As a buyer I define myself. As a consumer I undermine myself. As a seller I refine myself. To buy is also to dream. To consume is also to waste. To sell is also to polish, purify, purge; a sleight of hand, some misdirection to distract the potential buyer, (i.e. future consumer), from the sludge that inevitably follows consumption.

Nutrition is an important part of consumption. The less nutrition, the more sludge. To efficiently sustain, strengthen and grow one’s body, one’s heart, one’s mind, one’s soul or spirit, requires more nourishment, less sludge. Today, in this country, I am being force fed at a trough filled with future sludge. It may look tasty, it may smell tasty, it may taste tasty, but in the end it results in very little nourishment and the excretion of a great deal of sludge.

Even when I have a choice, I find it difficult to stop feeding.

On my morning walks I write about nourishment and necessary nutrients, and on the weekends I visit grocers and book sellers to define myself and I think and I study on how to make the world a better place, and in these times I work at my dream and I believe in my dream. But each day I still turn to news feeds and angry pundits and divisive rhetoric and Netflix, and each day I am force fed injustice and bureaucracy, and I slop it all up. Then when given the opportunity, I talk to others about the food I am cooking and the books I am reading and the big picture and saving the world, and I pretend I am above the fray. Buyer. Consumer. Seller.

I buy rice and fish. I consume beer and potato chips. I sell glitter and pretense.

As a consumer, whether for my body, my heart, my mind, my soul, there will always be waste. When I feed on rice and fish, I will enhance health and well-being and I will produce less sludge. When I feed on beer and potato chips, I will create a potential to be undernourished and unhealthy and I will produce copious amounts of sludge. When I feed on glitter and pretense, I excrete ragged, sharp, shiny sludge.

So why do I buy glitter and pretense? Why do I sell glitter and pretense? Am I better off with beer and potato chips? Why is it so difficult to maintain a steady diet of rice and fish? Is it because those in power force feed me glitter and pretense and encourage the sluggish under-nourishment of beer and potato chips? Is it because I am human? Weak and frail? Is it because my personal identity has been consumed by my social identity? And perhaps my social identity has been commandeered by an even larger, more powerful political identity?

I can’t help but to dream and hope and believe and buy and sell. At times my consumption is more efficient, consistent with my dream. But because to consume is also to waste and because (for whatever reasons) I buy and enjoy beer and potato chips and glitter and pretense, I am also inefficient and disappointed. Some days I consider giving up rice and fish and glitter and pretense to simply wallow in the glory of beer and potato chips believing it would be more honest and more consistent with results. But (for whatever reasons) I can’t help but to dream and hope and believe and buy and sell.

As a buyer I define myself. As a consumer I undermine myself. As a seller I refine myself.