The Story of Stuff

Happy Earth Day! Celebrate with me by watching Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff video that explores the life cycle of our material goods. I'm posting it to draw attention not so much to the corporate character, "those guys" illustrated as bloated men with dollar signs on their bellies, but rather to the consumer character, the "me," as shown above- also a bloated man carrying as many shopping bags as he can. "My" story begins somewhere around 40 seconds into minute 8. And the bit on "perceived obsolescence" convicts me. I can remove the golden arrow's perception filter in any number of ways. My niece Dorothy taught me one such way with her practice of walking down the toy isle pointing to things saying, "I don't need you, I don't need you, I don't need you." I suppose her mantra is a good place to start.