Buy Nothing Day 2021

Author Hazel B. West came to the conclusion that "a person without a cause is nothing, with nothing to look forward to, and nothing to work toward. They are lost, wandering in the darkest part of their heart to find a deeper, better purpose in life." 

Enter consumerism. It gives the purposeless purpose, and that is to shop. 

The lost are found. 

In a capitalist society shopping, buying, and owning are the highest purposes to which a consumer can aspire. This is celebrated and supported full time, non-stop. 

Shopping has become an activity unto itself, separated from all notions of need or value. 

When the cause becomes to "support the economy", shopping is the way to get there.

We have it backwards. At one time the economy was to support us, not the other way around.

It is hard to not be mesmerized by the constant hype. 

Buy Nothing Day is a brief moment one day a year to stop the hype, slow down, and consider that there is more to life than shopping. 

More to life than feeding the mythical demanding beast that we have created known as The Economy.

Buy Nothing Day is a day to not comply with orders and mandates to shop till you drop. 

They cultivate fear in us by letting us know that if we don't take the shopping pill, bad things will happen.

It is a time to ignore the narrative and reject the fear projections of the trillion dollar advertising/marketing propaganda machine, and to start writing our own more healthy stories.

Happy Buy Nothing Day. 

Or Not Buying Anything Day, as I call it in my home.

"As I'm paying I wonder at how we cling so relentlessly to the little conventions like commerce, as though they can save us." 
— Ron Currie Jr.