I want to talk a little bit about a revelation I had today, whilst walking back from the shop. I have found myself car-less for 2 weeks, and have actually been walking wherever I needed to go, and only buying what would fit in the bottom of the baby’s stroller.
And it’s awesome.
Not only does it force me to just wander, and think, and not have a constant barrage of phone calls, emails, tweets or Facebook notifications… but I get exercise as well. I actually have a stack of material stored for this blog that came about just from letting my thoughts travel.
On the walk home today, I was enjoying my walk, thinking about fitting exercise into my day and thinking about previous years, where I have purchased gym memberships, hired machines, done fad diets, etc…
And it occured to me.
I would pay $55 per month, get in that car (that I couldn’t afford), drive 10 minutes to the gym, to stand on a treadmill and be bored shitless. If I even went in the first place.
Just let me repeat that in case you didn’t realise how absurd it is:
$55 per month to drive 10 minutes to the gym, to stand on a treadmill.
It was this thought, where I chuckled to myself about the absurdity of our consumer culture, that I wondered out loud to myself… WHEN THE FUCK DID I BECOME A PART OF THIS?
I grew up in very modest surroundings — with a father on a disability support pension, and a grandmother who came out of retirement to clean hotels just for me. I always thought that I was fairly humble — of course not without *some* ego, but for the most part pretty humble and moderate in my consumerism. But of course it all crept in over time, until all of a sudden I was one of those BORING CUNTS who complain to their grandmother about how FUCKING MISERABLE I AM to be earning 3 times the biggest salary she ever earned, trying to pay off a car with a shitty finance deal & repayments that were killing me and the fucking-woe-is-me-isn’t-it-SO-hard-being-able-to-work-whenever-I-want-in-my-own-business-for-good-money-and-oh-the-bills-and-my-oh-so-middle-class-lifestyle.
I deserve to be punched in the face for it, and I am honestly surprised Grandma didn’t.
Anyway, I arrived home after my walk, having had this revelation that my life for the last 5 years has pretty much been bullshit, tail chasing consumerism at it’s finest. My Dad, who is a car-less pensioner, who relies on public transport & walking everywhere, was here, and I felt the need to tell him about my revelation.
I said “I have decided that I am going to simplify my life”.
He laughed at me in that “I love you but fucking hell did you really spawn from my loins” kind of way that only a parent can. Because he doesn’t have the choice. And I felt like a complete wanker, because it shouldn’t be a revelation that we spend too much fucking money on pointless shit, to impress people we don’t really like and who would never really be impressed anyway.
So, despite the economic situation having a scary effect on my financial future, I have actually realised that I am tremendously lucky to even have the CHOICE to simplify. For so many people, it isn’t a matter of choice but necessity. Heck, it might even become necessity. But hey, that’s alright, because I’m too fucking fat and lazy anyway.