on our national days of gluttony

two days ago, i was talking to my class about my fascination with this time of year and the absurd levels of consumption it inspires. it was related, but only tangentially, to the concept of owning one's emotions, and i managed to bring the conversation back around to the topic at hand before i went too far astray. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i enjoy going far astray, and seeing as how Thanksgiving and Black Friday are our national days of gluttony, it seems the perfect occasion to channel my inner mystical Marxist. so here goes...

on the surface Thanksgiving begins like any other Thursday. grocery stores are open, people rise at a reasonable hour, coffee is made. but something is amiss. there's a feeling of anticipation in the air. people don't eat quite as much breakfast as usual, and the television is full of strange images: giant cartoon birds and the saccharin jolliness of news anchors. balloons roam the streets of Manhattan, and NPR abandons the news for recipes:

i happen to like The Splendid Table, but this is beside the point

the point is that the day degrades into an orgy of sugar, gravy, and bird carcasses. giant meals are prepared all across the nation to the sounds of the NFL blaring from the living room – nothing works up an appetite like violence.

we eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat...

we overdose on this chemical:

l-tryptophan

and then wonder why we feel so lousy the next day.

in fact, we feel so lousy, so spent, so empty, so wanting, that we wake up at 4am and go to a giant concrete box filled with smaller cardboard boxes and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy and buy...

we stand in line for hours for this privilege; why would anyone put themselves through this?

fear

we're afraid of not having enough, afraid of not getting there in time, afraid they will be sold out of that 32-inch flat screen LCD television that i absolutely need because my 32-inch flat screen plasma television isn't good enough any more. who doesn't need to buy a new television at 4:30 in the morning?

fear is processed by the amygdala. it's the small, almond-shaped part of the brain that we share with reptiles, and the fascinating thing about the amygdala is that it short-circuits our cognitive abilities. it's serves an evolutionary function because it allows us to react when our lives are in danger, but this is not the place from which we want to make decisions.

and yet, we live in a consumer culture that does just that. the advertisers and retailers activate this fear and manipulate it. why do they open at 4am? could they not give people the same deal at 7am? or 9am? or whatever time it is they open? there is a finite, known amount of time between now and Christmas.

there is an Operation Ivy song that explains these things:

"buy and consume and want and need"

what would it be like, just for one day, if we all chose not to act on this fear and contemplated instead its origin? what if we spent this day in meditation, what if we spent this time in reflection, what if we spent this day spending everything except money?