It's not a waste of an afternoon, it's research.

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

You could always just give it all away, and write it off on your taxes. Me, I have hated yard sales since at least two lifetimes ago and thus have never had one in this incarnation. I consider my donations to places like Goodwill to be part of the rent I pay for being in the world. As we de-clutter the house/our lives, it gives us great pleasure to donate an equal or greater volume of stuff than we trash.

Plus, it enables me to get rid of stuff before I'm so frustrated I want to set it on fire...rather than hanging on to it until yard sale season.

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

At this point, "yard sale" is sort of shorthand for "an event in which stuff will be transferred from us to other people at little or no cost, preferably to people we know and like, before we give it to people we don't know."

My general nature is to give things away, freecycle-style. The fact that I'm unemployed and the household feels a little financially shaky right now makes the prospect of getting at least a bit of monetary return on things more attractive than it usually would be.

We will have to hold further household (and cross-household, as chaosdruid is in on this) discussions.

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

My typical response is to give stuff to family (chosen or biological) then to Disabled Vets or other such worthwhile charity before selling. I figure it's easier to just take the deduction also.
However, the chaos producers and I are going to go through many years of toys and such in the next several months. I would be tempted to just donate the whole boxes to charity, but then there would be something that should be retained for the memory value that would be gone. Since we have to go through it anyway, there's a mercenary streak in me that would like to get a little something back out of that stuff.

Am I missing the point?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I don't know - if you're *not* buying things, then what is the point? And if the point is to spend time in the store looking around pointlessly, then I'd argue you're still participating in the scheme, because there's a *chance* you'll buy something, and even if you don't...as you said, "what a waste of an afternoon". Lose/lose, in my book... you're better off playing Arcanum, or jouncing up and down the hall...

Please note, of course, that I am engaging in some philosophical debate here, not attacking you as a consumerist/anti-consumerist individual.

Re: Am I missing the point?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I imagine that at some point today, some Arcanum will get played. I'm holding off on the jouncing up and down the hall until kittenpants wakes up though.

And you're right. Either of those activities are probably of more value than sort of idly wandering about looking at this year's fashions and/or gadgetry. But I don't particularly mind the wandering either, as it gets me out of the house and off my ass, which is where I have spent the entire morning, writing email, proofing newsletter, and writing my contribution to EIR, etc.

I was mostly just observing that I had a habit of this and seeing if there was any positive application of it, though, rather than railing against the compulsion, or whatnot. Sort of a culture/individual status-check. I'm not placing a lot of value on doing it or not doing it.

Re: Am I missing the point?

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

I'm not placing a lot of value on doing it or not doing it.

Good on you. I mean, really, must every bloody thing be fraught with meaning and purpose? Go fucking windowshop if you want to, you.

Re: You are not your sneakers.

[opaljax.livejournal.com]

Two things:
1) can I join in on the yard sale thingie??

2) I get my best ideas from "window shopping" I also spend the most money as well, especially when I see something I "have" to have. However (like this helps at all) when I have no money, and I'm depressed, a little window shopping does help. It also usually ends up with me going home and working on projects I have to "do right now" before the idea escapes my head.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

On a side note, when I got home from my non-fighting fighter practice last night, the heel fell off my boot.

This is a USMC issue combat boot mind you, the kind of thing I would wear to war. And it fell apart. That sort of bugs me.

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

what? you're telling me you went shopping without me? i'm crushed! :)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Just for shoes. Nobody *likes* to shop for shoes. It is possibly the dullest form of shopping there is, unless the other option is shopping for bras.

I had to, in self-defense, besides :-P

Had I gone with you, I'd have come home with three pair instead of one, and one of they would be sparkly and pink with kitties on them.

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

this is very true. i am a bad person to shop with if you don't want to spend money. ;)

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you have to have a real firm grip on your persona to get away with sparkly pink kitten fencing shoes.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

And see, I don't even have a persona. So the kitten shoes? Right out.