My phone is an iPhone 3GS with a cracked screen. I drive a 1985 Dodge Ram with rustscars. I’m two years younger than Macklemore, but I’ve been thrift shopping since before he wrote his first lyrics. You might have seen me once in Mama’s Treasures: Antiques and Collectibles on Main Street, picking out a hideous and deeply-abused guitar.

I like the character that all of these things give off, and it’s a bonus that my lifestyle runs parallel to the whole green movement that’s in vogue now, but this isn’t the purpose behind my savvy for salvage. It’s simple: it all still works.

By now, beating the drums about rampant consumerism is nothing new. Most people reading this have seen “Fight Club.” But somehow, it seems to have only gotten worse. The financial meltdown of 2008 involved signing oblivious new homeowners into vague agreements to buy houses they couldn’t afford because they became convinced they needed it. In that same year, and every year since, injuries and deaths have become a new, dark tradition of Black Friday sales following Thanksgiving. The line of men’s beauty products marketed under the name Axe spend their marketing dollars attempting to convince 20-somethings that their product does not, in fact, smell like sexual desperation, while female beauty products marketed by Dove convince women that they are free to be themselves as long as they use Dove. (Dove and Axe are products of the same parent company, Unilever. Perhaps they’re developing a chemical in Dove products that turns them into the women from Axe commercials. How’s that for synergy?)

Advertising is about convincing people that the product will make them happy. But in a cultural shift that would make Don Draper nauseous, we’ve become more focused on convincing ourselves that we are fundamentally unhappy. The mindset projected onto us in everything from subprime mortgages to noxious toiletries is that we are always more tired, miserable, lovelorn, ugly, voiceless, and helpless than anyone else. Then, in the same breath, it insists the only reprieve is the momentary and gracious sensation of buying their products.

My phone gives a first impression of antiquity, but it still takes pictures, receives calls and texts and connects to the Internet. My truck, for all its maladies, still starts on the first try every time. I am not imploring anyone to shun modern conveniences and recreate the life of Henry David Thoreau: I’d be a hypocrite. I’ve bought substantially more music equipment from J. B. Hart than from Mama’s Treasures, and all of it was brand new. However, my rule of thumb is that I only invest once I reached the limitations of what I have, and once I have a clear idea of what I need. But I do challenge everyone to examine the wide difference between their wants and their needs.

wwhalen@mavs.coloradomesa.edu