I had hope that "Buy Nothing Year" would be my grand "stupid boy project" that would fill my world (and blog) with insight about our consumerist culture and how much (or little) it all means, about how our lives differ today because of our access to technology, about how we view money, how we spend money and how our lives are influenced by forces outside of ourselves (marketers, credit card companies, advertisers, lobbyists etc). I was hoping I would cover the dreams and nightmares, the triumphs and regrets that would occur by abandoning that which I enjoy, to the extent that I part with aspects of my past and move on with the future.
8 months later and none of it has really, truly happened. I haven't spent my money like I used to, but I still consume. It's actually quite easy to do so on not much money, and it's easy to justify it. Had I not already had an out, had I not conceded still attending the cinema with my wife, I might have actually had a shot at something interesting. I mean, can you imagine the lamentations if I missed out on
The Dark Knight and
Iron Man and
Hellboy and
Wall-E and other such movies which I desperately would have wanted to see? There would have been about two dozen posts about
The Dark Knight alone, the cinematic event of the decade, and how I felt like I was missing out and how the urges to break my stupid pledge were threatening to consume me and the project.
Alas, all you get is a middling review which isn't nearly as insightful as some of the many conversations I've had about the film, it's themes and the silly people who didn't enjoy it (unclench a little).
As for comics, to have abandoned them this year would have been an even bigger coup than abandoning the cinema, but given my entrenched-ness in
Rack Raids I just couldn't let it go. But in many ways, buying only one or two titles a week very much feels like I have. There's a strange separation that occurs when you distance yourself from the fanboys who buy half of a companies line. Whereas when you're buying so many books, you start to feel like you're missing out on something in the other titles you're not getting. When you're only buying one or two books, you begin to question why you're even buying them. With the exception of the stronger indie titles, if you're not a regular comics consumer, most of the weekly releases hold no excitement. Trade Paperbacks, or complete story collections, are much more enticing, but even then, only for a limited time. Call it "now available - gotta have it" syndrome (NAGHI).
NAGHI is a pocketbook crippler which I've experienced many times in my life. It's that urge to go out to see the new movies in the first week of release because the trailers excited you. It's that drive to go out on Tuesday and pick up the new album (that you haven't heard) from that band you kind of like. It's that desire to purchase the just-released DVD of that movie you saw in the theatres that you don't remember the story, but you do remember being entertained. It's that need to pick up the latest trade paperback written by so-and-so because you liked their last one. NAGHI strikes, your will is crippled, your bank account depletes.
Wait
Just wait
Give it a month or two or three... or six. Then pick that book up off the shelf, or the cd off the rack and tell me you still want it as badly as you did when it first came out. Arguably you're still interested, but are you
as interested as you were? No. You know why? Because it's not new anymore, it's not fresh. Others have seen it and digested it long before you did, they've told you about it and the radioman said it was kinda allright, he guesses, and the mystique of the unknown has faded into the dull tarnish of the vaguely familiar. You also have let slip another dozen and one cds/books/movies past by, and there's always something new. When you've fallen behind, it's hard to catch up, and sometimes it's easier to just give up and not catch up at all and be like "regular" people who don't obsess about such things.
But "regular" people are dull, boring, cultureless beings who are more enthused by whatever that story your neighbour tells about mistakenly buying whole wheat buns instead of white bread rather than enjoying 6 hours of straight
Venture Brothers DVD action. Is that what you want to become, someone who listens to plumbing stories or someone who sits in anticipation their latest Amazon.co.uk order containing what's supposed to be the latest in ingenious funny business out of England? Who needs neighbours?
I think there's a fear in the pop-culture obsessive of missing out, but also a fear of participating in life outside of fantasy. Television and iPods are awesome, but so is your wife whipping a shuttlecock at your face (we're playing badminton you perv, get your mind out of the gutter) or having a chat with a stranger in line at the supermarket while you wait. Actual interaction, with real people, who aren't cliche spouting figments of someone else's imagination...
Did have a point here somewhere...
The point is, I've learned the lesson of BNY even if it hasn't exactly manifested itself in an entertaining or secondary-usefulness manner. 1) There's only so much one person can hope to consume in their lifetime. 2) Real people are, about half the time, more interesting than fiction. 3) Money can be used for other things than keeping you stocked to the gills in paraphernalia. 4) Spending more than you make is a bad idea in the short term, and detrimental in the long term. 5) Spending all of what you make is foolish. 6) I'm not a terribly adventurous person, and I'm okay with that. 7) what you want isn't necessarily what you need. 8) what you get isn't necessarily what you wanted. 9) very little in this life is returnable (aka. nothing is ever a sure thing). 10) I regret nothing.
Seriously, I'm glad I got to see
the Dark Knight and didn't have to wait and sift through reviews and sit and listen to people talk about it and not be able to contribute and opinion. I would die inside a little. I could have done without seeing
Get Smart, enjoyable as it was, but there are some experiences I would have regretted missing out on.
I still have moment, especially now that I'm debt-free, where I want to just splurge, where I want to toss my credit card in the wind and buy the hell out of an HMV, just pick up material goods because, goddammit I miss them. I want a new cd. I want to buy a DVD (when I see a bin of $4 DVDs at the superstore containing the 3-disc special edition of
Panic Room or
A Mighty Wind I get weak-kneed, not because either are particularly great movies (though I did enjoy them and/or their cast and/or their director) but because my completest tendencies start to come over me. Same thing happens if I buy a comic book to review and it references a previous story, I want that previous story. It's not that I'm terribly interested, else I would have read it already, but again, my completest nature. Also, I can't resist a bargain. Also, I sometimes just get spending urges, like last week when I wound up in a used book store and bought $35 in used comics and books for my wife and stepson (or at least using them as an excuse to do so).
It's a scary thing when that happens. I'll stand in a store and I'll be looking for one thing, find another, like say I was searching for Teen TItans Season 5 for the little guy on DVD, didn't find it, but found that they had Flight of the Conchord's CD on the 2/$25 rack. I look around for a second /$25 and spy
Darjeeling Limited on the 2/$30, and suddenly I'm on the hunt for $55 worth of goods. In my hunt I realize there's a new Portishead album out, I find an Amon Tobin cd I missed, I pick up Batman Animated season 2 (gap in the collection) for $19.99 and settle for a copy of Metric's first album as my second $2/25 and
the Omega Man as my second $2/30. I begin to look at it and say, "Well, I'm buying this much, might as well get those two
Angel box sets that are only $20 each, and Season 7 of
Buffy, which I still haven't watched." $235 and way out of budget later, I stride home, my goods in my backpack, and say "what the hell" and stop into Pages and buy $60 worth of books which, chances are, I won't actually read. In fact, that copy of
Omega Man, still wrapped up six months later, and only two episodes of
Angel actually watched.
It's a made up set of purchases, but an embarrassingly true scenario which I really don't want to continue repeating.
Buy nothing year is actually teaching me introspection and discipline at the purchasing counter, but it's eliminating the moments of weakness where I slip up that's crucial.
I do really wish that I could buy
this, now, though. It would make me ever so happy. But I'm being good. I'll still want it though.
One of the things I'm still having a terrible time curving the craving for is action figures. I lust after action figures only marginally less than I lust after my wife, and that's not healthy. I see all the various DC Universe action figures that Mattel is producing and I drool like a Prozac-addled invalid. My wife bought me two of my action figure desires for my birthday (the Kirby-inspired Darkseid and Mr. Miracle) and I took them out of their package and put them on the shelf where occasionally they fall over. That's it. They look fantastic, but they only thrill me when I don't have them and for the few moments after getting them. Once they're out of the package, the thrill goes away almost immediately. I wonder what acronym I can give that. "OOPTIG"? (Out of package, thrill is gone).
I dunno. That's why I'm trying to commit myself to only getting action figures that will a) be taken out of the package and b) played with by my stepson...
which involves the whole
DC Universe Infinite Heroes line... heh heh heh (hands wringing).
-fin-
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