Cost Not Price

Every last trifle we touch and consume, right down to the paper on which this magazine is printed or the screen on which it’s displayed, is not only ephemeral but in a real sense irreplaceable.  Every consumer good has a cost not borne out by its price but instead falsely bolstered by a vanishing resource economy.  We squander millions of years’ worth of stored energy, stored life, from our planet to make not only things that are critical to our survival and comfort but also things that simply satisfy our innate primate desire to possess.  It’s this guilt that we attempt to assuage with the hope that our consumerist culture is making life better — for ourselves, of course, but also in some lesser way for those who cannot afford to buy everything we purchase, consume, or own.
When that small appeasement is challenged even slightly, when that thin, taut cord that connects our consumption to the nameless millions who make our lifestyle possible snaps even for a moment, the gulf we find ourselves peering into — a yawning, endless future of emptiness on a squandered planet — becomes too much to bear.
When 17 people take their lives, I ask myself, did I in my desire hurt them?  Even just a little?
And of course the answer, inevitable and immeasurable as the fluttering silence of our sun, is yes.
Just a little.
—    Joel Johnson
From his article:  “1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?“
Appearing in:  “Wired Magazine“;  dtd:  February 2011
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On This Day In:
2022	Enduring Success
2021	Dealing With Trumpism, Racism and Fascism In America
	Just Wondering
2020	And So Must Good Government
2019	Are You Done Watching?
2018	Spineless Capitulation By The Democrats
	Woe Is Me…
2017	Sincerely Yours
2016	Only Good To Say
2015	A Series Of Temporary Conditions
2014	Gaps
2013	Duty
2012	Cost Not Price
	Superheroes
2011	The Simple Normalcy Of Everyday Life – “Squirrel!”

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