{"id":780,"date":"2019-04-25T12:48:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T16:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nervegun.com\/?p=780"},"modified":"2019-07-02T14:07:41","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T18:07:41","slug":"miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Miserable in America: Buying Joy, Quantity over Quality, Marie Kondo, and You."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marie Kondo, undoubtedly inspired by her Japanese roots and the minimalist philosophy inherent in it, introduced a new decluttering method to America. Essentially, assemble all your shit in one place. Go through it. Keep only what “sparks joy”. Granted that’s a grotesque oversimplification of the Konmari Method espoused in her Magnum Opus The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up<\/em>. Her new Netflix show, Tidying Up<\/em>, has extended her reach, showing us how average Americans work through her method with her. It is undoubtedly causing a tidal wave of domestic detritus to crush donation bins all over America. Nowhere is her message more needed than here \u2013 the land of conspicuous consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decluttering phenomenon speaks to our unique American capitalist Achilles heel; quantity over quality. We love acquiring new “goods”. We see \u00fcber-rich people on TV and social media fancying ourselves their peers. Living for comparison even though we know deep down that, as Theodore Roosevelt said, it’s the thief of joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrases “retail therapy” and “treat yo’ self” have pervaded the popular lexicon. Americans seemingly equate consumerism with happiness \u2013 or at least “feeling better”. People trample over each other to save just a few bucks during Black Friday sales. We’re “Temporarily embarrassed millionaires not exploited workers ( The phrase first-penned by Ronald Wright<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that’s not enough of an indicator of how fucked up our society is, we only have to remember what former President George W. Bush told America in the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001\u2013essentially\u2013”Go shopping!”. That was the administration’s message. After the shock of the attack wore off, Americans returned to stores in droves. Seeking that “therapy” to soothe themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy! Buy! Buy! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We really need<\/em> the latest gadget right away. Billions of marketing dollars are spent each year to convince us to part with our hard earned cash. Sexy people peddle progressively lower quality gear each year. Unfettered capitalism at its best. We can’t be satisfied with what we already have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must “keep up with the Joneses”. Americans fall for it hook, line, and sinker. We drown in debt, fail to save for retirement, reject social safety net programs at the polls, and wonder what happened as we reach our retirement years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We try to forget our worries in front of the TV, watching anti-depressant ads, followed by sleep aid ads, followed by fast food ads in between snippets of the thinly veiled marketing disguised as our favorite TV shows. A nation of Marvel Superheroes, not a nation of overweight depressives crushed by mountains of debt just a couple of paychecks away from homelessness. Yet we own so much stuff that our homes bust at the seems. So, we truck our shit to self-storage lots where we dutifully pay the monthly bill to keep it all safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But none of it makes us happy. The thrill of acquiring a shiny new bauble is quickly extinguished. None of this shit will ever make us happy. No “thing” can make us happy for long. That, my friends, is the sad truth. So take a cold hard look at everything you own and realize that most of it is<\/g> just weighing you down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marie Kondo is a revolutionary<\/g>. Her mantra “spark joy” is a revolutionary war cry. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

She asks us to take everything out of our closets, hold it in our hands, and ask “does this spark joy? I’ve found that not much of it does. It never truly has, unless of course, it reminds us of someone we love. Our lives are empty, so we fill it up with stuff. Stuff we maybe wanted for some reason but definitely didn’t need. We don’t know how to be happy so we keep trying to buy happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The saddest part of all of this is that we’ve created a society that actively steals our joy and sells us illusions. It seems that we don’t really care about each other. We build cities for cars, not people. We build new “family-friendly” neighborhoods without sidewalks. There are no front porches in new subdivisions. There is no neighborhood park to stroll through. No built-in chances to meet our neighbors as part of daily life. Two-car garage door facades on cookie cutter homes and pensive waves at neighbors we hardly know. An empty disconnected dissatisfied suburban dystopia<\/g> ripe for the picking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we “spark joy” in ourselves? How do we “spark joy” in each other? That is the question. Maybe once we figure that out, we’ll find a way to inch closer to true happiness. We can’t buy it. We never could. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did Marie Kondo wake up Americans to the fact that we\u2019ve created a society that actively steals our joy and sells us illusions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101,99],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMiserable in America: Buying Joy, Quantity over Quality, Marie Kondo, and You. - NERVEGUN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Did Marie Kondo wake up Americans to the fact that we\u2019ve created a society that actively steals our joy and sells us illusions?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Miserable in America: Buying Joy, Quantity over Quality, Marie Kondo, and You. - NERVEGUN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Did Marie Kondo wake up Americans to the fact that we\u2019ve created a society that actively steals our joy and sells us illusions?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NERVEGUN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nervegun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-25T16:48:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-02T18:07:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/nervergun.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/nrvgn-neighborhood-unsp.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"971\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Walter Waters\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@nervegunmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@nervegunmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jack Walter Waters\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/\",\"name\":\"Miserable in America: Buying Joy, Quantity over Quality, Marie Kondo, and You. - NERVEGUN\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-25T16:48:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-02T18:07:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/#\/schema\/person\/686537ff45fc518f66afd0b1a1fddcaa\"},\"description\":\"Did Marie Kondo wake up Americans to the fact that we\u2019ve created a society that actively steals our joy and sells us illusions?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/miserable-in-america-buying-joy-quantity-over-quality-marie-kondo-and-you\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Miserable in America: Buying Joy, Quantity over Quality, Marie Kondo, and You.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/nervegun.local\/\",\"name\":\"NERVEGUN\",\"description\":\"Occasionally Brilliant. 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