Column: Not Quite Nietzsche
I got some test scores back this week and they reminded me that life can be hard sometimes. And I’m not just talking about the grading part of life.
None of us are immune to hard times, but we’ve all developed ways to cope with them.
Personally, when life hands me lemons, I’ve made a policy of taking them to Wal-Mart.
Those guys will take back anything.
When all is said and done, there are few things a trip to the Holy Church of the National Retail Chain can’t fix, and nobody knows this as well as the people of the United States.
Believe it or not, in some parts of the world, people try to deal with their problems through meditation, spirituality and interpersonal relationships.
Thankfully, we, in the United States, take the higher road to stress management through eating, cursing, consuming copious amounts of alcohol and engaging in heavy retail therapy. may not be able to take it with me when I go, but I remember reading somewhere that FedEx and UPS should find a solution to that within the next five to 10 years.
It really doesn’t matter what I buy when I’m feeling down. From a reading light with a strobe setting (can you say Techno-dance party?) to a box of the hair-removing miracle Epil-Stop Plus (they really are serious when they say it shouldn’t be used on the face), I’ve explored about every retail product’s value in regards to grief management.
Wal-Mart may be destroying the old American way of life, but they’re doing a great job of making it feel great.
I would be lying if I said that I understood the processes that lead me to buy when I’m sad, but I think it’s some kind of evolutionary, survival-of-him-with-the-most-stuff principle.
We are all sad sometimes. Sad is understandable, but there’s no reason to be depressed, hungry and unfashionable.
That kind of behavior is just inexcusable.
But don’t think I’m the only one who subscribes to the “buy-when-you-cry” principle.
Recent studies show that a third of our country is obese and that consumer debt is at almost $2 trillion.
That, my friends, is a lot of stuff, and it doesn’t look like the trends are going to reverse anytime soon.
That we are bigger and own more stuff is clearly evidence that we are some pretty sad people.
And those growing numbers suggest only one thing: we still don’t have enough.
The relationship between the emotional/spiritual self and the retail world is more real than you may think.
There is a Kabbalistic idea that the world, since its inception, has managed to get itself all muddied up.
Shards of the perfect world are scattered throughout the globe and it is our responsibility to bring them back together.
How, you may ask. Some say we must do good deeds; I personally believe we must buy.
Somewhere there is a Ronco Food Dehydrator that belongs in my house. There is a bobble-waisted hula girl collecting dust on a store shelf that ought to be dancing on my dash.
They won’t collect themselves. It’s not a hobby – it’s a mission.
It’s a call for each of us to plumb the depths of human sorrow with nothing but a plastic credit card and an ever-increasing limit. Shop, buy, eat: it’s the American way.
Zach is a junior majoring in English. Please send any comments to:
ZPendelten@cc.usu.edu