DTV Box

I guess I should also preface the remainder of my posts by saying that I don't intend to censor my thoughts. If anything I say offends you or presses a button about a particular lifestyle choice you have (consciously or subconsciously) made or adopted, I am not sorry. This is exactly why I have created this blog, to help me work through the constant button pushing within my self. With that said...

"The shape taken by consumerism in the modern world, however, involves not just the multiplication of what you get, but the endless expansion of what you want." - Roger Gottlieb, A Greener Faith, p. 217.

Today I swung by Target and picked up a Digital Converter Box for our TV. We don't have Cable or Satellite or any special TV perks, so when they make the switch from analog to digital, we lose our tv, unless we pick up one of these little DTV converter boxes. So I did. Then I realized I didn't even think about it. Sabrina had the foresight and wisdom to get us one of the $40 coupons from the government to help us purchase the $50 box, so I figured, hey, only ten bucks, why not! I got home and realized I had just bought this thing. I had no idea why I had bought it other than the ingrained assumption that of course I would buy it!!! So the US decides to switch its TV from analog to digital and so some outsourced factory in China (yes it is made in China, I checked) that probably pays their workers, well, not much, now has to produced however many million of these little boxes. And we buy them all up. How long would I have had to wait to buy one of these used? A month? A year? How long till I could purchase one that doesn't perpetuate the cycle of economic and environmental exploitation caused by buying things that our modern society has brainwashed us to believe are "needs?" (And, I might add isolated us relationally, socially, spiritually, existentially, so that in a lot of ways, these stupid little boxes ARE needs. TV's have replaced families, supportive spiritual communities, working the land, etc.)

Once TV didn't exist. Then it did. Then it became a necessity. Then cable. Now maybe it is a shift from cable to satellite or Direct TV. People are always surprised when they find out we don't have cable. "How can you live without cable?" or, "I couldn't live without cable!" Really? Because I find it weird that when confronted with the choice of how to spend $30 a month - cable tv or supporting a child overseas who needs food shelter and an education, we choose cable. Or internet, or cell phones. Because while I might not have cable, I sure have a cell phone, and though we are blessed to have wireless access, if we didn't, we'd probably be paying for internet too.

So our whole society has progressed to the point where, yeah, cable is a NEED for a whole wealth of people! I bought this box. Why? Because it's tv. We're busy people who come home tired and want to "veg out." But instead of looking deeply into our lifestyle and refusing those choices that lead to the exhaustion and overwork, we buy boxes made in china and shipped around the world so that my spoiled ass can watch House. Really?

Six years ago this would have been filled with guilt, self-hatred, self-condemnation, judgmentalism of others to make myself feel better, etc. Now I'm just awed. I look at this system that we live in - and think about how, in order to stimulate the dying economy, we pump more money into the consumption machine. Tell people to buy more, stimulate the market. Sometimes it stops me short to realize that we have enough food and resources to feed and clothe the entire world. Why don't we? Loyalty to some economic, globalized system of capitalism from which we cannot de-entrench ourselves. There are people living on the streets, and I have extra food. But I have so many rationalizations about systemic, psychological issues that let me go along with my life that will be geared toward serving humanity as a whole, yes I don't know how to serve the person next to me. I feel unnerved.

Over thanksgiving I attended a church service in Greensboro. The (New Thought, mind you) pastor talked about how this economic crisis is a wonderful opportunity to reassess our values. It also is a wonderful opportunity to rethink what we mean when we say "prosperity," which is a key spiritual value in New Thought traditions. How wealthy is a country that has more food and toys than we know what to do with and yet we are still not happy. And every year tv commercials (that I just bought a stupid box so that we could continue to watch them) manage to convince us that what we have isn't enough and that we want or need more. In Peaceful Warrior (the movie - watch it if you haven't seen it) Nick Nolte's character asks the main character, Dan, "are you happy?" A gymnast who breezes through his college classes, is popular, "only sleeps alone when [he] absolutely want[s] to," and is on the brink of qualifying for the olympics. Yeah - but are you happy? No. Of course not.

Are we really the most prosperous nation in the world? Because everything I have heard from friends who have visited Kenya - even those who are struggling to survive - they are rich, they are joyful, they are prosperous (obviously not the whole country, but the specific Kenyan churches with whom my friends have worked).

So how do I disentangle myself - how do sabrina and I together, with all our differing desires, needs, preferences, visions for the future, etc., disentangle ourselves - from the web of consumerism, that to be "normal" you have to have a tv, a cell phone, a car (or two - or an SUV - or two), and on and on it goes. And what path do I pursue for my future that allows me to live integrously in a world gone wrong - and still to love that world, care for it, help honor it with my heart and soul and spirit? That, I suppose, can be the topic of my NEXT blog. Sorry, already, this was not short. Not even close.

Peace.