What I’m not: a willing consumer. A mere transporter of empty plastic containers from distribution / profit hub to the far reaches of this tiny planet. Your slave / banner waving / tool. Fuck you cuz I’m my own man. There are products and services that I like, but I’m not paying good money to hustle your Chinese made bullshit, and that is largely your fault anyways Mr. multinational slave master. You moved our jobs to poor countries to pay out larger dividends to your shareholders. They've gotten very rich, and the rest of us have gotten cancer / diabetes / ADHD / depression / anxiety / chemical dependency. A lot of it is your fault too. You paid for the marketing that high-jacked the social narrative. You convinced us that consumption is an act of patriotism while you simultaneously gutted the economy, skipped out on your taxes, destroyed the environment, and corrupted the democracies that made you possible. There is not a corner of the world you have not poisoned. A peg board for product placement. Another neck for you to suck on for a new summer home / luxury car / private school for baby parasites
What I am: a difference machine. A conscientious decision maker. A human being with a modular belief system, values, and intrinsic value. Another mouth to feed in a ecosystem of 7,000,000,000 other mouths to feed + all the other organisms with a right to life that I also like to eat. An educated experienced hunter gatherer that has been wronged, and is looking for some serious fucking revenge. Pissed the fuck off. Underutilized, over invested, increasingly despondent.
Are other people making decisions about your identity for you? This question can be somewhat confusing, so lets try and get some perspective on it for a second. The clothes that you wear, do they prominently display a product or service label on them? If so, how do you feel about paying money to advertise for a product or service that pays other services to do their advertising for them/ Or rather, how do you feel about being a billboard? Shouldn't they be paying to advertise their shit for them? Maybe you’re okay with this. Maybe wearing these badges identifies you with certain groups you like to think you’re part of. The beauty of that argument is that the people who want to sell you shit, and use you as a billboard invented this concept precisely because they want to sell you shit and use you as a billboard. You are a user defined environment. I’m not trying to tell you how to feel about that, I am asking you to think about what you’re wearing, because it is a means for identifying, both inwardly (reinforcing how you view yourself) and outwardly (expressing who you are to others, by virtue of products), either with or against persons places and things.
Why does it matter? It matters because every time you surrender your own personal narrative to a marketing a-hole, you surrender your free will to someone who views you as another object to be climbed over to achieve their goals and their aspirations (which invariably leads to purchasing other identity objects!). You are a unit to be shifted, and number to be reached, a tool.
Just think about it. No revolution. No new movement. Just think [about everything] god damn it.
Why do we matter? Because we are difference machines. Be cause we make decisions that inform decisions, all of which having consequences that are well understood and not understood at all. Because the things we do effect EVERYTHING around us, so we have a responsibility to and for everything around us. Because mattering is the ultimate fuck you to the fact that we ultimately don’t matter at all, in the great scheme of things.
Identity is a 2 way handle. You can use it to meet your objectives, but so too can others who are either cleverer than you or simply less scrupulous. Don’t get used in ignorance of being used. Advertise for others what and when you want to. Be aware that advertising limits you, quantifies you, and can betray you to people who think they’re cleverer and more scrupulous.
