Daily Prompt: Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Tags

consumerism, economics, politics, postaday2013

Imagine, in great detail, an invention that could help reverse pollution — describe for us how your invention works and how it will help save the planet.

I have liked Inhabitat on Facebook for over a year and they post many articles about inventions made by so many young people in Africa, it is really exciting to read about them. Most of the inventions are low cost, made from local materials and are all related to important needs of their communities such as clean water access to electricity. I am nowhere near as talented or inclined to think outside the box as these amazing young people do, so I will let them save our planet. I highly recommend that everyone at least checkout Inhabitat once, if only to see how inventions are alive and well in the world of young people.

My contribution to eliminating pollution would be to scale back the rampant consumerism and materialism. If we stopped buying the cheap products and instead saved our resources to buy high quality products and when they break down , get them fixed instead of instantly throwing them away, that would make for less waste. I know that I am preaching heresy, consumerism and materialism is what keeps our global economy chugging along and for me to say stop buying is tantamount to sedition at the marketplace. I like to think of the old days when you bought something, it was made to last and if it needed repairs, there were repair shops easily found. Granted the time that I am looking at pre-dates Walmart, Target and discount stores, I am thinking of the age of the Mom and Pop store and when there was manufacturing in the States. The throw away culture wasn’t born yet.

I have been reading of dump sites located in China and in India for old computers and other electronic devices, and they are all near small villages, these villagers are exposed to fumes and runoff since they are tasked with destroying them. However there is a father and son operation that has come up with ways to recycle most of the discarded components into other viable materials for a whole slew of other products. They are the exception rather than the norm.

I really think that we need to steer away from the pervasive throw away culture that the new generation has already embraced since they don’t know any better. A planet made up of hazardous waste will only lead us down a path that we seriously don’t want to travel. There is still time to turn it around and making less waste is never a bad thing.

Daily prompt: Keeping up with the Jones’

Tags

consumerism, Jones, possessions, postaday2013, writing

Tell us about the one luxury item you wish you could afford, in as much detail as you can. Paint a picture for us.

I went online to see where the phrase “Keeping up with the Jones” came from and from what I have found, it is primarily an American saying that developed in the early twentieth century. A cartoonist named Mormond developed the cartoon “Keeping up with the Jones” as a social commentary on his previous experiences living in Cedarhurst New York which was part of the five towns in Long Island, a very affluent area of New York where each family was very aware of their neighbors social standing and spending and adjusting their own behavior accordingly. The surname Jones supposedly was picked because of Edith Wharton’s own family, she was born a Jones and her family was very wealthy in the state of New York and within their circle of wealthy friends and socialite’s, each family built grander and grander mansions along the Hudson River near the towns of Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck. As early as the 1850’s the Jones’ had increased their existing wealth by marrying into other families involved with banking primarily as their chosen industry, Banking emerged as very lucrative in the late 1880’s and then again in the 1920’s and when the cartoon “Keeping up with the Jones” came out in 1913, it found an instant audience and remained popular for 26 years afterwards.

I had heard that expression growing up and I found it to be very comical because being a Jones, no one was trying to keep up with us. Growing up, my sister and I don’t remember having a lot of things, the things that we did have, we loved, but the most important thing for my parents was to send us to see our family in France as often as possible and that is what my mother saved for, those vacations and for an eventual house.

Nowadays I am a Nichols, and I am still not trying to keep up with the Jones’ , I admit that I love admiring beautiful things, but I love looking, I don’t necessarily need to acquire them. My two favorite houses of fashion are Hermes and Chanel, I do have a piece of each from years ago and I cherish them, one is a handbag and the other is a scarf. Both, I know will be in fashion even fifty years from now if our planet is still alive and therein lies the rub of consumerism. The saying “Keeping up with the Jones'” has unleashed a consumerism that has gotten completely out of control and today is, ironically in reference to the spirit of this post, Black Friday, the absolute expression of consumerism raging out of control in the U.S.

I have decided to be mindful of the notion that we cannot take anything with us and what is most important is not what we have, but who we are and our possessions do not define us, our spirit does.

So since I am a Jones from birth, all that I need to do is keep up with myself, no one else.