Miser

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

Rebecca watched the remnants of hummus harden in a white plastic bowl. Todd watched the last of the carbonation bubbles slip into the bottom of the two pilsner glasses on the coffee table. A faint smell of spice hung in the air from repeated use of incense in the apartment. A pronounced taste of garlic draped on the tongues of old friends as they sat at opposite ends of an uncomfortable futon couch.

"Do you think an artist needs an audience to be an artist?" Todd asked with a hand supporting his leaning head.

"I guess so. If you don't have an audience, you're more of a... hobbyist. Right? A hobby is something you do for fun in your basement or something. There's no audience down there." Rebecca responded with lips lightly coated with chapstick.

"I hope it doesn't. That would be a bum deal for a lot of people." Todd scratched his stubbled chin. "'Hobbyist' doesn't carry the same oomf as 'artist'." He pulled on the tattered cuffs of his khaki pants.

Rebecca following the motion of Todd's hands and looked towards his black shoes. She thought his black ankle socks looked nice. "Don't artists want to be seen or heard? What's the point of making art and not changing lives by it?"

"I just figured artists wanted to make art."

"And if no one sees or hears it?"

Todd shifted his weight further onto his left buttock and rested more heavily on the green and black back of the futon. "So what? It exists on its own. That's what's important." He looked past her towards the kitchen. A series of fading Polaroid pictures lined the frame of the passage way. His gaze traced them up, over, and down. He could only make out splotches of color. In one, he thought he saw a chocolate Labrador. He was growing frustrated at his friend's opposition. He thought she understood better. "This is just like the tree in the forest. Just because no one is around to hear it doesn't mean it doesn't make a sound. Of course it makes a sound. To ask the question of whether it does or not is a ploy to get you thinking about things existing beyond your perception. The answer is really clear cut, though, cleverness aside."

"But what do sounds matter if they're never heard? That's what the koan is getting at, right? Think about it. An asteroid slams into the surface of Mars and who cares? It sure makes a sound, but the sound is kind of in vain or something. Sound is for ears. Sound without ears is useless."

The corners of Todd's lips dipped slightly. He thought 'useless' was a telling choice of words. He shook his head in denial. "That doesn't mean there wasn't a sound. Utility changes nothing about facts. The facts are the facts." He looked at Rebecca who was looking to the right of his face.

The setting sun cast an orange tint onto Todd from the living room window. Rebecca was becoming uncomfortable with the tone of the conversation. She stared out of the window to see the adjoining building. Craggy brick and mortar interrupted the otherwise pleasant hue. A cat stirred on a second floor sill. Its tail flicked into the cream half-drawn blinds and set them fluttering. "A wasted sound."

"What if an artist can't get the attention of his audience? What if they're too busy? What if all the people within earshot are uninterested? What if they have headphones on or something?"

"Well, at least she's trying to make it public. She's closer to being an artist because she's trying." The cat left the sill altogether. Rebecca returned to her friend's face.

"That's non-sense. She's not closer. She's already there. She's making art."

Noticing Todd's face begin to redden, Rebecca cut to the chase. "You're getting flushed. What's your angle?"

"Oh, I suppose I'm looking for a little reassurance," Todd admitted bashfully.

"You're taking a roundabout way of getting there."

"If I said it right out then you'd be likely to just build me up because you're nice."

"Because I'm your friend."

"Right. And that's not what I'm after. I'd like to be reassured by the truth rather than somebody's pity." Todd paused. He ran his fingers across the wrinkles of his pant leg. "A friend's pity."

"Fine. Then make your case and I'll pretend I'm a judge." She sat up. Her hair whisked behind her neck and a finger of her bangs settled over her right eye. Brushing it into place, she shut her eyelids.

"I keep thinking about this guy I once heard about. He worked some menial job all of his life. He was a janitor or something. He eked by, barely paying his bills. No one ever took any real notice of him all of his life. He was quiet. Didn't say much of anything. Didn't do much of anything by all accounts. Went to work. Punched in. Punched out. People figured he was simple. I never met him so I wouldn't know. Anyway, he got old and eventually died. When an appraiser went to his little house to see how much the bank should list it for, he found the usual things in an old guy's house. Dated furniture. Dusty drapes. A stale smell. There were probably some expired cans of soup in the pantry. All was as it should be until he took a look in the attic. When he poked his head in the attic and flipped on his flashlight, he discovered this huge cache of paintings. Oil on canvas. They were sublime. Landscapes mostly, some with storms, some with clear skies. Naturalistic stuff. They would bring you to tears. Apparently the guy worked his crap job and kept to himself by design. It left him enough energy to go home and paint most nights. Now, come on. Wasn't he an artist?"

"Why do you think about him so much?" Rebecca noticed an extra shine to Todd's eyes.

"Later. Answer my question."

Feeling awkward but not wanting to lie, she looked for a diversion. "I don't know. I'd have to see the paintings." Rebecca left to retrieve another beer. Todd tracked her exit.

"Why are you changing your tune? Earlier you said an artist needs an audience. Now you're saying there's something to the quality of his work."

The twist off top released a hiss into the air. She tossed the cap onto the table. It slid into the side of one of the glasses and rattled to a stop. "Well crap, Todd. It's complicated business defining things," Rebecca said before taking a sip. "Art probably involves both." Tasting the bright flavor of hops pleased her. "Did you want another one?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine." Upon feeling a tingle growing in one of his feet, Todd uncrossed his legs. He bent his left leg and laid it on top of the couch in order to keep facing his friend. "Let's assume they were really great paintings. Accurate depictions of landscapes--"

"Overdone."

"What?"

"Landscapes are overdone."

"So now the subject matter is important, too?"

"Probably."

"Some help you are."

"Sorry. I don't like how personally this academic conversation is for you. I was trying to get away from talk of artists and stick to art. Keep going."

"No."

"Oh, get off it. I'm listening." She took another sip. Her fingers felt slick and cold holding the bottle. She placed it on the table. Her hair drifted back across her forehead and she returned it with a swipe to its proper place.

Todd leaned forward and engaged her with eye contact. "Assume there is enough skill in the work and it has whatever subject matter you think necessary. Are you really going to tell me it's not a piece of art and that the old man by association isn't an artist?"

"I'm sorry, but I still don't buy it. You can't just horde it for yourself. Artists are generous; they aren't misers. That guy may have had all the talent in the world, but if he never shared it he's not an artist."

Todd leaned back. A small burp passed breathily between his lips. The taste of corn from the Colt 45 returned. "You can't just share your art. It's not that easy. Would you rather he stuck it on his front porch or something?"

"He had friends, didn't he? He could have shown his friends."

"That's all it takes--showing a few people?"

"At least the effort was made. Yes. I think that's all it takes."

Todd made eye contact with Rebecca. Her pupils were big in the poorly lit room and surrounded by hazel slivers. "Well damn."

"What?"

"I was identifying with the guy because neither one of us are famous. But I see your point and now I don't feel as discouraged."

"You say it like it's a problem."

"Well..." Todd looked the the Polaroids again. "I guess it is. I got used to thinking it was out of my control. My failure that is."

"Fame has nothing to do with artistry. I'll give you that. But yeah, you can't just shove all the stuff under your mattress. What good is that?"

With a click from the thermostat, the whir of the air conditioner began. Todd paid attention to the low-level white noise of the fan motor. "It's safe," he conceded. "I should get going."

Rebecca got to her feet to stop her frazzled-haired friend. "Now, now. No need for that."

"I'm fine. Just feeling tired. I've been preoccupied lately, thinking about what I am and what I'm gonna do with myself. Sucks to have a knot you've been picking at for a long time untied so quickly by someone else. But, it's nice to be freed." Todd rose to his feet and pulled his shirt down. The wooden floor released a creak as Todd leaned over to grab his glass. "Thanks for the beer."

"You're welcome. I'll get it." Rebecca stretched out a hand a took the glass from Todd. It was warm. "Thanks for the visit."

"Welcome."

Consumption Assumption

A woman peruses the aisles of a bookstore. She is smartly dressed and moves with purpose. An elderly man approaches her and asks her to locate a book for him. The woman smirks. "Oh, no. I'm not an employee." The man cocks his head and after a brief pause, repeats his request. The woman turns towards the man again and explains more loudly, "I'm not an employee. You need to find someone else. Look for a person with a name tag or something." With the same tone and same words, the old man asks her to locate a book for him. Frustrated and desiring an end to the annoyance, she leaves her own pursuit behind and locates the book for him. She behaves like an employee.

Here we are witness to the power of persistence. A person is prone to redefine herself if she is persistently defined by others in a certain way. We have a name for the power of persistence in regards to defining ourselves: the self-fulfilling prophecy. Given enough repetition, a person is liable to go beyond playing a role and become the person the other insists she is. Even idioms capture the tendency (e.g., "Fake it 'til you make it.") Be called emotionally cold enough by other people and you are more likely to become emotionally cold. "But wait," you say, "You have stacked the deck in your favor. The woman you described could have ignored the old man, found an employee, or left the building." True, those are all possibilities. However, they are only viable if the old man ceases pestering her for assistance. If he continues to ask her—only her—for aid, if he follows her out of the bookstore and pleads with her all the while, she is all but forced to submit to the role of employee. "That is a very outlandish situation. What one person would follow a person around and insist she perform a task that she says is not hers to perform? A lunatic maybe, but there are few of those. Why do you waste my time describing a situation so rarely experienced as to be practically irrelevant?" Right you are to bristle at being subjected to such a worthless discussion. Worthless it would be if I was planning to discuss the suggestive power of a single person. What I am here concerned with is the suggestion of many, many more people—a suggestion that we all are exposed to on a daily basis.

Go out into the world. In what role do you find yourself most frequently cast? On billboards and buses, storefronts and signposts, taxis and telephone poles: the same role is addressed. The suggestion is inescapable. It is no use retreating into one's abode. In your home, in your magazines and newspapers, on your computer, radio, and television, before movies, and during sporting events: the same role is addressed. A person is likely to pass by a hundred living, breathing people without acknowledgment, but is often spoken to by the recorded voice of stranger addressing the role. A person could easily speak more with a representative of the role-purveyors than with his own neighbor. "Out with it. What role?" All of these suggestions effectively say, "You are a consumer. Consume this." Every individual is more frequently addressed as a consumer than anything else. Count the number of times a day you are asked for your money (for the sake of consumption) and it will far outnumber the times you were asked for your help, expertise, skills, or attention (for non-economic reasons).

"Where's the harm in someone thinking he is a consumer?" you wonder. Before you dismiss me out of hand, do not misunderstand me. I am not blinded to the truth of life's necessities. All living creatures consume. Humans are consumers. What I desire for us is a more apropos appellation. To persistently refer to a person as a consumer is as imperceptive as calling an automobile a cigarette lighter: both emphasize one of the many capabilities. To make matters worse, both references are to one of their lesser functions. Although you may bicker with me about the proper function of people, whether they have one or not, we can agree that they have a capacity for much more than digestion. Of all the deeds a person can do, consuming is not the noblest.

To clarify further, I am not writing to change the ways of those who call us consumers. I lack a platform loud enough to dissuade them and am not entirely certain it would be good for us if I could. I rather am writing with the modest goal of giving you pause. I want to make a clear and present danger just that for us in the hopes that we might better defend against it.

Returning to discussion: on most levels, there is no harm at all. Part of the allure of being a consumer is the ease of playing the role. It is natural. We consume a great many things in the course of the day. To be a consumer, one needs only consume. When one is not consuming, one needs to prepare for consumption through working, investing, gambling, or stealing. The constrained definition acts on a person like a magnet waved over flecks of iron. Thereafter, all the separate parts orient themselves toward the one pole. How effortless to take on the day with such a facile purpose constantly asserted!

It is easier than this to be a consumer. Not only is there uniformity in purpose and ease in acting for that purpose, there is great ease in thinking for that purpose. We did ourselves and our progeny a great favor when we monetized goods. From that point forward, we could affix numbers to our potential and actual consumption. We could set fixed goals for our preparatory efforts. Consumption, upon translation into a quantitative system, became a blissfully simple pursuit about which to rationalize. Problems required no more complex tool than basic algebra. Now, a person knows exactly how many hours he must labor in order to consume the objects of his desire. There is no harm in this at all. Instead, there is aid. Though not physically painful, is not ambiguity painful? Through monetization, we have clarified so much. Could there be any harm in an anesthetic? It suppresses pain. Those partisans of consumption shout, "If only we could quantify everything humanly relevant! Until then, we ought only consider what is quantifiable if only because we are accustomed to the effort involved in such considerations. We have mastered the land of numbers. Whether it is a fiefdom or an empire matters not—it is all ours!"

I see you growing tired of my rhetoric. "Get back to the point. Where's the harm in someone thinking he is a consumer?" If there is harm in a person receiving another person's prescription, then there is harm in being defined a consumer. These definitive messages we call advertisements. They make goods and services known to all those in the producer's (i.e., those who make the goods or provide the services) audience (i.e., those for whom the goods or services are relevant). The purpose of advertisements is to inculcate desire for the product, be it from a pre-existing or newly-forged need. Whether due to a lack of discrimination in the medium, cost-effectiveness, or straightforward profiteering, the messages often reach people outside of the audience—those of us who have no need for the good or service advertised.

An example: A man hears that a good is available for purchase while driving to work. The advertisement speaks to him informally, addressing him in the second person. He considers the good, considers his need, and if the good is needed he considers further his potential to consume it. If the advertisement is effective, a desire is stimulated. Now, the man daydreams about using the good, imagines himself happy like the voice in the advertisement. He is primed to consume it. He is a consumer.

To find the harm in considering oneself to be a consumer, we need to understand the situation that so frequently brings about the consideration. In the foregoing example, we have two people: the speaker and the audience member. We have a communication from the former to the latter. We have the content of the message transferred to the audience member by the communication/advertisement, which assumes the the audience member is a consumer. The advertisement is the immediate cause of the defining, thus advertisement requires our attention.

What can we say about the communication? It implies a course of action the person should take (e.g., "Buy our product."). In this way, it is normative. It states what one ought to do. The proposed course of action was taken into the man's consciousness and pushed out other possibilities. In the event that the communication was solicited or, by coincidence, spoke to a pre-established and unmet need, it benefits the man. The more likely event, however, is that the message is harmful. "Preposterous! How can mere words be 'more likely' to be harmful? They are not insults. They defame no one. Your imaginary man is at liberty to ignore the message." Yes, he can ignore the words just as you suggested earlier the woman could ignore the old man earlier. Sometimes our man now does as much. How often does he hear such messages, though? Are those messages not more frequent than the old man's demands? How often is our man distracted by them? They are after all designed to be distracting, to garner attention. Cannot the hearing of such messages be harmful? You would not suggest distraction is helpful when it is as ubiquitous as advertising, would you? The energy expended reclaiming one's attention could have gone towards continuing a better line of thought. A person could be learning a language, honing a skill, observing beauty, playing a game, reflecting on his life—to list only a few the the possibilities. Instead, he is interrupted or barred from beginning and must first fend off a message aimed at a consumer. He must immediately judge, "No. This is not for me."

What if he does not defend himself but instead lets it wash over him like so much clatter? "In one ear and out the other," you may think. You neglect to look for the residue. Communication is never so neutral. Every moment of consciousness alters the self like a glacier over the mountain. What alteration occurs as a result of ignoring? Desensitization. He spends so much of his time being passively assailed by advertisements that he is atrophied by it. He becomes accustomed to glossing over perceptions. Images affect him less. Sounds lose their potency. For the sake of what? Easiness. What takes the place of the skill of concentration? Nothing but a tolerance for boredom.

The upshot of the messages: "Indulge! Devour! Everything is grist for the universal mill, so be a mill of your own. Grind as much as you can before you die." What paltry fodder for the audience's minds! No wonder they are malnourished. Their minds have so little of substance to digest. Ironic how this talk of consumption starves a person. I am reminded of an old malady that shared a name with our subject. It was so called because of how the disease consumed one's ability to breath. Being a consumer is in itself consuming: it reduces a person down to her most basic functioning.

There is harm too in who relays the message—or rather how it is relayed. What interest do the others have in you? They have no loving interest. They are neither family nor friends. They have no collaborative interest. They are neither co-workers nor compatriots. Their interest in you is transactional. You have something they want and they have something they want you to want. "Is that not a collaboration?" It is a collaboration of sorts, but lowly kind. This sort of relationship, which is so quickly and regularly formed, consists of mutual use at best. Each side relates to the other to the extent required to gain access to what the other has. At worst, the use is lopsided and creates injustice through compounding power inequalities.

These strangers interacting must have an effect upon the character of the consumer. A person becomes accustomed to being used. She becomes calloused by the previous injustices. She becomes cold and frigid without being touched by the warm hands of beneficence. There are no flesh and blood hands associated with advertising. These messages are overwhelmingly disembodied. It is their very abstraction that makes them so far-reaching. One person could never contact as many people in all her life as the most obscure of advertisements can. Bleak is the life of a person who is solely addressed by advertisements.

"Recall earlier the other possible courses of action our imaginary woman could have taken. You left one out of your list: she could simply have helped the man without resistance. She would not be an employee but simply a helper." What an astute observation! There was no great risk of harm in finding a book for a man even if it is not one's job. Helping is an option that accomplishes the same end without requiring redefinition. One can help another in a store without being an employee. Can one be a person who consumes without being a consumer? What would it look like?

To resist the pervasive suggestion of others while doing what is necessary to maintain life, one needs to consciously and preemptively define oneself as something other than the suggested role. "I am a person who consumes, not a consumer. A consumer consumes for the enjoyment of it. A person who consumes does so in order to do something else—to sustain oneself and to achieve one's goals." See how dignity is retained by such resistance? The former feeds and thinks about matter alone. The latter feeds on matter and thinks of something better. Now when one is confronted by such advertisements, one can brush them aside quickly. They become trifles, laughable in their futile pandering to banality. They become the mutterings of senility, not to be taken seriously. "Bother someone else," you could say. "I am busy with a task of my own. I will not do as you want because I am not what you take me to be."