Am I Hooked Or What?
admin January 17th, 2012
I am actually embarrassed to admit this, but one of the things I learned during our recent move and settling-in, is how dependent I/we are on the consumer establishment for my sense of security and well-being.
Ugh! That’s disgusting! But true.
After two or three weeks of unpacking and getting to know our new town, I noticed that every time we saw a chain store or big box store that we frequented in our former town, and which was within a short driving distance of our new digs, one or both of us gave a sigh of relief or even a little cheer.
Oh. My. God! Are we hooked or what?
We felt a greater sense of security every time we found a store that sold the things we were used to. Some of those things were, in fact, real necessities, for instance we are vegans both out of medical necessity as well as philosophy. Unfortunately, Central Pennsylvania, where we have settled, is a bit of a food desert when it comes to vegetarian and vegan restaurants and organic food stores. This we knew before we moved, but we felt we would be able to make-do. So when we discovered our first health food store and that it had many of the foods we were used to, we were elated and felt much more secure.
But the same thing happened when we found stores that only offered the extra, often unnecessary, amenities like a Best Buy or Macy’s. We could certainly live pretty well without their goods, but it still made us feel better that they were close-by – again, more security in the consumption zone!
So there was both the need for things that actually keep us alive and healthy, and the consumption of stuff that merely tickled our fancies. We are far more hooked than I thought, but it goes much deeper in my reptile brain than just feeling good about buying stuff. It has become a deeply emotional thing that is tied (perhaps illicitly) directly to my need to survive!
It reminds me of an explanation I heard some years ago, about why certain scenes in photos or paintings, or even just the mental image of a scene makes us feel good.
Take for instance the pictures we’ve all seen innumerable times of a farm or cabin nestled in a pretty valley like the old Currier and Ives paintings. It might be a winter scene with a wisp of smoke curling from a chimney, or a summer day with a stream flowing by the house and a field of wild flowers behind the barn. Even though we may think such pictures ubiquitous or trite because we’ve seen them so often, they still give us a bit of a good feeling.
We see in them security and safety as well as family and social traditions that we know and are comfortable with. Cabins or farms set in a fertile, protected valley make us feel good because they imply good crops and sufficient food. Surrounding hills offer protection from storms. The chimney smoke on a winter’s evening means warmth and safety. These elements guarantee that we will have ample food and that we will be protected from danger.
But 21st Century consumer culture has corrupted our basic assumptions about safety and security: much different than Currier and Ives or those that are presented in the Bible. We have substituted a plethora of consumer goods in big box stores set along congested highways in place of a barn by a stream, or a family sitting by the fireplace on a winter’s night.
Certainly our consumer version of safety and security creates an uglier picture than those of Currier and Ives, but also a whole lot more dangerous to our well-being as individuals, families, and society – but still… I felt uncomfortably better knowing my 21st Century need for gadgetry and supra-abundance could be easily satisfied in our new surroundings – whether I actually satisfy those needs or not.
Even our brain stems, those remnant reptile brains of ours, have now been imprinted with a corrupted sense of security… one that ultimately makes us much less secure and more vulnerable.
So, I guess the first thing for me to do is to notice that this is happening to me and to at least be awake to what this corrupted sense of security is likely to lead me to do. I now know that I feel this way, so I can pay much closer attention to what I am doing, or rather what the snake in my head wants me to do.
Gotcha!
