For me it feels like looking down and seeing for the first time that I’m standing on a minuscule ledge at a dizzying vertical height, and the only thing supporting my weight is the misery and degradation of almost everyone else on earth. And I always end up thinking: I don’t even want to be up here. I don’t need all these cheap clothes and imported foods and plastic containers, I don’t even think they improve my life. They just create waste and make me unhappy anyway. (Not that I’m comparing my dissatisfaction to the misery of actually oppressed peoples, I just mean that the lifestyle they sustain for us is not even satisfying, in my opinion.) People think that socialism is sustained by force – the forcible expropriation of property – but I wish they would just admit that capitalism is also sustained by exactly the same force in the opposite direction, the forcible protection of existing property arrangements.
Sally Rooney (from: Beautiful World, Where Are You)
The last time I have been inside a supermarket was back in July for extra cream when I ran out of it making R's birthday cake (and before that maybe some time in early 2020). I remember that day in July because, unknowingly, I had an infection that required a trip to A&E on the weekend, but there in the air conditioned shopping paradise, I thought I was simply overwhelmed by the variety of cream options. It's not as if I haven't been shopping since, but going to a shop, any shop, has definitely lost all its appeal. Thanks to covid. Not that it had much appeal before. I once fell out with a distant friend, briefly, because she insisted on us spending a day, or maybe an afternoon, I forget, browsing shops and when I realised it was not book shops and that she in fact refused to spend ages waiting for me to finish reading, which apparently is not what you are meant to do in a book shop, she had a bit of a fit and we parted ways for a while, she browsing for whatever and me reading on, before meeting up in a delightful cafe to catch up on old times.
In our pandemic world here, we have been spending money and feeding the economy, but just not as much. Instead, we have lists for a few delivery and/or online shops. Occasionally, I cycle to the library to return/pick up my online loans. In two years, we filled up the petrol tank exactly three times.
I miss a few things, goodness yes I do, none of them do to with visiting shops. A while ago, I listened to a zoom talk about inner cities after the pandemic and alternatives to shopping streets and malls and living centers with children and dogs and trees and actual life. What a wonderful dream.
If only it was that easy to change our world.
ReplyDeleteMy anti-social life hasn't really been impacted by covid out here. I have a house with lots of space and a half acre with open space on either side, a shop across the street on an acre and a half. I still basically do what I did before. I;m retired though I still create, my children and grandchildren are grown. I'm lucky I know. I can't imagine what it's been like for people who are still employed, who have children, who live in an apartment with no green space, who were in the habit of going out and socializing or to eat or entertainment.
ReplyDeleteSweet little video. Why didn't we aim for that in the beginning?
I want to live in a different world, the one without a pandemic, the one where cars disappear quietly and the green earth sprouts up in all its nourishing beauty.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of the children and the grandchildren, these visions of what is and what could be. Lest they see no point in living. Lest any of us see no point in living. Thank you for this, Sabine.
ReplyDeleteThe consumer world just keeps getting more bizarre: when I visit the places where people commonly shop I come out dazed, "like the duck that has been hit on the head."
ReplyDeleteWould that more people could enjoy such a community to which this one changes in the vimeo. I'm no longer able to cycle but doing so is highly desirable for those who can. I've not set foot inside a store of any kind since the week before Covid was acknowledged as being present in Los Angeles County California where I live.
ReplyDelete(I actually wrote this comment a couple of days ago but couldn't post it for some reason, so I'm trying again!)
ReplyDeleteLove the video, and Sally Rooney's thoughtful words. I don't miss shopping at all. We seldom buy much anyway, aside from groceries -- and even then, as Rooney wrote, we're plagued with packaging.
Great quote. I think more and more people are getting comfortable with less since the pandemic. Perhaps that's the good part. I'm probably wrong, but I live in hope.
ReplyDeleteInteresting quote from Sally Rooney. I don't do much shopping these days. Some people have dry January where they swear off alcohol for the month. I had dry January where I swore off spending on anything but my unavoidable and recurring monthly bills. But now, a few house upgrades are planned, so the economy will once again be fed by me.
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