some are natural and some are vain

"among desires, some are natural and some are vain. of those that are natural, some are necessary and some unnecessary. of those that are necessary, some are necessary for happiness, some for health, and some for life itself. a clear recognition of desires enables one to base every choice and avoidance upon whether it secures or upsets bodily comfort and peace of mind...although pleasure is the greatest good, not every pleasure is worth choosing...when we say that pleasure is the goal, we do not mean the pleasure of debauchery or sensuality. despite whatever may be said by those who misunderstand, or disagree with, or deliberately slander our teachings, the goal we do seek is this:freedom from pain in the body and freedom from turmoil in the mind." epicurus in a letter to menoeceus_________________________________it has been an eventful life lately and the puking buddha and i were retreating into diogenes laertius' book " the lives and opinions of eminent philosophers" and specifically wandering through the section on epicurus...in part as a reaction to scrooge's "false and commercial festival" that crops up here every year around this time...and partly because of a wider cultural malaise that engenders it...consumption is the life blood of the hegemonic culture and i happened to be wandering though a local epicenter of it recently and, while it did not show me anything i did not already know it did serve to reinforce the sense of it both its hideousness and its waste that a current stint working in retail has already sensitized me to...the one hundred and twenty five stores and kiosks that populate the mall are microcosm of that hegemony...immersed since birth in the culture of consumption ( how much advertising have we seen? i stopped watching television seven years ago and am still bombarded from newspapers, billboards and junk mail...the ad blocking addons i have here have blunted the pop up ads here...still spam abounds in my mailboxes and i routinely decommission my facebook page [just did that today] because i ads [ and toxic bullshit] are unavoidable there ) you could almost accept it as "normal" until you begin to ask yourself exactly what it is you really need as opposed to what you are programed to desire by the social engineers that work in media...there are fifty clothing stores in that mall...all "trendy" and all clearly aimed at someone younger than me...we all need clothing...and we could all find it more reasonably priced elsewhere...twenty five purveyors of fast food dot the premises...i gave that up a while back too...no "natural desire" here...eight jewelry stores..."diamonds are forever" or "one billion years in the making"...take your pick...seven phone stores or kiosks...everyone needs a smartphone...four sporting goods stores...three financial consultants...two nail spas...and, in what must be the most telling editorial ( in my view anyway ) one bookstore with a plethora of bill o'reiley titles and more books with either trump or obama on the covers than i care to see in one place...not only was it the only book store, it was a bad one...still...people are shopping here, right? 'tis the season, correct?

well...maybe...but not enough...this used to be an entrance to sears...a retailer easily as large, if not larger, than the one i currently work for...and it seems domed...which should be an object lesson for the whole collection here...

sears is gone and there are others teetering on the edge of that abyss...it's not just the system that's bankrupt...

and this is why they want us all to have smartphones..."forever connected"...perhaps like the "omni channel retailer" they are hoping even more exposure will reinforce the buying habit we have been enculturated with...sticking with a flip phone i can take the battery out of or slip into a faraday bag when i want to vanish...the shrillness of the attempt reeks of doom...theirs and ours since the system is killing us as a species..."the holidays" are an abysmal time of year...i would wish it was february except someone will be flogging valentines day the day after christmas...happy holidays people...christmas is an advertising tool...i keep trying to skip it...so far it has been undoable...the debauchery continues.