The Secret of Life: Retail Heaven And Hell

One of the blog posts I read over the festive season which has really stuck in my mind is the December 27 post by Stephen at Birthing Your Life Dream, in which he sings the praises of the new iPod his wife brought him for Christmas.

What with this being a spirituality blog, this might seem like a strange thing for me to focus on in this way. An attitude of skepticism - or even disdain - towards such consumer goods might appear to be more in keeping. Yet there is a genuine innocent delight in the way Stephen writes about his present which is endearing.

He writes:

What joy it brought me to return to those sacred songs of my... (early) ...life, look them up, buy them, then have them ringing through my head once more, with a fidelity that one can only describe as heavenly. In fact, one of my very favorite love songs ever - Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell's If This World Were Mine, absolutely sounds like it was channeled and sung by the angels.

It's as if I said: "OK, God... do you remember this song that I used to sing when I was 12 years old? I loved it so much! Please bring it to me so that I could hear it once again in its grandest form." Then voila! Out of the Akashic Records it materializes, to dance in my head with exquisite aliveness."

Stephen reminds me that all these gadgets we humans have created: these iPods, games consoles, digital cameras, wide screen TVs and the like are actually wonderful things. If they'd been shown to the six-year old me living in post-war austerity Britain, it would have been like I'd died and gone to heaven. What we have done is to grow up and create the toys and artifacts of our dreams. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with these things. They are genuinely wonderful inventions. It is truly magical to immerse ourselves for a while in the fantasy world of a console game, or to watch a nature program or a favorite movie on a screen which almost fills your living room wall. Such things have never been possible before in the whole of human history. It is a great privilege to be able to have such experiences.

And yet... I suspect that Steve is unusual - at least among adults! - in taking such genuine delight in his new gadget. Walking past the shops in recent days, with the January sales in full flow, I have seen little such delight on the faces of the bargain-hunting customers. They seem to walk into the shops not in the expectation of any kind of fulfillment of their dreams, but as though they are about to engage in mortal combat. As they emerge again, clutching their enormous screens or tiny gizmos, they don't look happy. They look as though they've just completed a tedious household chore, like putting out the trash.

Why is this, I wonder?

To some extent, we're justified in restraining our enthusiasm about whatever we've just bought. Bitter experience has probably taught us that in all likelihood a) the instructions won't make sense and b) the thing won't work in any case. In all probability, what we have to look forward to as we walk out of the store is not year after year of blissful enjoyment but many weeks of bitter wrangling with the customer services department. I recounted the sad tale of my own mp3 player in the very first post on this blog. It took me months to get the thing working and I had to erase the hard drive of my PC and reload all my software in the process. I don't have to tell you that this sort of thing is not unusual...

And then there is that insatiable need that we have to find a bargain. If we don't get a large discount, we feel we've been ripped off. We want to feel that we're paying less for the product than everyone else is. Otherwise, we can't settle down and enjoy it. I mean, how can you possibly enjoy watching a 52 inch flat screen TV with stereo sound which cost you five dollars more than the guy next door? It can't be done.

And then, of course, there's obsolescence anxiety. Is the product you've bought going to be out of date before long? Will they bring one out in a few months time with extra bells and whistles that you don't have? And what if the thing gets damaged? That would be terrible, wouldn't it? I myself have to listen to an mp3 player which has visible bits of dust beneath its screen. As you can imagine, this is a source of endless torment to me.

And then there's the stress of trying to find time to actually use the gadget. How on earth can you find a few hours to enjoy watching your widescreen TV when you also have to listen to your iPod, make calls with your color screen cellphone, and take photos with your digital camera - photos, furthermore, which then have to be uploaded to your multi-media PC so that you can download them to the hard drive of your DVD or print them out with your all-in-one photocopier, ink jet and fax machine? To even attempt such a thing, you're going to have to download several audio books on time management to your mp3 player - and how are you going to find the time to do that?

In any sane world, on the other hand - and it may well be that Stephen is living in a small bubble of one! - you wouldn't buy any gadgets that you didn't have time to use, and you would happily go on using them for many years to come, irrespective of whether any newer models had been introduced in the meantime. And because you would therefore be buying less stuff, you would be able to pay a bit more for them, so that the manufacturers would be able to provide a better standard of workmanship and customer service and your experience as a consumer would be much less troublesome. When your gizmos eventually did stop working - many years down the line - you might even take them to a little shop round the corner where someone would fix them for you, rather than having to go out and buy a new one. And you certainly wouldn't worry if your various gadgets developed a scratch or two because you wouldn't have bought them in order to show off!

The point is that there is nothing 'wrong' with these artifacts themselves; it is our attitude to them which arguably falls short of our greatest good, because a lot of the time here in what we call 'the developed world', we are so caught up in the ego stuff around them - the whole business of possession - that we don't have chance to be there in the moment and take full delight in actually using the things.

It's another example of what we're so good at: failing to live in the moment, of being focussed on the next iPod - the one the guy next door has, or the next model up that we might have bought, or the one coming out next year - and so failing to hear the one that's attached to our ears. The point is: we work so hard for this stuff, but a lot of the time we don't even enjoy it when we've got it. We give up so much of our precious time to work for it that we don't have time to use when we finally have it.

It's all a symptom of unconscious living, of doing things without really thinking about it, of buying things because that is what we do. Like I say, there's nothing 'wrong' with all these artifacts, but it's a terrible waste of the earth's resources if they're not really being appreciated. They can be a gateway to joy, but only if we schedule in time to use them, and make sure that we're actually there in the moment while we're doing it: actually seeing those wonderful pictures, really hearing those marvelous sounds, instead of going off into a fantasy about what we might buy next.

Otherwise, well, perhaps we should just find a better home for these glorious gizmos on eBay.

Perhaps we ought to remember: an iPod is not just for Christmas.

This may also be of interest:

Feeling What Is

9 Comments

Thank you for your beautiful quote and review of my recent post; it feels wonderful to read that another person, you so ressonates to the innocent joy that these things bring.
I think that this is the key.. to remember bringing forth our awe-struck child whenever we embark on any adventure, especially when investing in technology.
I honor you for the work that you are doing with this site; radical forgiveness is totally cool.
Many Blessings to you in '08

Posted by: Stephen Levine | January 13, 2008 at 11:50 PM

I just got an MP3 player as well. I really love the convenience of being able to bring my entire CD collection with me wherever I go now. I love music and to have it so available is a joy to me as well.

Posted by: Chase March | January 14, 2008 at 03:04 PM

This is another wonderful post {{Simon}}. It has a lot of *meat* in it.

You bring up the subject of meaning and what meaning we give to "things". {{Stephen}} enjoyed his plyer because the meaning to him, was being able to listen to music he hadn't heard in years. Music he enjoyed.

It meant very much the same thing to me when I got a new computer a few years ago. Most, if not all, of our music collections had been destroyed in our house fire. Or when I bought a set of wind chimes with perfect tones. The meaning they had to me was the exquisite experience each tone sent straight through me, since I am extremely sensitive to pitch. Hit a perfect tone and I'll begin vibrating like a tuning fork. Talk about *thrilled*.

A couple of years ago my daughter received 2 mp3 players for Christmas, so she let me use the *cheap* model. I received many compliments while on my stays in the hopsital because I brought it with me.

I have a nephew, though, who gives another meaning to gadgets. He uses money and the things money can buy, as reasons to impress people with how a great a person he is.

Maybe it's simply a question of Self Gratification? Are we going to feel grateful from the very depths of our Souls or from the vanity of our egos? Does the gadget bring an experience of abundance or the need for more?

Posted by: Sue Ann Edwards | January 14, 2008 at 08:03 PM

A super post, Simon...your description of the buyers who drag their 'goodies' out to the car, with less than happy faces, reminds me of what I see when I walk into a box store, or somewhere similar.

I remember small stores where clocks, radios, etc. were repaired. The person who fixed...the carpenter, the shoe repairman,the watch repair guys...they were considered wise people to befriend.

Built-in obsolescence...it's sad.

Posted by: Marion | January 15, 2008 at 06:27 PM

Stephen – Hi, it’s great to hear from you. Thanks for the inspiration you gave me for this post! I like what you suggest about bringing forth the awe-struck child in us. That’s a good idea to bear in mind. It’s worth thinking back and remembering that once upon a time, the world seemed like a wonderful place to us. Then we grew up and it no longer seemed that way. But the truth is: it wasn’t the world that changed.

Chase – Thanks for dropping by! I’m glad you’re enjoying your mp3 player too. I’ve just been over and read your post and I see that you have a Creative player the same as me – but it sounds like your model is a lot more user-friendly than mine…

Sue Ann – Many thanks for your encouraging comment. I think you sum it up very well when you say: “Does the gadget bring an experience of abundance or the need for more?” It’s the classic half-full or half-empty question, isn’t it? Except that in this case the glass is actually full. The point is: do you take pleasure in that or do you focus instead on all the other full glasses in the world that aren’t sitting there in front of you?

There was a news report the other day about Apple being in a bit of trouble because it’s the best part of a year since they came up with an earth-shattering new gadget. But are people really bored already with all the gadgets that are already available? When radio was invented, did people demand to have television six months later? I don’t think so.

Marion – Thanks for your encouragement too! You remind us of small stores where you could take things to be fixed. Here in the Britain, there are a few such stores still around. You can still get a clock repaired, in the unlikely event that you paid enough for it to make it worthwhile, and a short walk from here there’s a little back street shop which doesn’t even have a sign, where an old guy sits repairing shoes. We’ve mentioned it to a few people who’ve lived round here for years and they don’t even know it’s there. I sometimes wonder if the shop is a bit like Brigadoon or something and only Chris and I can see it. But supernatural or not, the old guy’s repairs are good…

Thanks for all your comments!

Posted by: Secret Simon | January 16, 2008 at 08:04 PM

Excellent writing! I love your thoughts on this. True techology itself is not the problem. The true issue, as always lies with us and how we preceive the abundance of our world.

Posted by: Mark | January 17, 2008 at 08:48 PM

Lovely and enjoyable post. Thanks for sharing!

Give our YOG (Year of Gratitude) Blog a look-see if you get a chance. We're on the same wave length with appreciating what's around us in this new year.

http://barbaraquinnyearofgratitude.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Angie | January 18, 2008 at 09:33 PM