"Stuff" and "Into the Wild"

On the advice of My Cohort, I finally sat down and watched The Story of Stuff Saturday morning. Actually, I stood up and watched it as my wireless's best connection was by the window. Aside from the aroma of Calvin's masticated food wafting up my nose early in the morning, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
I immediately recognized the value of "Stuff" when Annie said our society's expecting a linear system to operate in a finite space indefinitely. Being an aspiring math teacher, this was music to my ears. Probably since the third reading of Ishmael and the first of The End of Nature, my view of our "situation" has been filled with images of graphs and areas and other mathematical representations that model the problems we're facing. The viewing gave me tremendous inspiration to put this video into my classroom and really show some applicable connections of math to life.
The parts that spoke the most to me were the mentions of how society has bought into the system and has turned "keeping up with the times" into the moral and popular thing to do. I loved hearing how the heels of women's shoes aren't researched for effectiveness; they're changed year to year to keep the shoe designers in business and new products on the shelves. I've argued in our local paper for a year now (yes, my voice is new to this arena) that our energy and environmental troubles are partially solvable by our own actions. Yet, we rely on the government to make changes for us and blame huge corporations for pollution while not doing anything ourselves to make a difference.
I'm not giving the government a pass by any stretch, but supply is driven by demand, and if we didn't demand more, more, more, we'd be in a better persuasive position over the government and corporations to make change themselves. We don't have to build bigger homes, drive bigger cars, commute all over God's creation, fertilize the hell out of our lawns, bow to bottled water, or cycle through electronics and home goods like they're going out of style, but unfortunately we do believe things are going out of style and we'll die if we don't keep up with them.

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Jessie and I watched Into the Wild that night and it was a great addendum to the Story of Stuff rhetoric earlier in the day. (As an aside, Jessie watched "Stuff" in the afternoon, and unfortunately was feeding Greysen at the same time. Watch, and you'll know why it was a little uncomfortable (there's a drawing of a woman with skull-and-crossbones for breasts)). Into the Wild is easily one of Jessie's favorite books, and I am currently halfway through the text myself. We've heard from friends who've read it, and the sentiment is certainly a theme in Jon Krakauer's text, that Chris McCandless was a nutt, lunatic, idiot, and moron for running away from society and subjecting himself to uncertain peril. There are those who feel he was mentally unstable and should have been more respectful of his parents than to leave them unaware of his situation. As a lover and appreciator of my family, I may agree with the latter to an extent.

But to suggest that McCandless was anything but a rational, albeit overzealous, person is preposterous. This explanation for his decision to tackle Alaska and expel worldly possessions seems purely driven by the cultural mindset that we all are supposed to be robotic consumers and our purpose in life is to claim and attain. There are so many youth out there who are suddenly becoming blindsided by this cultural mindset that, after spending 15 years of relative joy as an unencumbered, responsibility-less person, the rest of their life will be spent working to the hilt accumulating possessions that will never be enough for society's approval. College is no longer about furthering an education in an area they desire (if it ever was) but rather about finding a job they can tolerate that will pay them well. They have been taught that possessions and things will give them happiness, but have failed to see that they are not happy now, and will never have enough things or enough of the right things to make them truly happy.

That is where The Story of Stuff gets its influence and inspiration: by exposing and breaking apart this machine that pads the pockets of those at the top while making those at the bottom toil for its success. McCandless may not have understood the linear system proposed by "Stuff". But he did know how meaningless material possessions were, and he did understand how they tore apart his family. His only mistake was believing that he could find happiness on his own (despite making many valuable personal contacts on his brief journey), a mistake he acknowledges sadly in his final moments.

We can't do this on our own, but together, we can move mountains (not just blow them up).