I am an addict.
I struggle to resist buying stuff.
When I buy something I get a sense of relief and satisfaction.
Not always from the thing I have bought, but from something around… I deserve to treat myself to something that is not a necessity, and that somehow gives me a sense of being due some self indulgence, a reward…
fear of being considered greedy showing up… keep going though.
My first pay packet was from a Saturday job in Tesco’s, Salford shopping centre, January 1972.
It was something like £3 for the day, we started early and finished around 4pm.
On that first day after finishing my days shelf stacking, I went to the record shop round the corner and bought the Hendrix in the West live album for about £2.50. From there to the news agents, and bought ten Benson and Hedges cigarettes for around 10p.
I felt very happy walking home with this.
Although I had already got hold of a few albums, they were either birthday/xmas presents or done in some dodgy swap deal with friends at school or youth club, and they didn’t scratch the same itch.
The sense was of being proper grown up and of having some agency, a right to make my own choices around who I was and what I was about.
It gave me confidence and a kind of swag.
Whether anyone else recognised my new superior status as I walked home with a tab in my mouth and an album in the record shop bag under my arm,
I don’t and didn’t know. And in some way, this shopping habit had… and still has… more of a sense of internal, personal self esteem than it does offer externally considered higher status.
Why do I need this lift, this boost, this buzz?
Maybe it has something to do with the messaging that I got from those who placed themselves as the solution to all my
problems and struggles, marketing firms.
I have had this thing for many many years that if you have skills in communications, graphics, creative storytelling, and on top of that
have a good ear for the current or upcoming zeitgeist, why would you choose any other job than advertising?
While I know there are many rewards for working and doing what has meaning to you, and there are ethics and all sorts of other
considerations in how you use your skills to generate an income, meanwhile, for a 15 year old, having grown up in the
60’s and seventies, restricted to the hangups we had (and still have) around being a man, being white, being wealthy, being clever,
being successful…
I needed those boosts to my self esteem.
There is such a big temptation here within me now to scrap this post as I struggle to resist this massive feeling of shame and being considered weak and frivolous and shallow and lacking in most of the desirable traits.
And, I am also feeling in an ongoing, underground, groin area, rebel kinda way, that I have reached an age where I can care less and
be more honest, with myself and others… with you.
There are so many levels to this we, I , you, need to be more, need to be something that we may not be well equipped to be… something
that we are told around… be different, be better… then others will look up to us and respect us for the effort made… to be… not us.
And that is where the Moredum Boredom thing came from just a couple of weeks ago.
This global drive for growth, productivity, expansion, modernisation, constantly moving as fast as possible towards more more more.
Fuck that.
No way am I even considering dropping all my addictions.
They offer me all sorts of remedies to this dystopian background noise drudge of big screen small screen pressure to conform to the,
you are not enough, you are not worthy.
I will continue to use the small medicines that I find outside of the medically ordained options, shopping is one addiction for me, and
I have a few others too. They work for me, tried and tested, over many years.
Will that shorten my life, maybe, will it increase the rate at which this climate catastrophe will destroy so many ecosystems
and in that, all of us, maybe, does this indicate that I am weak and should be stronger, probably maybe that too.
Can I manage the shame and disgrace and blame that I imagine will be heaped upon me, for being almost honest?
I don’t know.
I do know that the tools that have been designed and built and are used by those who feel the need to dominate others in order to feel ok
with themselves are blame, shame, exclusion, incarceration, violence and social disgrace.
And I know that I don’t want to use any of those tools in the push for different ways to build alt communities.
So in an attempt to play a tiny role in the global resistance models we need to build for ourselves and those around us who are also sold a lie, I am leaving this here to satisfy my need to own my own insecurities… and to offer this space for you too… to step towards who we are, and who we can become as a collective community.
Maybe then, with shared and focused support for each other, in this move away from fear and shame, towards shaking off and dismissing the demands made upon us by those that consider themselves leaders and rulers, prime ministers and presidents… we can, from there, dare to imagine beyond what we are told, what we are sold, are insurmountable limits on our capacity for love and mutual influence.
Wow, this fell out big and different and took paths I didn’t expect, and while not sure this is doing me or you any favours, I’m going with it… note to self; it will do for now Mark.
Can I allow myself this time and space to trust this ranty piece has credit, do I need too, does it matter?
I don’t know, and maybe, when I trust myself to be all these parts, some of the parts that show up, those parts hidden in old dust and vague shamey shit, they lead me towards the changes I feel need to happen, not just for me, for all.
Thanks for sitting with me here, alongside bell hooks and Audre Lorde and James Baldwin and Bayo Akomolafe and all my friends who love and hate me equally for who I am beyond these new funky kick ass shoes and this drop dead class hair cut.
#liberation #systemchange #equipoisist #haecciety