Thursday, August 27, 2009
Stuper Size Me
I drove up to Tennessee to shoot some of my portraits. While I was up there I found out that one of my rear tires was flat. As I was watching my dad raise the car up with a jack it blew me away watching that little jack lift up a car. I already knew that a jack could lift a car because, that is what they are for, but it is a different experience when you actually see it. It made me think about how we associate size with power. The bigger is better perception within our culture is the root of most of the inefficiencies in our society. The popular big SUVs that are much larger vehicles than most people need are also gas-guzzlers. The average SUV gets about 10 to 15 miles to the gallon whereas their small counterparts get 30 to 40. The traditional desire to own a big house has drawn a lot of people working in the city to move out into the suburbs, which causes a lot of the traffic. The traffic in turn wastes hours of the time of many, causes accidents which raise insurance costs, destroys the environment and encourages a sedentary lifestyle. The increased commuting also takes time away from cooking and family time; precipitating an unhealthy diet and relational dynamic. The bigger is better paradigm in a lot of ways drives our economy, but it also puts a lot of people in serious debt. It leads people to buy houses much bigger than they can afford. People also spend thousands of dollars on bigger and better Televisions and other electronics; they keep coming out with newer and better ones it doesn’t stop. You’ve got flat screen TV, well is it plasma? Oh you have a plasma TV, well have you seen my HD. That’s a nice DVD collection you’ve got there; you should come over sometime and check out my blue rays. That’s a nice Satellite do you get HBO 439,847,000 or ESPN 284,019? No, I only get HBO 1 through HBO 230,934. Do you get MTV 233,999 and if so do they play music videos? Give me a call on my cell sometime I’ve got 9,000,000 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends. Does your phone burn DVDs? No, mine is a little older it only grooves records. No matter how big the car is the little jack can lift it. No matter how big the house is you can’t get in without a small key. Even a giant ship is directed by a tiny rudder.
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I think this issue of bigger this and more that is driven predominantly by ego. Without the ego's incessant drive to be bigger and better than others, most of society would look at a bachelor who owns a 6,500 square-foot house to be a complete blockhead. Why in hell would he need that size house, unless, God bless him, he was a capitalist who earned ample income renting out the other 7 bedrooms. But in reality, most people instead feel a compulsion to "outdo" him. If many people out there were not so driven to "outdo" others, might they have more time to "chill" and hence be more at peace?
ReplyDeleteHey, who's rudder you callin' tiny?? haha
ReplyDeleteTrue words though, even before the 'almighty recent crash' a friend of mine worked at a furniture store and knew of several, several young couples around that felt the need for a big, big house in a big, big suburb and then had to spend so much on the house that they couldn't afford to get furniture for it so most of their houses were -very- sparse.
At least one positive aspect to the market change is several have started to see the err of their ways. Hopefully many have the strength to fix those ways and stick to it. But I'm an optimist on that account probably.