Category Archive

Tonight I went to hear the mythical David Suzuki speak at the University of Regina. It was the best live talk I’ve ever been too. Hands down. That man has so much cred that he maintains absolute legitimacy even while hollering into the microphone like a raving lunatic. It was seriously excellent. For some reason I thought powerful oration was a lost art, but clearly I was wrong.

He’s heading west and has a number of stops left to go, so if he hasn’t already passed through your town yet, please try to check him out. Find the sched here. ‘Cause we all need more heroes, right?

xo n

I’ve been putting off this confession for over a week: I had a momentary (and very lame) lapse in consumer judgment, and participated in buying something totally off limits to Subverting Overconsumption. It may have been the least romantic and most incomprehensible way to fall off the wagon, so I feel a like a bit of a jackass. But it’s a good reminder about how easy it is to get careless, so here goes:

It was my Grandma’s birthday 83rd birthday last week, and my uncle and I drove out of town to visit her for the day. I procrastinated dealing with her birthday all week, stayed out too late on Friday night, woke up the next morning and found myself in Safeway with my uncle sharing the cost of a potted flowering plant and a shiny Happy Birthday helium balloon.

Now, the flowers I managed to justify to myself (if only because they don’t fall under any clear guideline for Subverting Overconsumption). But a festively garish themed helium balloon? It’s never even crossed my mind to buy such a thing for anyone ever in my entire life! Why now? For what purpose? Did I lose all reason and consciousness and sense of self to boot?

I have no explanation. It’s completely incomprehensible to me. I just feel confused and dumb. Not like it’s the end of the world or the project or anything…just like it was really weird.

I’ve thought about it some, and there seems to be something about giving gifts in the context of this project that makes me profoundly uncomfortable. At Christmas I struggled with a similar anxiety around how to express my love/appreciation/affection to people through giving them shit. I felt insecure that if I didn’t buy stuff for people they wouldn’t think I was giving enough, or I felt reluctant to put a ton of time into homemade effort for people that might just not appreciate it. I felt like it would have been safer and easier to drop money on something material and meaningless than to pour blood, sweat and tears into something meaningful only to risk having it fall flat. In this case, it was much easier to lull myself into going along with buying my grandmother some impersonal crappy object that it was to admit that I don’t know her well enough to trust myself to do something for her that she would really value.

It’s disappointing, but all there is to do is get up, dust myself off, flag “gifts” as something now officially needing extra attention as part of Subverting Overconsumption, and move forward.

xo n

Ok, so I thought the 100-mile diet was radical until my mom forwarded me this article called “Consumed with less: not buying any food” (Globe & Mail, January 13, 2007)*. It’s about the Freegan movement, which basically takes freecycling to the next (and perishable) level: dumpster diving for wasted food that is still fine to eat.

It’s not something I can personally envision myself doing, probably for a combination of reasons including a slight phobia of other people’s dirt and germs, and the cultural perception of what it means to dig through the garbage. On one hand I have a long and proud history of finding treasures in the trash, but eating only from the garbage probably wouldn’t cut it for me. Eating is not just a political statement for me. It also has everything to do with health, and I find it hard to imagine having a consistently well-balanced diet through Freeganism alone.

That said, I have to admit I like the idea. One girl’s garbage is another girl’s treasure, a truth that undoubtedly holds for food too. Visit www.freegankitchen.com for more info and to see a great video blog about cooking Freegan style that makes it look totally appealing and sexy. And here’s a YouTube clip that’s fun too:

*For some reason the link to the complete article doesn’t work, but I did access it by Googling “consumed with less globe mail.”

The results of the Subverting Overconsumption holiday poll have been painstakingly tabulated (all 36 votes). Here are the subversively underconsumptive holiday gifts you’d most like to receive:

1st place tie: Homemade foodstuffs and Homemade/crafted gifts (9 votes each)
2nd place: No gift necessary (6 votes)
3rd place tie: Charitable donation on your behalf and Dinner out together (3 votes each)
4th place tie: Products bought used and Re-gifted items (1 vote each)
5th place: Screw off! I want a real gift (no votes (due to some technical difficulty with the suvey itself that I was too lazy to resolve))

Thanks for taking part! For some other sweet suggestions, check out the reader comments on my pre-holiday post.

So how did Christmas Day proper pan out on the underconsumptive gift giving/receiving front? The family members that spent the day together had a $10 price limit for gifts, which took a lot of the pressure off and made things fun (I recommend it). Here’s the debrief:

Gave:
- More enlarged original photographs in thrift store frames
- Souvenir from Thailand that I’ve been hanging onto since the spring
- Door prize I won in the fall
- Purchased foodstuffs (definitely cheating)

Received:
- Cash
- Bath stuffs
- Puzzle game for the “stressed executive” (I guess that’s me)
- Slippers
- Calendar
- Organic fair trade chocolate bar

So there we have it. The most overly consumptive part of the year is almost over, and I’d say that my holiday efforts to underconsume were, for the most part, successful (though I won’t even touch my consumption of shortbread and perogies, neither of which were moderate).

Happy almost 2007.

xox n

Awesome headline, right? For those of you who’ve been following Subverting Overconsumption, you may recall my mental hurdle to buy used socks, and the ensuing dialogue about what would happen when the time came for new (or at least new-to-me) underwear.

It seems that buying someone else’s socks is one thing (I’m shamelessly wearing my thrift store socks as I type), but that recycling panties has whole other connotations. Though in recent years I can admit to cheerfully buying the odd second-hand bra, slip or vintage bathing suit, when it comes to the generally quiet lingerie aisle at Value Village I generally steer clear, and I never browse the panties.

That aside, the used undy question makes for interesting conversation. A favourite uncle sent me an email (subject heading: “dead man’s underwear”) that read: “So I hear you are going to buy nothing new for a whole year, what a great idea. Sometimes I find new underwear at the sally-ann, but I think they may have been a dead man’s pair and he just never got to use them.” I also had a chat with Stonehead about the dilemma, on both his and my blog.

All that said, I guess I’m as much disappointed as relieved that the underwear dilemma has been resolved before it even became a problem. Turns out my mom “couldn’t bear the thought” of me not buying new underwear for a year, and so intervened by buying* me four shiny new pair for Christmas. And so my passable underwear collection is now even better, and the debate can likely be put to rest for the remainder of the project. Thanks mom! (But I have to wonder how much more fun it would’ve been to play it out the other way!)

*Passing through Calgary (my hometown and the current Canadian hub of overconsumption) on her way to Saskatchewan for Christmas, my mom stopped at the iconically Canadian and newly American-owned Hudson’s Bay Company to buy a pair of pants. It happened to be Scratch and Save, and she happened to scratch an unheard of 45% savings on all merchandise in the store. So instead of buying a single pair of pants at regular price, she made the most of her savings by spending several times what she originally planned to on all manner of products (including my brand-spanking-new ginch). She then went home and passed the savings card to a friend, who went and bought a ton more stuff that she would have otherwise not bought. Talk about viral consumption…I’m not sure what kind of human would be completely immune to it.

xo n

(Note: Snyder family be advised that reading further will give away your Christmas presents.)

With only a few days left till Santa, my attempts to subvert holiday overconsumption have been moderately (if not wildly) successful. I haven’t been in a mall or a big box store, and it feels great. But unfortunately I haven’t been magically moved to create innovative underconsumptive gifts either. The moments of inspiration have been few.

Fortunately I’ve managed to manifest at least one decent series of gifts. The idea came way back in the summer, when I came across a snapshot of my great grandparents in 1910, standing on the prairie with a boxy storefront in the background. Neither of them could have been older than 25, and they look happy.

I love this picture. I love the sense of history and place it gives me. So I went and had 8″ x 10″ enlargements made, put them in frames, and sent them to every family member on that side of the family. Father, grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins.

I think it’s a good present. But talk about putting all my eggs in one basket! As the box travels west and north I find myself feeling insecure on a bunch of different levels. For one thing, I’m not sure if or how far photo development falls outside my guidelines for subverting overconsumption, and after worrying about that for a while the photos didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted anyway (the photo dude cut off the giant prairie sky, which is a big part of what makes the original photo so cool). For another thing, hiking out to Value Village to buy recycled frames meant that I had to take what I could get, even though it meant settling for some fairly ratty looking frames. On top of that I didn’t buy wrapping paper - instead I did a bit of a hack job wrapping them in old magazine pages and recycled velvet and lace ribbon.

Then of course there’s the problem of them being my only gift…what if they just seem lame?

Why is it that despite sparing myself the holiday stress of the malls and consumption, I’m still managing to worry that I’m going to come off like a cheap twit to my friends and family? Two months in to this project (today is Subverting Overconsumption’s two month anniversary!) I realize I still don’t feel quite secure underconsuming in a culture that associates how much we buy with how much success, love and gratitude we have. I wonder when that’s going to wear off. I really want it to wear off dammit!

Subversive season’s greetings to you and yours,

xo n

With the number of shopping days till Christmas counting down, I still haven’t developed my Buy Little-to-Nothing Christmas strategy. This week found my house (and life) moving into high gear for the holidays, but I’m still lagging behind. If anything, I should have starting thinking about Christmas earlier than the average consumer, but instead I’ve put it off and am now about to fly into a panic!

So far my attempts to subvert overconsumption this holiday season haven’t been all that successful.

First hurdle: Tree. My roommate really wanted a tree. I also love having a tree. I’ve always had a real tree. I couldn’t decide whether having a real tree was in any way justifiable under the Guidelines for Subverting Overconsumption. I tried to find a Freecycled tree (posting once myself and responding to two posts) and failed. My roommate finally bought a brand new artificial Christmas tree from Wal-Mart or Liquidation World (I can’t remember which). Shit.

Second hurdle: Gifts.

(Warning: if you are a relative or close friend, you may wish to stop reading this posting now (unless you’re more interested in the process of Subverting Overconsumption than you are in being surprised by what present you get from me).)

I seem to have several gifting options, which I could also mix and match. But so far I’m not feeling overly inspired, and the clock is ticking. I made crabapple jelly in the summer (but at the moment it’s several hundred kilometres away). I could probably find some good used books online. My roommate found a recipe for homemade bath salts in Martha Stewart Living. In the past I’ve made mix CDs, but this year I’m not sure what to do about buying (or rather, not buying) CD-Rs. I thought of personalized storybooks, but that’d be a frick of a lot of work. I won a door prize I could re-gift.

I’m sure I’ll figure something out, but how about some help! Cast your vote on the Subverting Overconsumption Holiday Poll (top left of this page) for a chance to win a subversively underconsumptive gift from yours truly (well, not really, since voting is anonymous…but if you leave a really great comment we can talk!).

xo n

It’s 11 days and counting since the cable was shut off. We have zero channels, and as a result I haven’t watched the TV at all. Specific initial outcomes of the experiment include:

• Borrowed first DVDs from public library (Truly, Madly, Deeply and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
• Went out every night for a week (totally unheard of)
• Walked outside more (despite the incredibly harsh Regina weather)
• Read more than my combined total for the past six months
• Discovered that the only program I actually miss is Survivor
• Discovered that I actually really miss Survivor (damn)
• Discovered that Survivor is available online on the Global website (with fewer ads than on TV)
• Joined the Teleban (group of blogs lobbying (playfully) for a Ban on TV)

General outcomes include:

• Increased/improved social life
• Increased sense of productivity (unclear whether this translates to actual increased productivity)
• Improved well-being

Overall, the results seem to indicate that not watching TV is great for me, and that not paying for cable is absolutely appropriate to this project. Unfortunately, my love affair with a TV-free life might be shortlived.

My roommates miss TV! The roommate who felt productive and engaged the weekend the cable was cut off now tells me that not having TV makes her feel isolated, and that she doesn’t want to spend time at home.

I was really sad to realize that not everyone thrives on a TV-free existence the way I seem to. And unfortunately, if my roommates do decide to get cable again, I don’t think it would be cool for me to opt out, so that puts me in a tricky situation.

As mentioned in The revolution will not have cable, if the TV is there I will watch it (I’m the kind of creature that requires a healthy environment to actually be healthy). And regardless of that, it would feel pretty tacky not to chip in if both my roommates really want it.

Another possibility is that we get an antenna, which would get us two or three channels for free (though then I’d be buying that, which would still be outside the guidelines…dammit!). The other possibility is that I move out, but I’m not sure the goal of Subverting Overconsumption is to isolate myself from the world so that I can perfectly control my environment. Or maybe it is…arghhh.

What it seems to come down to is that it’s hard to make significant lifestyle downshifts towards reduced consumption and increased sustainability when the people around me aren’t necessarily making similar changes. Of course I dream to changing mass consciousness by putting my own values in full practice, but the idea of preaching (e.g., “Oh come on, don’t you feel like you’d be a more engaged, happier, human human if you never watched TV again?”) feels much more like a nightmare.

So obviously I haven’t struck a balance with any of this. But if the roommates want TV, I don’t think I can and/or will make a giant fuss over it.

xo n

Hmmm…Not as naughty as it sounds, but these posters from Take back Your Time are still fun.

It’s true! There is a correlation between how much time we spend working and how much we consume. In general, the more we earn, the more we spend. And the more we work, the less time we have for everything, including making conscious choices.

Check out www.timeday.org for more info.

…and I didn’t even remember! Oh well, it’s just Adbusters propaganda anyway (though they weren’t the ones to come up with the idea…it originally came from the brain of Vancouver artist Ted Dave).

So how badly did I botch Buy Nothing Day?

Got up, drank coffee and did laundry. Walked briskly (my back’s feeling better) in the frigid Regina weather to the McKenzie Art Gallery to participate in an Artist Trade Card trading session. Traded for eight new cards. Got a lift home from a fellow trader. Went to Eat Healthy Foods and bought (oops) unsweetened soy milk, a can of organic pea soup (perfect lunch for a cold day), a loaf of manna bread, and a piece of wild Coho salmon. What a frickin’ hippie.

So I guess it could have been worse. I could have bought a bed (for an update on the bed sitch, check out my Wish List). As it stands, my net creativity for the day feels decent.

In honour of the day, here’s a little piece on How to Buy Nothing that I liked.

xo n

My subversion of overconsumption has officially encountered its first big test.

I put my back out this morning. I wasn’t doing anything in particular, apart from sleeping in bed. Now I’m in pain. I’m hopped up on Robax Platinum, which does no damn good whatsoever.

I can think of only two things that could have caused my back pain. One is physical, the other is spiritual.

The physical one is simple: my bed sucks. It came with my furnished room. It’s a spongy, saggy mattress that sits on an even saggier box spring that sits on four bricks. No back could withstand such a shitty bed for long.

It’s obvious I need a new bed. But how am I supposed to get one when I’ve resolved to buy nothing new for a year? Back pain is great for melting my resolve. All I want right now is for some bed fairies to deliver a deluxe posturepedic bed, haul it up to my room, make it up with a warm duvet, fill up a hot water bottle, feed me Robax and cocoa, tuck me in and read me stories until I fall off into a gentle, muscle relaxant-induced slumber.

Subverting consumerism through conspicuous underconsumption be damned. Who came up with this stupid project anyway? I don’t want to seek out used mattresses on Regina Freecycle or at Value Village or in alleyways. I don’t want to haul some crappy old bed home to find it smells weird or is saggy or lumpy and makes my back hurt more. What would not buying a new bed achieve? Will sleeping on a crappy bed save drowning polar bears or get generic drugs to people with AIDS or reverse climate change? Or will my actions, well-intentioned though they may be, achieve nothing?

And thus, the physical cause of my pain leads directly to the spiritual one. Last night before falling asleep I was reading Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel. On page 9 he quotes Castaneda’s Don Juan: “We must know first that our acts are useless, and yet we must proceed as if we didn’t know it. That is a sorcerer’s controlled folly.” That made me cry. Then I tried to sleep. In the early morning before the sun was up I was awakened by searing back pain.

Maybe it was the bed that did my back in, or maybe it was the knowledge of my own futility, or probably it was a bit of both. I don’t know how to know that my actions are useless and proceed anyway. I like to think that it’s possible, and I can give myself all sorts of pep talks about not being attached to the fruits of my labour and all that good stuff. But no matter how hard I think it, I don’t know how to make myself feel it. I want to make a difference dammit! Accepting that I won’t, no matter how hard I try, is probably the single most impossible request my life will make of me. I just don’t know if it’s possible for me to accept my own futility. And yet I agree with Castaneda/Merkel that it’s my only option.

So that’s where I am. In pain, both physical and spiritual. Where to go from here is unknown.

Suggestions? Anyone?

Anything can be used addictively, whether it be a substance (like alcohol) or a process (like work). This is because the purpose or function of an addiction is to put a buffer between ourselves and our awareness of our feelings. An addiction serves to numb us so that we are out of touch with what we know and what we feel.

- Anne Wilson Schaef

I came across this quote a couple of nights ago while curled up in bed with my well-worn copy of Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies Women’s Wisdom. On this, my one-month anniversary of Subverting Overconsumption by attempting to not buy anything new for a year, I can absolutely relate to this articulation of addiction. In fact, I’m convinced that our cultural compulsion towards consumption is addictive in nature.

I often feel a conscious desire to protect myself from the suffering of the world—to deny and fend off the despair that can otherwise creep in. For every moment that my impulse to disconnect is conscious, there are likely countless other moments that are unconscious, where I’m happy to distract myself with whatever happens to be available. My medications vary: sometimes it’s Cosmos with the girls; other times it’s a discount shopping spree, or bad TV, or chocolate. When faced with the choice between despair and distraction, I most often leap at distraction. I doubt I’m alone.

Thing is, now that I’m engaging in this practice of consuming less (or at least differently), I’m becoming conscious of how I seem to be transferring my compulsion to consume products onto other distractions*. I’m definitely eating more sweet things, drinking more wine, and watching more TV. Buying fewer “things” is great—but I’m beginning to wonder whether it just means I’m consuming more of what I’ve “allowed” myself to: namely food (including alcohol) and culture (including music, TV, movies…).

Of course, it is possible that I’m simply becoming more aware of every aspect of my consumption as a result of this process. Maybe I’m not actually eating more junk and drinking more wine. Maybe I’m just more conscious of the junk and wine I am consuming.

In any case, the unfortunate thing about addiction is that it’s based in denial: until we begin the process of recovery, addicts are generally not conscious of even having a problem or of being out of touch with anything. It’s probably the same with consumption addiction: those that consume with the most excess and abandon are likely those that are most out of touch with the reality of the crisis of unsustainable consumption of resources we currently face. I guess that makes the million dollar question easy: what will it take to get consumption addicts to transfer their addictive tendencies onto compulsive underconsumption and obsessive sustainability?

*It makes sense that if you take one addiction away the tendency will get transferred someplace else. A Google search for “addiction transfer” found a disturbing number of articles on a recent phenomenon where people who’ve undergone weight loss surgery have subsequently transferred their food addiction to other addictions like drugs and alcohol. Wacky, but not too surprising.

xo n

Be What You Love - A billboard I saw in my dreams:

Buy What You Love - A billboard I saw at the corner of 12th & Broad, Regina, SK (spray paint vandalism courtesy of Photoshop):

Now that Halloween is over and the overpriced candy has been relegated to the discount bin, retailers will have ample space to begin the Christmas marketing barrage. Probably the best excuse to consume all year, the holiday season blurs the lines between family, consumption, religion, gratitude and generosity. The annual pressure to consume can make it hard to remember what it’s really supposed to be about.

What is it really supposed to be about anyway? Coming from a WASPy ethnicity but not actually being a Christian myself, Christmas has never been a particularly spiritual observance for me. Rather, the festive season’s been primarily about family, friends and presents, with Santa playing a much more active role in my season’s cheer than Jesus. When I think Christmas, I think turkey, perogies, copious amounts of sugar, and tearing open packages with abandon, under a tree with my family.

Whether by peanut brittle or Pier 1 Asia-inspired plate sets, my Christmastime is certainly tied to consumption. So what does it mean that I’ve resolved to buy nothing new this holiday season? Will I enjoy Christmas less? Will I come off like a preachy wet blanket to family and friends?

Those are my fears, but there may be hope. When I recently discovered the Buy Nothing Christmas website I realized I’m not alone in my hopes to subvert overconsumption this Christmas. BNC is a campaign started by group of Adbusters-affiliated Mennonites, and is inspired by a mix of spiritual and sociopolitical values. An expansion of Buy Nothing Day, BNC challenges the culturally sanctioned overconsumption of mainstream Christmas and aims to reclaim holiday cheer that is both spiritually meaningful and socially responsible.

The website has tons of good resources and suggestions for ways to express gratitude and generosity to loved ones over the holidays without buying much or anything. It inspires me to stick to my goal of gifting differently this year, perhaps with homemade art, donations to charities, or recycled/found gifts. The possibilities are endless, and I have a feeling that putting this kind of thought into the proceedings will make my holidays more meaningful and more fun to boot.

Don’t forget, good things come in no packages.

xo n

If you’re an adult that celebrates Halloween, then last night was likely when you gussied yourself up in costume and hit the town. For my part, I managed to pull together a relatively decent costume without buying anything at all!

Going as a two-headed “Miss Sideshow 2006″ ended up being better in theory than practice, but I would still call it a moderate success. My idea was to dress up like a beauty queen and attach a styrofoam head somewhere on my body. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t for the life of me manage to attach the head securely, and so just carried it around with me for the night.)

I was really hoping to find matching tiaras for the two heads to wear, and even added them to the Subverting Overconsumption Wish List in hopes that they’d magically manifest. Unfortunately they didn’t, but I did come up with some other fun recycled materials to use. Of particular note were the following:

• The second head, which was just floating around my house when I moved in.
• A great vintage dress that I found in Montreal.
• Fingerless white satin gloves that I wore to my own prom (ironically, of course).
• Fabulous vintage clip-on earrings, purchased new last summer from the best jewelry store on the planet, Morin’s in Assinaboia, Saskatchewan.
• An elasticized fake pearl choker turned makeshift tiara.

Overall I was happy with the outcome and not overly constrained by the restrictions of Subverting Overconsumption. Here’s wishing you all a consumer conscious All Hallow’s Eve.

xox n

A couple of weeks ago I was in Montreal staying with a close girlfriend that I hadn’t seen in a year. I was preparing to move to a new city, far away from all my good friends, and the visit gave me a chance to spend some quality time with people I’m not going to see much of for a while. It was Thanksgiving and we decided to make a proper holiday of it, with good wine, good food and good times at the top of our list of priorities.

I’d been thinking about starting this project where I try to become a more conscious consumer by buying nothing new for a year, but I knew that starting it in Montreal would be tough. Usually our girl-style good times have at least something to do with clothes shopping, and sure enough, one of my friend’s first suggestions for the weekend was that we make a pilgrimage to H&M. I hedged a little, and even mentioned that I was thinking of starting this project about consumerism, but it was weak resistance at best. I can’t kid myself. I love shopping, especially with my best girlfriends. It’s part of how we have fun, let off steam and relate to each other.

What I’m beginning to realize is that it’s this social aspect of my relationship to shopping that makes my particular brand of consumerism so insidious. My overconsumption is not just about acquiring stuff. It’s actually about my identity and how I interact with the world around me. It’s about how I connect with people I care about in my life. It’s even a coping mechanism I use when I’m stressed or depressed or bored – a medication I use on myself after a nasty day at work or a major (or minor) disappointment. It’s all of these things, and as I become more aware of what and why and when I consume my eyes open to all of this and I realize how complicated and fascinating a project like this could actually become.

When my friend suggested H&M, I didn’t know how to handle it. I was thinking about starting this project, but I was scared to talk about it because I wasn’t sure if it was crazy or if I was capable of it. I was scared that making a big deal about it and refusing to go shopping would make me a hypocrite if I started the project and then couldn’t pull it off. The other side of it was that I just wanted to go to H&M with my good friend and try on fun clothes and be silly. I wanted to go!

So we went. We burnt a bitching mix CD and drove out to a mall in the ‘burbs. We dug through the heaps of Cambodian and Indonesian-made clothes and stood in line waiting to try them on. I blew some cash on some clothes I needed and some that I didn’t. And then we drove home, laid our new purchases out on the couch to admire, drank some wine, watched some movies, and did all the other things that I love to do with my girls.

Two weeks later I’m in my new home in my new city, where there’s no H&M or Jacob or Zara. I’m also one week in to what I hope will be a year of buying nothing new. I decided to have a go at it to see what happens.

When I sent my friend the link to this blog to tell her about the project, she wrote back: “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about H&M.” At first her response embarrassed me. I mean, who enjoys having their hypocrisies pointed out to them? But it also got me thinking. I knew going into this project that I didn’t want it to be about asceticism or preaching some high and mighty set of values. Nobody’s perfect and I know I’m not either, nor am I trying to be. I like to shop and I hang around people who like to shop. Shopping with my friends is fun. Shopping when I’m down makes me feel better.

All these things are true about me and probably always will be, which is what makes this project so perfect! I’m aware of my hypocrisies, but I want to know even more about them. This project isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being imperfect and in process, and exploring what happens when my awareness of that deepens. It’s about setting an example by being flawed and increasingly conscious in the process.

The things I own don’t define who I am, but I’m finding that saying that and actually believing it and really putting it into practice are two entirely different things. I’m also starting to figure out that that is what makes this project so very interesting and necessary.

The universe supports the subversion of overconsumption. Where on Earth did I come up with such a wacky idea? Right on my own front porch. The day I arrived at my new house in my new city, I was thinking about starting this project where I try to buy nothing new for a year and document the process of underconsumption. I was writing about the idea in a journal with only a few blank pages remaining.

In the front porch of my new house was a pile of boxes labeled “for Value Village,” which my landlord encouraged me to scavenge. What did I find at the bottom of one box but a lovely unused journal, just waiting for me. The cover read: “Dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true. - T.E. Lawrence.”

They say that one girl’s garbage is another girl’s treasure. Jung called it synchronicity. I agree and thank the universe for taking the trouble to encourage me to start. Until next time, buy nothing.
xox n

Welcome to Subverting Overconsumption! The idea is this: I want to lighten my ecological footprint on the Earth and creatively document the process. If every human on the planet lived the lifestyle I’ve been leading, we would require four and a half Earths to survive. Since we’ve only got one, lightening the weight with which I tread on the planet seems like the best (and indeed, the only) way to go. With that in mind, for the next year I intend to buy nothing new, and to explore the creative and spiritual results of underconsumption.

Of course, such an undertaking will undoubtedly be easier said than done! I’m genetically predisposed to collecting vintage junk and I’m a cheapskate to boot, so the idea of buying furniture and appliances secondhand doesn’t faze me. But it didn’t take me long to start thinking of the many ways this project will be tough. How will I stay current without new books and magazines? It’s one thing to buy used clothes, but will I really be able to bring myself to shop at Value Village for socks and underwear? What about going to movies and buying new music? What about receiving gifts? Can I paint my apartment? Can I consume things that are fairly traded or made locally? What about art supplies?

The questions and gray areas abound. Obviously underconsumption is a complicated business, so key to the project is exploring where the plan gets tricky or downright impossible, and what creative means exist to address the challenges. The goal of this project is not asceticism. Rather, it’s about becoming increasingly aware of and creative in my actions, and continually learning how to become more conscious of how I consume. With that in mind, here are some basic guidelines I’ve come up with to start:

1. Participate in the secondhand economy as much as possible. (Exceptions include food and self-care items such as soap, shampoo, etc., though I intend to be as aware as possible of production and packaging.)

2. When consuming, take the following approaches as often as possible: reduce, reuse and recycle, in that order. Trade, share and buy locally to boot!

3. Consuming self-care services or learning opportunities (massage, classes, gym membership, etc.) is OK, though I intend for them to be purchased or traded fairly.

4. Consuming culture (live music, theatre, etc.) is OK. (For now I’m including movies in this category, though I recognize that consuming Hollywood is problematic…)

5. Focus on building knowledge to support the practice of underconsumption. (E.g., how can I learn to better care for the belongings I already have, in order to have to replace them less frequently? Building and sharing a body of knowledge to support a lifestyle of underconsumption is an important aspect of the project.)

6. When Subverting Overconsumption gets hard or impossible, write about it and talk about how and why, and what can be done.

So that’s how this project will start. How it will end is anyone’s guess, but I invite you to stayed tuned, give suggestions, get involved and tell your friends. Until next time, buy nothing.

xox n