Doubts
A friend challenged me to share the ways in which I'm insecure about Fix. I'm a little scared of doing this for a year - both that it's too hard to keep up for a year and that it's too easy to do for a year: people make do and mend all the time (homeless people, very poor people here and in other countries). I'm afraid that someone will write to say what a spoiled, entitled brat I am, and in some ways, I wish they would - only someone who has access to so much can call Fix an "experiment." I'm also afraid that people are thinking it's a bigger sacrifice than it is: I've gotten so many emails from people expressing how they could never do such a thing. I don't want to tell the people at my office: I'm afraid they'll think I'm taking advantage, lying, or stealing somehow; it's a given that they'll think it's a ridiculous enterprise. I'm afraid of my few friends in business school - that they think I'm shitting on what they really care about, disrupting their dreams or something. I'm concerned for myself in that I wonder if it's too neurotic, that the experiment is about control in a way that isn't healthy for my life right now. I've been feeling lately that my world is really small - maybe this will make it even smaller? The idea is to make it bigger, by learning about how my own life connects to that of my family and my community in ways that go beyond consumption. And finally, as with every project I do, I worry that the documentation of this experience might prohibit me from actually having an experience: when you keep a blog, do you start to think of everything in terms of how it reads when you post it?
Megan Metcalf
5 Comments
Reader Comments (5)
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=dbe3abba-9136-49d4-898e-558d46e5d091
Hi Megan,
The above link will take you to an article printed in my city's newspaper about my family's (and another's) quest in the "compacting" adventure. I, too, haven't told many friends and family members about what we're doing. I didn't want to hear the opinions, criticisms, questions, judgements, etc. I was almost dreading this article hitting the Saturday paper. Was I ever pleasantly surprised! I have had so much positive feedback and people wanting to know how they, too, can get involved in compacting and spending less and more wisely. I have been handing out email addresses and websites to all sorts of people, people who have never spoken to me ever! You may be pleasantly surprised, give it a shot.
Holly
Thanks, Holly! The article articulates something else I worry about with Fix. At the end, it mentions writer Thomas Hine, who implies that things like Fix and The Compact can also be a trap, i.e. in making rules we "still define ourselves by consumption." Maybe that's why I've let this have a degree of vagueness that generally makes me uncomfortable? I wouldn't want to be in a trap worse than the one I might already be ensnared in...(maybe now I'm just making excuses for all the loose ends!)
Good luck this year.
I've been thinking about this ever since reading it. Last week I got into an article about Gandhi. They were talking about his image and how precisely he organized his life around his beliefs. One word they kept using was discipline. There is a similar dynamic to Fix. It is about you trying to not continuously consume. While food and money are part of this, it is the desire to consume that is the foundation. The need or want of something you probably don't need. I find myself constantly consuming food. Even when I don't need to. Then thinking about Gandhis fasting, I cannot fathom it. This project is a process. It will fail. You will anger people. People will support you. In the end it is just about you. Being honest and forth right about that is all the justification you should need.
This is right on: it's all about desire - I am investigating my desire to consume things as much as I'm investigating the actual consuming of things. We have created this culture where things can make us feel safe and good, where someone I know says, "I want something exciting to happen!" I suggested she take a walk and she said, "I know! I need some sweaters, I think they're having a sale online!" And that did the job.
The desire for things isn't unreasonable - we need certain things: shelter, a full belly, love from other people...and maybe the desire for other things isn't unreasonable, either, given our social/cultural circumstances. I've definitely had a fantasy or two this year about wearing out my clothes and everything in my apartment and then dumping it all (yes, dumping!), driving away, and buying everything new in a new city. Desire? Need? This project is turning out to be way more emotional than I imagined.
these b-school mates of yours sound kinda sensitive... do they dream of consuming and polluting? should think they'd be thrilled-- one less consumer to satisfy! more for the rest of us. but seriously, why don't you think they'd be onboard with a green rethinking of priorities, processes, and proletariat-exploitation (prolesploitation?)-- i mean isn't green big in b-schools right now?