Ramblings on mindful purchasing, and truths from my ten-year-old self...

Somehow today I got to thinking about advertisement, and how our whole culture has been so profoundly shaped by the whims of giant companies.  It used to be there was a demand for something, and people would make that something and sell it; now we've got it backwards, with companies dreaming up things that they think we need (or that would just garner them a profit, if they could only get us addicted to it), and then influencing our minds with fancy-shmancy advertising until we are convinced we need that thing.  Take soap, for example.  A little bit of research today on laundry detergents (thanks to Karen, I'm looking into soap nuts) made me really realize how brainwashed we've been by the good folks at the chemical laboratories who are churning out our cleaning products.  We really believe that something has to have a billion chemicals, a heavy smell, and a ton of suds in order to get something clean.  Maybe that really is true (I haven't tried the soap nuts yet), but certainly in the days of our forefathers, they didn't have access to cleaning enzymes, fabric brighteners, etc, and they seemed to do just fine.

Anyway, it just makes you think about why we buy the things we do.  About the power of "brand", and the psychology of purchasing.  One of the best decisions my husband and I made, going into marriage, was to forego cable t.v.  We do *have* a t.v., I'm not opposed to t.v. on principle, but we were cheap, and didn't want to fork over $60+ a month for a ton of channels we'd rarely have the time to watch.  Plus we figured it'd be better for us to choose to watch what we wanted to watch purposefully, rather than be sucked into mindless surfing every night, "because it's there" and because we needed to get our money's worth out.  So we do Netflix, and watch a few programs online through their respective networks, and that's it.  An unexpected benefit is not being exposed to all that advertising, the endless stream of commercials telling us about things that we Just. Must. Have.  As a result, I rarely notice new products until they reach the grocer's shelf, where it's a little easier to make an informed (rather than pre-formed, by the manufacturer) decision as to their utility for my life.

I've found, since I've been trying to operate within a much more frugal budget, and at the same time trying to be more "green" in the things that I do buy (though still a long way from the choices I would like to or probably could choose to make), that the things that I "must have" have significantly shrunk in number; I am slowly detoxing from the consumerist mindset.  There are still things that I'd really *like* to have, but I am learning (albeit very slowly) that things do not equal happiness, and therefore that I shouldn't seek things as a means to try and find it.

For instance, I got more joy out of laying on my back in the yard today while LW crawled all over me and "showed" me flowers and grass, than buying any of the things on my "want" list would have brought.

One of my goals for this summer is to really live those simple, free, pleasures to the hilt - to reawaken my inner ten year old, who knew that all the treasures necessary for a great summer could be found in my grandmother's attic, kitchen, and rag-bag.  I want to rewaken that person, so that she in turn can help me teach my own daughter the same timeless truths.