IKEA--I Don't Need Ya

Several times throughout the movie Edward Norton’s character mentions that his stuff was his life. I think this is a very strong statement. To equate inanimate, material objects with your living life is very sad, and demonstrates the effect our media and consumer culture has on us. However, this depressing thought that our life’s worth is a result of our possessions is not necessarily an innate personal thought. This notion is force fed to us daily through our commercials, billboards, magazines, and shopping malls. Our countries advertisements constantly tell us ‘in order to be this, you must have this’, or ‘to be cool, buy this’, and ‘to live a happy full life, you’ve got to have one of these’. This current bombardment of material messages sooner or later, but inevitably seeps into our minds and we begin buying. We buy till our wallets our empty, our credit cards maxed out. We buy until we are so far in debt that once we die our kids and even grandkids will still be paying off our leather couches and Hummer cars.

Edward Norton’s character is no different from most of us. His constant search through the IKEA catalogues is just his unfulfilling search for himself. However, this method of finding himself will end without reward. He will never stop searching and buying because he is looking in the wrong place. Material objects have no effect on who we actually are. Think about your favorite object that you own—an expensive shirt, an autographed poster, your car—now imagine if that object disappeared. Would your personality be changed at all? Would life as you know it crumble and fall down around you because this item is no longer in existence? Would everybody in the world now hate you and never speak to you again? I would guess that the answer to all of thee questions is no. If that item was gone, you as a human being, a person, would not change. It is all a mental game that the media and our consumer culture play. They attempt to trick us so that we put our lives into the items we buy. They are only things—lifeless, meaningless things. The only meaning they receive is the one that we have allotted them. Thus, if we place no meaning on these objects except for possibly aesthetic value, perhaps we may free ourselves. Perhaps we may free our lives, their meanings, and hopefully do so without developing a second personality.

A Little Reading Never Hurt

The introduction done by Sufjan Stevens at the beginning of The Best American Nonrequired Reading makes one truly think about America’s education system. Within this introduction I believe subtle slashes are made against the way the educational institution conducts its teaching. I have heard of the Waldorf system before and in fact know some family members who are putting their kids into schools that use it. Much like the integrated math system I believe that the Waldorf system is a useless, confusing, and unnecessary way to impose learning. It says a lot about the system when someone gets to a certain grade and doesn’t know how to read. But hey, they know how to do a mosaic art piece, I'm sure that in life that will be much more helpful.

I think the introduction also says something when detailing how Stevens eventually learned to read. He learned through labels of grocery goods. I think that this may be making a comment towards are communistic nature. He didn’t learn by reading novels or articles, no, he learned through nutrition facts, ingredients, and food taglines. In this society, it is sad to say, but really for necessity purposes, that is enough of a reading education to get him by. Most people I know have never even finished a whole novel, excluding those they were required to read in class, and some people I know didn’t even read those. What we read today is labels on a number of different materialistic items instead--Clothes labels, food labels, household items labels.

I will admit that some reading is better than none. However if we as a literary society want to propel forward we must introduce some quality reading into the school systems that is intriguing enough so that every person will have at least read one novel in their lifetime.

Loneliness

I feel that the texts we have read so far in class represent being old as a sort of terrible, lonely, helpless, and dreaded part of life. Which, makes perfect sense when you think about it, but as a child I feel that you view it differently. As a child you always picture grandma and grandpa as these wonderfully happy and content people, who are always there for you and are always pleasant to be around. It isn’t until you get older that you realize, shit, being old really sucks. You can't go anywhere by yourself, do anything on your own, your weak and for the most part people hardly ever visit you.

To be honest before this class I rarely thought about what getting older would be like. I never realized the sense of loneliness that accompanies a heavy set of wrinkles and a walker. I think our characters that we have read about so far in class certainly feel this feeling of aloneness and also a definite sense of neglect. None of their family wants to come visit them and so they are left on their own. The scene from Water for Elephants when Jacob is left sitting alone in the lobby because his family forgot to come visit him was one of the saddest things I have ever read. It I hard for me to contemplate forgetting about someone like that and I hope I am never one to do that to someone. Also, hearing the old couple from Toga Party explain how their kids keep a steady distance from them and basically avoid them was equally depressing. In the end when the inevitably ended their lives it was hard for me to understand what could drive a person to the point where the accept killing themselves. I suppose loneliness does have an immense power over people and its emptiness could be enough to make people want to end it all. I wonder how the kids felt after the found out their parents did this. Did they feel guilty or relieved? I wonder.