Consumption

Consumption, Spring 2013, Philipp Wickey

U.S. citizens consume far more than they need to. People change their clothes every day, eat more than their bodies need, use single serving containers, and work more and more hours to buy more and more stuff. It’s sickening to see the thousands of pounds of packaging that gets thrown “away.” Take walk along any road and start to look at how many plastic bottles, cigarette lighters, bottle caps, and plastic bags are out there. People treat the Earth like a fucking garbage dump.

I watched a movie trailer last night called “Midway,” it’s about an island 2,000 miles from any other land where birds go to birth and raise their offspring. They are feeding the chics theses pieces of plastic. The filmmaker films the actual graphic images of the birds dying from human junk. It’s incredibly painful. Although I have known about the subject for years, it never ceases to cause me a great deal of heartache. Today I nearly beat the shit out of some kid for throwing his cigarette butt on the ground. It makes me physically sick to witness that sort of behavior.

As for our insatiable consumption, I do not understand it. I cannot fathom how people think they need more and more. Millions of people get out of bed and go to jobs they hate to prostitute their bodies and minds for someone else to get wealthier from their labor. These workers get told “you can be rich to!” What a bunch of bullshit. Quit thinking about your selfish little life. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.