Non-Consumption: The Anti-Drug

Not purchasing, like not eating (ie. dieting) is anticlimactic. Here I am, not buying anything, which is essentially a non-act. It doesn't look very much different from sitting and cogitating or simply living my life; reading a book, editing photos, cleaning the kitchen. The real activity is the war raging in my mind. Just like dieting - the constant denial of scratching the itch to eat something gooey and delicious - not consuming is a war waged with self-talk.

The real question is what *haven't* I bought. I can tell you both what I haven't eaten and what I haven't purchased in the last week. That's a pitiful state to be in. There was the degrading rationalization of those weight loss DVD's which, inexplicably, are the only things on the planet not available used from eBay. Despite an intimate knowledge of limited carb diets, a plethora of books on the topic and a lifetime of readings on diet (not to mention access to the Internet and multiple online communities of dieters), my brain has convinced me that the knowledge contained in these particular DVD's surpasses all which has gone before. I had planned to buy them before the year ended and simply put it off a few weeks, never suspecting that I might take a flight of fancy and change my consumption habits altogether. What if, I told myself, what if I pretend that I ordered them last year and they are just now arriving? What if my need to lose weight is more important than my desire to save the planet? I have to accept that I'm going to have a number of wars with myself this year.

Both arenas of non-action are going to have to become lifestyles. At that point they'll cease to be anti-anything. They'll just be part of who we are and what we stand for. And that's a good thing.