Anti-consumerism

After I wrote about waste, I realize I'm an anti-consumerist.  I practice what I preach.  I only buy what is necessary.  I admit I'm frugal, because I come from a thrifty family.  It's not a wealthy, successful family, so you learn to scrimp and save.  I recently got into a tweet war with a couple of women, because I tweeted it was interesting that vegans are likely to enjoy better health than meat eaters, and perhaps this is karma.  A woman disagreed with that, because she is some sort of self-appointed diet and fitness guru.  Another woman weighed in; she said veggies are too expensive in the country where she lives.  I mentioned that I can afford to eat healthily, because I live a frugal life; they both made fun of that response.  But so many people's priorities are out of whack.  They put unnecessary, extravagant material purchases before necessities like nutritious food. 
My birthday is approaching, and I love music.  I have a ton of it, though.  I don't really need more.  It has been a while since I bought myself an album I wanted, though.  And something that's been bothering me is that I'm not getting an extra day off this week for Thanksgiving.  My supervisor was surprised that they didn't ask me if I wanted to work the usual amount of days this week or have an extra one off.  So that makes me want to treat myself even more.  If I do, and it's a big "if," because I know I don't need it, I'll try to purchase an album in MP3 format; this way, it would go digitally right to my computer, and then I'd put it on a flash drive, which I already have.  So there would be no waste associated with such a transaction: no materials, no packaging, no paper, no plastic.  It's, no surprise, also cheaper to buy it that way.  If the album I wanted was only available as a CD, then I might buy it, but I really don't see myself buying more than one. 
If I ever get around to it, I will try to sell much of my large CD collection.  All I need to do is put a CD onto my computer, and then I have it.  I no longer need the CD.  My CD player also plays music from flash drives.  Flash drives can be plugged right into the CD player.  The player never has trouble reading music on the flash drive.  I have had problems with CDs, though.  Sometimes they don't sit in the tray right, and they need to be adjusted.  Sometimes the player takes a while to read a CD.  The CD player fails to play CDs in other ways.  These problems can be remedied (so far), but, for me, CDs are more problematic than flash drive music.
As usual, I will buy no Christmas presents for anyone this year.  As a result, I won't receive any either, which is fine with me.  Think of the waste that will be a result of all the consumerism that will occur this holiday season.  People will give, and receive, piles of needless crap.  Children will get toys that they will lose interest in shortly: assuming they were ever interested in them at all.  Adults will also receive tons of gifts they don't want, which will also result in a mountain of waste.  Then there's all the wasted packaging, wrapping paper, and the shopping bags this crap went into.  And, of course, this stuff didn't magically appear in stores.  It was manufactured, and I've already mentioned how much waste there is at the corporate level, where money is more important than anything, which certainly includes reducing waste.  Then they were transported to the stores: probably by fossil-fuel burning trucks at some point in the journey.
If you care about the environment, it makes sense to be anti-consumerism.  Reduce waste.  Reduce litter.  Save money.  Reduce the amount of possessions you have.  The more stuff you have, the less free you are.  The more stuff you have, the harder it is to bring it with you.           

Waste

I hate waste.  It's very depressing to see how much of it is happening at the corporate level.  There's a lot of it occurring in the giant store I work in.  The only material that's recycled regularly there is cardboard.  I take out the trash frequently, and it's clear that some of my coworkers aren't even recycling that.  A couple of people use a certain desk.  Behind that desk are two cans: one for trash and one for paper recycling.  I frequently find paper in the trash can.  These two cans are right next to each other!  The apathy when it comes to recycling and the environment disgusts me.  My coworkers frequently toss their empty soda bottles into the regular trash.  They could return that those bottles for 5 cents each.  Even when you pay people to recycle, many of them won't do it.
At a previous job, a coworker's friend was visiting him at work.  He mentioned that he doesn't care to recycle because, when the environment shits the bed, he will be dead and gone by then.  He obviously thought he was being hilariously funny, and my coworker laughed.  I didn't.  I don't find laziness, apathy, and selfishness humorous.   
Caring about animals and the environment go hand in hand (I think they should,), because that's where wildlife live.  I recycle as much as I can at home, so it angers and frustrates me to know how much waste is occurring elsewhere.  May have mentioned this before, but I have pulled stuff out of the trash (at work) to recycle, despite my OCD telling me not to.  Although I wear work gloves when I handle trash at work.  When I take out the trash, I try to save trash bags.  If one can isn't very full, I will dump it into another.  By contrast, some of (if not all) my coworkers just automatically (and thoughtlessly) take the bags out of the cans and throw them out: even if there had only been a tiny amount of trash in there (one piece of paper, for example).  This sort of mindless waste pisses me off.  So you see how one can reduce waste and save money simultaneously (The store uses less trash bags.). 
The holiday season is a very wasteful one.  Yesterday, I rang up a lot of holiday decoration purchases.  What a waste.  Decorations are a waste of money, time (putting up and taking them down), and materials.  People brought up carts that were full of boxes of Christmas lights and other needless, useless decorations.  Plastic bags were filled with all this unnecessary crap.  So the decorations themselves are a waste, so is the packaging they came in, and the bags they went into.  This wasteful display depressed and angered me.  I have no decorations, because I don't need them: no one does. 
Then there is the most obvious example of holiday waste: the Christmas tree.  Killing, or buying, a tree for Christmas disgusts me.  You're murdering a tree, raping Mother Nature, so you can have a tree in your home for a short period of time.  Then you will unceremoniously throw the tree out (more waste).  You'll waste time getting the tree decorations out, putting them on the tree, taking them off again, and cleaning up the after the tree.  When I walk a certain route, I pass a cliff.  When one looks over the cliff at a certain spot, one can see a Christmas tree, wrapped in plastic, stuck in the trees.  It has been there for quite a while: disgusting.  The world would be a better place without the person who put it there.  So much wasted stuff becomes litter.  I see it everywhere: yet another reason to get away from society.           

Do You NEED a Bag?

Not sure if I've disclosed this before, but, I, most unfortunately, am a cashier, and I am not young.  It pains me to write that.  In fact, I try to avoid saying the word as much as possible.  At work, we have head cashiers.  I call them "HCs."  I don't even like to see people working as cashiers, because it reminds me of how I spend 40 hours a week.  "You are what you do" is bullshit.  I am not, at my core, a cashier.  It is just how I pay the bills.  People, that I don't know, have purchased and read my writing, so, therefore, by definition, I am a professional writer (just not a successful one).
However, even someone as low on the food chain as I am can make a difference.  I don't think I've ever heard one of my coworkers asking a customer if they NEED a bag.  They either bag the item(s) without asking, or they ask, "Do you WANT a bag?"  I specifically ask them if they need a bag, and this gets them thinking, "Do I need a bag?"  Many times, the answer is no.  Compared to my coworkers, and lots of other cashiers, I issue far fewer plastic bags, which, of course, aren't good for the environment.  They are all over the place.  Innocent sea creatures attempt to eat them in the ocean, where there are tons of them.
Frequently, I don't even ask if they need a bag.  I just don't bag their stuff.  Sometimes, this leads to me getting attitude.  An elderly woman was buying some large items: too big to fit into our bags.  There was a box of lightbulbs that would fit into a bag, but she left it in her cart, and I scanned it there.  I didn't bag it.  It turns out her middle-aged son was there too.  He approached her as she was waiting for him near the exit.  He said, "You didn't get a bag for the bulbs?"  He seemed annoyed.  Then he bought something at my register.  Even though I heard this whole "bulb, bag" exchange, I still asked him if he needed a bag.  Some things (like the environment) matter more than pissing off some little shit.  I towered over him, on my anti-fatigue mat, my body language aggressive.  No, he didn't need a bag.  But, as he was walking away, he angrily ripped a bag from the dispenser for his mommy.  What will happen to that bag?  Will it be recycled?  I hope so.  But it's far too possible that it won't be.
I have trained others to do my job, and I have trained them to ask the customers if they need bags.  I heard one of my coworkers say, to a customer, "I put a bag around these just to keep them together."  I looked to see what she was talking about.  It was clearly a waste of a bag.  I wouldn't have used a bag for that.  I wouldn't have even asked the customer if she needed a bag for that.  But the customer was so impressed!  I thought no one in this wicked world cared about me, but someone does!  "Oh, thank you," she said.  So, you see, my coworker took the easy, wasteful way out.  She pleased the customer, but at what cost?  No less than the environment.  She betrayed the environment to please a common hag (a bag for a hag!  If he's still alive, her husband can reuse it by putting it over her face, and maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to have sex with her near carcass!).
Even though I have OCD, I have pulled paper out of the trash (gross) at work, so it could be recycled.  My shitty neighbors opened a box, that was addressed to the shitty tenants that lived in that apartment before them, and put the box outside the front door of the building that we (unfortunately) share.  They left it there for at least a week (They are lazy slobs.).  I considered calling the office about it, then I decided to dispose of it myself, so it could be recycled.  If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.        

No Reason To Exist

No Reason To Exist (Kreator song)

Growing up like any other child
Like millions of others before
A statistic living exactly
By the norm
Don't need to think about
Future now
It's already decided for you
You have all you need
So don't ask for more

Existing like the rest
In endless emptiness
Manipulated slaves
From the womb until the grave
You never had a chance
They put you in a trance
Against your will
No reason to exist
Life is controlled
No way to resist
No reason to exist
There has to be a reason to exist

Year by year and day by day
You feel the need to escape
You realize that you're
Not the same
But you're too uncertain
To make a step
Away from their false truth
But remember how fast you
Lose the years of youth

The only way to fight the system
Is to keep and to say your mind
Only now you can draw conclusions
Young enough to see the light
Only you can know what's right for you
Only you can know what you should do
Find the courage to make your own way
Follow it and don't waste your life away

Do you really believe you were put in this corpse to obey?
Don't let them rule, don't let them take your life away
Don't waste your life, don't be a slave

No reason to exist
Life is controlled
No way to resist
No reason to exist
There has to be a reason to exist