28/11/2025
Feeling Belligerent!
It's, so-called "Black-Friday" today...
How I am belligerently celebrating the day:
- reading a book from the library
- listening to records I found at the thrift
- deliberately noticing+enjoying all the things I have that were *not* bought on black Friday, or in big box stores.
This post is not about shaming anyone for how they prepare to celebrate Christmas. I am by no means a purist when it comes to buying things. I've only just recently cancelled my Amazon Prime account & I do "have" to go to the mall sometimes to find things on my teenage sons' Christmas & 'normal life requirements' lists. Shoes, in particular, require this unfortunate action. It's not like I loathe the mall either. I don't mind being there. Especially when it's *not* a week before Christmas when the sense of panic becomes palpable.
My belligerence stems from
-the Perceived sense of Obligation to buy/give new gifts
-The Overconsumption + greed
-The need-for & sense-of-entitlement-to a so-called "deal"
-The *Un*-Conscious spending
-The capitalism that fills big box stores with poor quality junk that will not make anyone happy for more than the moment in time they get the dopamine hit of receiving a* gift, & will promptly be relocated to the dump or the thrift store.
*Dopamine hits for receiving gifts is real, to be sure. Guess what I've discovered! It's the same feeling if you give things that aren't new.
The *System* has created this vortex whereby we 'don't have time' & are 'too tired ' to put in the work that's required for an alternative way of gift giving:
- really getting to know someone enough that you can get them what you know they really would appreciate. (Listening to the things they say, watching what they enjoy... It requires being wealthy in the currency of attention)
- spending the time seeking out good gifts NOT-on-Amazon or at big box stores. It takes more time, more energy, more creativity, yes. I'd like to suggest that that's part of the gift: The attention you've invested into finding something that is off the beaten path.
We need to rethink, + resist, the man-made System that robs us of a good life. Let's keep working at it togeth