Rand Richards Cooper provides the requisite summation of how we have ended up adrift in a sea of foreclosures and lost jobs. Yet his essay in DB11 transcends facts and figures, which we’ve all heard before from the pundits, those talking heads on the cable news channels whose word may not really be their word, just a stream of excuses that constitute a job.
Cooper’s lifestyle might mirror my own goals. I have always had a conflict between goals and priorities similar to the conflict between wants and needs — conflicts, by the way, that could be characterized as direct consequences of capitalism, consumerism, and every other negative construct of the western world. I have a goal of publishing a sellable book. Why? Assuming that the book nets a decent paycheck, what do I want to use the money for? A new computer? This iBook G4 is barely passing muster.
Perhaps I’m publishing neither to tell a story nor for the paycheck. I’m winging it. Perhaps our “contraction” is a correction from a collective mistake we made while winging it. So what do I, as an individual, really want? Back to the parallel with Cooper’s lifestyle: are my wants and needs downscale in comparison to the circumstances that led to the contraction, or have they always been authentically modest? Am I just another enabler of the spree? I’m 27 years old, so I’ve had some time to think about these things. It turns out that all I want is a house with no more than two bedrooms, and that house should have decent plumbing and protection against the elements. One car will do for errands and outings; I’m good with public transit. I’d really love to live in the city, but San Francisco is extraordinarily prohibitive. I’ll probably be a lifelong renter. Finally, I’ll need a husband. In the western world, that’s a challenge as seemingly insurmountable as economic woe. But it’s not very good fodder for a cable talk show.
By Joe Ramelo, DB Social Media Assistant.
