Thanks for the response. All the more the reason to see the movie you mentioned. One of the things I've come up against in family and work are dozens and dozens of folks living life in a kind of fantasy world (call it false consciousness if you must), which seems to operate by some head-slappingly, Horatio Alger-esque rules that always make me want to protest, "No, no, that's *not* it!" It's simple: Do good, life will get better. Work hard and save, ignore current spendy trends for your future -- and you'll come out all the better for it on the end.
Well, NO. Sometimes you have to keep up with those fucking trends, spendy or not, just to be able to communicate with coworkers and neighbors on a meaningful level, day to day, or adjust to other financial obligations. And that has repercussions in the job world and elsewhere. Just because you are into your subscriptions to Mother Jones, Z Magazine, or anything else, or obscure PBS or Free Speech TV stuff, chances are, a lot of the people you interact with "in the real world" (I hate that phrase) won't be. You have to play the game to a degree and buy some of this incredibly expensive shit to be "on the level."
The classical advice to buckle down and forego many luxuries means you'll be left out of a lot of important social networking loops, loops that can provide key opportunities to advancing upwards in one's career path. I don't have a cellphone, or Sidekick/blackberry. Am saving money for other stuff, like good capitalist economics suggest one should do -- you know "spend every dollar like it's your last." But over the years I've realized I've lost out on a lot of opportunities that folks plugged into flashy tech candy have gotten access to. Sometimes just pulling out a sleek black laptop at a meeting means suddenly you're regarded as very competent; telling an interviewer you don't have a cellphone when the job application has space for a cell # sends employers and colleagues another message. ("Slacker," etc.)
To which a supportive retort might be: "I wouldn't want to work for a firm with snobby attitudes like that anyway!" Well, good for you. But try living in what a shitload of corporate America is really like. If you're hard pressed for $, you just can't brandish the latest cellphone mp3player or sidekick/blackberry + a laptop and fax number to look professional. And yeah, feeling like you're falling behind the tech trends and falling further from the pack does it's have its kind of depressing consequences internally, no matter how much of a black sheep and "fuck the mindless herd" mentality you're supposed to have in such situations.
As the piece I posted quotes: "[A]s Boss points out, no one looks at someone with a used car and modest home and says, 'Wow, they must be putting a lot of money aside for their future!' As she puts it, '[Those kinds of people are] just not on our radar screen.'"
Ever get the feeling you just can't win, no matter what you do? And now Sony Blu-Ray and HD DVD want to alter DVD formats, which could require whole new HD-TV sets and DVD players to make use of the technology, just as I've been settling into playing with and burning the current crop of DVDs I enjoy.
-B.
kevin island wrote:
"True that the advice offered is mostly about the individual. (The usual: define goals, make plans and stick to them, stay upbeat ...) But the piece is unusual in this respect: it suggests that a shared awareness of the real circumstance of other people could be helpful. That's something.
"Not long ago, several messages here mentioned "Little Miss Sunshine." One of the best things about the movie: It showed how much we can depend on the favors of middling functionaries. Grief counselors, police officers, contest organizers, etc. They can exercise their discretion to give you a hard time, or they can give you a break. It showed that the individual can-do spirit is not always all. (The same with family solidarity.) By the end, the would-be motivational speaker seemed to get it."