On consumerism

On consumerism.  From whom do we get the request, no, the demand to buy, getting persuaded and goaded into the act even when it is to our greatest disadvantage, even when we would be better off if not in saving or building ourselves, then at least in questioning the whole enterprise, of having to work more in order to buy more, of buying more then having to work more?  Why, sellers, of course.  And behind them marketers, and behind them stock-holders, and behind them rapacious CEOs, and behind them more mysterious men, cloaked in silence and silent decision-making, most of them men, fattening their pockets, if not with dollars then with data, enviable streams of numbers in domestic or off-shore accounts.  And behind them?  What force is it that pushes us into buying this or that, even buying our so-called necessities–buying water, for example–seeing in every purchase a promise, of escape or security, of a life like that fortunate model there, of dominion, the promise of having one’s house at last in order recollected with each ring?  If it is anything, we have left the sphere of the merely human; it is a force that floats there, something of an atmosphere between us and the heavens, the between itself, like every great epoch of Being, like every great binding meaning.