how do you define yourself? when you meet someone new, they often ask "what do you do?" and it's a hard question to answer for me because 1) i wipe butts for a job and 2) i am going to school to become a nurse. neither of these things really define me as a person and i don't really want to introduce myself as one or the other. but what should i say? i am a person who loves to play dodgeball, sing in the rain, travel the world and to eat good food. :) i think people sometimes ask so they can feel superior. they might not even be listening to what you say, but waiting for you to finish so they can one-up you.
i was watching "trading spouses" on CMT (yes, don't laugh) and this lady was so caught up with herself, she kept mentioning that she had a four-poster California king bed. her relationship with her husband was distant at best, and really - she was crazy and self-absorbed. her insecurities with her personal life manifested itself in showing off of her material possessions. having a nice big bed does not make you a good or decent person. she criticized the other mom for not running twice a day and said how "they are lucky i am here to help them and give them some culture." she was from florida and they were from wisconsin. i am not sure there is much more culture in florida than wisco.
so these things make me think of the movie FIGHT CLUB. if you have not seen it, you must. if you do not like violence then you can skip over those scenes, i don't really believe it is essential to the essence of the themes and purpose. here is a short clip/quote from the movie about self and identity.
you're not your job. you're not how much money you have in the bank. you're not the car you drive. you're not the contents of your wallet. you're not your fucking khakis. you're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
i don't believe in advertising, especially for drugs. this is a post for another day but people really believe in what they see on tv. while this isn't necessarily their fault, it is a problem. "advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." it is so true. why is it that we are so dependent on material possessions? having things makes us feel good and buying things makes us feel we are closer to somehow having everything we need. we will never get to that place because hopefully we are always evolving and will never reach a state of being "complete". every day is a chance to become a better person.
tyler durden says "the things you own end up owning you. it's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." meaning, material possessions are weighing us down. maybe it does not feel like it but our lives revolve around our "stuff". we need jobs to pay the rent to store the things we buy and electricity to keep them going. many people even have storage units to store the things they have purchased that they do not necessarily use. useless things taking up your money. that does not seem to make you "free". when people go through natural disasters and lose everything, they gain other things. they realize how the thing that's worth the most (their life) is still there even if they have no money. the friends and family that they still have is worth more than that house or car. while it may seem essential to have such things, it is not. of course losing all your possessions would be hard to cope with but there is more to life than stuff. with nothing to keep you attached you might realize that you have a bigger, larger purpose.
i re-read this post and it sounds kind of preachy. these are just my observations in general and while i believe a lot of it to be true, i do not really live this way. i buy things, i love to shop. i have more t-shirts than a person needs. i can not do laundry for a month and still have clothes to wear. BUT i do feel that all my things weigh me down and that if i can somehow simplify my life and pare down my belongings i will feel more free. i want to travel the world and having all this stuff kind of makes that less achievable. i need to pay rent or for storage while i am away, just so i have my things when i get back. on my trip to mexico/guatemala i lived out of a backpack, for almost a month. i never really felt i was lacking because i had the essentials and it was enough. back home, my room full of stuff was sitting there. going to school and working i do need a little more than just the essentials but the more you have, the more comfortable you become. why can't i just be content? if i am content with my material possessions, i can move on to other things. i can be free to change other aspects of my life and really work on my inner self, rather than focusing so much on my appearance/image/status.
i am working on finding a new place to live, with some friends. i want to pare down before i move. it will simplify the moving process as well as cut out the things in my life i don't need. other people could find better uses for my unloved things. i've got things sitting in the basement i haven't seen in a year. i am not even sure what's down there. i've got clothes i've never worn and books i never open. so i will simplify. will this get me closer to changing my life for the better? i hope so. it is hard to change the hard-wired consumerist lifestyle that we've become accustomed to but i want to, and hey, it can happen.
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1 comment:
hmm, i agree! of course, my reasons for always wanting to "pare down" and simplfy all the things that i have are more due to me just not wanting to have a lot of things all over the place. i don't like clutter and it bugs me when i have things in the closet that i don't touch for a year, in my mind that means those things need to be gone. a completely empty room is way more appealing to me than a room filled with stuff, even good stuff that i would use.
lately i've been having a hard time buying things (that aren't groceries) because, well, one because i have no money anymore, and two because i just don't want to have more things inside my house that would take years for me to get rid of. that's weird rationale huh? but it's like, i won't buy a towel because i think, i might use that towel, but i have another towel and it would take years of use to make that towel bad enough to throw away or make into rags so i don't need it in my house.
still, every now and then i'll get into some kind of media-inspired mood and i'll go out and like buy a whole mess of american idol cds or something like that... but it doesn't happen often.
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