Talk about contrast! The very next day after my hike on Kamiak Butte, I had a completely different type of event on my calendar. With it came an utterly different experience.

Since I decided not to return to college after the winter break, I have been without a job and trying to clearly define my career goals. Seeking as much information as I could obtain about career opportunities in the area, I was pleased to learn that Our State University was sponsoring a career fair in The Big Coliseum On Campus. I set out to prepare at least as well as I had for my hike: printing up a stack of resumes, properly packing my briefcase, and dusting off my Interview Suit:

He cleans up pretty well

I figured I was ready to go, and so I went. (Irony alert: as I type this, my Jango streaming station is playing “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews. Go figure.) My Dear Wife and I went in together that morning, as she had class or office hours or something, and we agreed to meet up later. She says that she tried to warn me about events like this, and I don’t deny the possibility that it happened. At the same time, I don’t remember it either. I wish I had.

I walked into the midst of an amorphous snowstorm of voices, bodies, tables, signs, and sunlight. By sunlight, I mean the harsh, glaring kind that streams through large plate-glass windows and heats a space uncomfortably. I followed the flow of the crowd as best I could, moving clockwise through the broad atrium surrounding the main arena. Smiling people stood tall at tables covered in pamphlets, pens, and other swag, ready to Answer All My Questions and Engage in Constructive Dialogue about Optimizing the Process for Sustaining Initiatives to Maximize Throughput and Enhance Value, or…something. Eager young undergraduates in slim-cut suits and contemporary haircuts calmly milled about, somehow able to hold conversations in the nightclub-level volume. I could barely hear myself think, and what little of that I could hear was yelling, “RUN!”  Even now I feel myself tensing up to remember it. (Now playing: “One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers. No kidding.)

I got around and through, more by dint of stubborn determination than desire, and left the way I came. After catching my breath and feeling my heart rate settle, I walked back to My Dear Wife’s office for a cup of tea, a turkey sandwich, and a pat on the shoulder. She was properly sympathetic to my shell-shocked state, attributing it somewhat to hunger as I worked through my second turkey sandwich; and convinced me to give it another go. On the walk back, I spent some time clearing my mind; breathing rhythmically, walking deliberately, keeping to the less-crowded side of the street. Now that I knew the layout, I figured, I could navigate the space and get something done here. I’ll be fine; people do this sort of thing all the time.

If they do, they’re not people like me; I don’t know how they manage. Almost immediately upon returning I felt the tightness in my chest, the shortness of my breath, and the inability to make eye contact that mark the onset of an anxiety attack. I gamely pressed on, determined to make it around once more. Career ‘fair’? Maybe the fair when you get lost after dark and wind up behind the carny trailers with a creepy off-duty clown. This felt more like a gauntlet than a ride. I would “pull over” at every exit door and stand over the air vents in the floor, gratefully sucking in spare oxygen, then try to merge back into the chaotic human traffic of the broad hallway. The high ambient noise level made thought, let alone conversation, impossible for me. The Brownian motion of the crowd kept me unbalanced enough that I couldn’t even formulate a plan past “keep moving.”

I finally emerged from the throng into an open area near the check-in desk, where a kindly counselor offered me a chair and a drink of water. I sat by myself for quite a few minutes, drawing a map of Kamiak Butte on my portfolio pad and getting my breathing back under control. The kindly counselor was able to draw me out of my protective shell and into a conversation about the madness of the career fair and alternative job-search methods. To my relief, she reassured me that I wasn’t alone in my reaction and that all the employers there welcomed web inquiries. I passed her my resume, and she gave me her business card; it was the most substantive contact I made all day.

Relieved that I had managed to salvage something from the wreckage of the afternoon, I was able to leave with my head high and my eyes dry. The contrast between this day and the one before was as stark as the stripes on a freshly-painted road, and what it told me about who I am and how I function-or don’t-is something I have yet to fully unravel and understand. Even if I’m not alone, where does that leave me? Do I prefer being outdoors to being indoors by that much? Am I hopelessly shy, or am I just hopeless in large groups? Is the “career fair” format simply not feasible? How do I maximize my strengths and compensate for my weaknesses in a career search? And what shall I do? I’m not sure, after all those years in restaurants and all my solo ramblings, that I’m cut out for an office job. Tramping through the woods, then writing about it, may have too limited an appeal. Is the best of both worlds possible? I’ll have to find out.

First I would see if I could slip down the hill through the woods and hit the trail that way. I trudged back up and over the ridge, but didn’t get very far into the forest before I realized that this was A Very Bad Idea. Heavy snow, thick ground cover, and no certainty of success: I could likely do better. Back the way I came? It was worth a shot. Of course, I had just followed a moose trail downhill through a snowfield, so maybe not so much. Back down the south face, looking for a way through, down to the wheat field, and…no dice. No path, either.

This was beginning to not be much fun anymore.

One of the downfalls of solo adventures is that misfortune is much better when shared, and I was beginning to regret not having a companion along on this one to share the excitement, or barring that the map they might have brought along. Oh, well, I thought; bad decisions make for good stories. To the road I go! But wait a minute-where’s my stick? I suddenly realized that I had been without it for a few minutes now, and that simply wouldn’t do. I’ve had this piece of cedar for nearly a decade now, and it’s never let me down; I’ve simply got to find it. Great! I get to retrace my uncertain steps all over this hillside to find my silly hiking stick, and I just want to get home! I was having what my wife would call “First World Problems.” The stick turned up again high on the ridgeline, waiting patiently in the shade. The wind called ahead to the pines, giving them first warning of sunset, and soon we were headed east again.

Trudging back across the hillside, I encountered a brief ethical quandary; namely, the fence. Should I go around and respect private property, or over and through and save valuable time? This didn’t take long. The single strand of barbed wire was only at knee height, and the narrow path I followed ran right under it. Over, and onward, I went. Had this been a cultivated field, I would have gone around; I’m not about to interfere with someone’s livelihood for no good reason.

It was downhill from there, literally.

Across the fenced-in field was, of all things, a road. Matted grass, two tires wide, but surely going my way. A little worse for wear in spots, but any port in a storm, right?

Trust the tire tracks

I held on to a sliver of hope that this path would bring me back around to the park trail, but I wouldn’t have wagered much on it. Considering that it had ended in the “private property” section, it was likely a private access road. No matter; any road would lead home. This is why I like to have my backup plan in place first: when the “good ideas” backfire, I can jump right to Plan B (or C) and get on with it.

I felt 30 years younger for a while, remembering my rambles through the countryside of Connecticut; getting home late in the day, probably worrying my poor mother half out of her mind. Now I was the parent, trying to get home before dark so my kids wouldn’t worry. I’ll have to take that one out and ponder it sometime. There was more crusty, icy snow and more dicey traction here, but the beginning of the end was in sight too.

Snow shadow

Naturally, the direct route to the main road was nearly impassable, so I went around the bend (to the right in the picture above), which took me behind a house and garage. My efforts did not go unrewarded, though:

No school like the old school

Country guest cottage

His other truck's a tractor, too

Then out to the main road, to try to hitch a quick ride to the park entrance. Surely the fine, friendly residents of these small towns will be willing to give a kindly stranger a ride! How hard could this be?

I have learned to my regret that asking this question inevitably results in an answer.

Of all the possible motorist permutations, the least likely one to pick up a hitchhiker must surely be a woman driving by herself. The reasons are self-evident and inarguable. The likelihood, then, of the first n drivers passing me being women driving alone had to be, by Murphy’s Law, very high indeed. By rough estimate, 10 of the first 12 fit the profile. Then, 14 of 16; then 17 of 20. As glad as I was to be out there at a peak commuting time, it was still a frustrating turn of events. “Patience,” said the vulture; so I held out both hope and my right thumb.

At long last, I heard the telltale sound of deceleration, and a small station wagon pulled up alongside me. A small, angry dog protested the driver’s poor judgment in stopping for such a vagabond as myself, but the human occupants prevailed. Once they secured their pint-size canine guardian, I was allowed access to the rear seat and we were on our way. An ironic twist here was that the driver had been a search-and-rescue volunteer who used to train up on the very butte where I had just been, and there I was, just having gotten myself off the hill the long way. The ride back to the park was brief, pleasant, uneventful, and most welcome.

Another ironic twist of the day was how I nearly slipped in the parking lot and cracked my head open while getting back into my van, after a day up and down hill and dale with nary a glitch–except for that whole spatial-displacement thing.

There are two paths to the summit; or rather one path that loops, providing two ways to go. I had thought of taking the longer back way down through the forest on the north side, but reasoned that it would be icy and dicey. I also wanted to get back sooner rather than later, and though the shorter southern route meant backtracking, it made more sense due to the time and conditions. I happened upon the trail of the moose, tagging along well behind him for a while. Again, I made an effort to leave as little trace of my passing as possible. Hopping from one bare patch of stone to another and skirting the snow engaged a part of my brain that seemed glad for the work.

All was well for a time, as the afternoon sun hung on the slope and I strode along the path. I made some delightful discoveries, like “The Three Amigos”:

Los Tres Amigos

and an astonishing structure whose purpose remains unclear to me:

What...the...heck...?

It stood nearly as tall as I, probably 10 feet (3m) across one of the bases, and was obviously a constructed thing. A small, ground-level opening on one face could have let  person crawl in, were they to push their pack in ahead of themselves. But I saw no artifacts, no tools or equipment, no evidence of use at all-save for its very presence. But (the eternal question) why? An emergency shelter? I gazed north across the plain and saw Kamiak’s neighbor, Steptoe Butte, straight ahead of me; due south lay the dark mass of the Wallowa Mountains. I couldn’t help but notice how very dry the wood was, and how deliberately it had been laid there, and I realized that if one were to light this mass on fire, two things would happen: first, it would burn for hours, if not all day; second, it would be visible for miles, and from the peaks both to its north and to its south. Was that it, then? A signal pyre, laid in readiness for some pre-radio disaster? Thus I named the spot Beacon Hill, if only in my mind.

On I went from there, flagging a bit but still in good spirits, looking to pick up the path on the other side. It soon began to dawn on me that I was not going back the way I had come. I was headed in the right direction, but the terrain was all wrong:

It's different here...

I was on the verge of the forest, not down in the hillside prairie. I went on further, hoping to see a cairn or other familiar landmark, but found instead a fence. A FENCE? Yes, a fence. Now I agree with the poet that “good fences make good neighbors,” but they are not exactly what one wants to see when trying to follow a trail that had not crossed a fence on the way in. I followed the fence north as far as I could, which wasn’t very far at all, into dense and denser woods; no way through there. I then went south, hoping to intersect the path, but I saw ahead of me only more fence and a wheat field. Here I will quote the brief, but cogent, passage I jotted down in my notebook at that moment:

2:50 OFF TRAIL

Mind you, I wasn’t lost-as such. I knew pretty much where I was. I could see the main road and a farm house from where I stood, and knew I was 12 miles north of where I lived. So “lost” would not be quite an accurate description of my status then. Of course, I was neither where I thought I was nor where I should have been, so that was a bit problematic. Neither was I quite sure of how to get from where I was (and arguably not supposed to be) to where I wanted (and arguably was supposed to) be. A dilemma, to be sure, but not quite lost per se, I told myself. I had become, and not for the first time, “spatially displaced.”

All of which merely begged the question, “Now what?” I paused to take stock of my situation. Half a liter of water; half of a Clif bar; a few squares of chocolate; pocketknife; whistle; first-aid kit; binoculars; nylon running pants; mylar “space blanket”; spare pair of socks; matches; a few hard candies; and a well-charged cell phone. Not much by my standards, but enough to work with for the moment. No map, though. Won’t let that happen again. I drank some water, ate some chocolate, and considered my options.

Next: Long Way ‘Round

Sunshine and snowmelt make other things, too; mud, for instance. The ground was slick and the footing tricky along the trail here, and I didn’t want to soak my socks just yet. So, I made a game of trying to stay on the rocks and hard-packed snow whenever possible. I let my mind unreel, a spool of line caught in the current, as I tried to sift, sort, and keep my balance. Then I got to the “Summit Spur,” a short-but-steep grind made even more interesting by the snow-and-ice mix I had found below:

One last scramble...

Still, I made good time in getting to the summit. According to my notes, I started from the parking lot at 11:20 and reached the peak at 12:30; plenty of time for a rest and some lunch before needing to head back.

How'd he do that?

I was able to feed my minor obsession with benchmarks too:

Too bad the numbers are scratched out, or I could look it up on the NGS database.

I passed a blissful hour in the sun; eating lunch, writing a bit, and gently exploring this fragile corner of the world. There was a good bit of snow cover up here, and I didn’t want to make any more footprints than necessary, so I sat more than anything. I thought about hiking further out along the ridge to the antennas;

looking west from the summit

but decided to save that for another day. Then, I thought I detected movement over that way, behind the trees. Imagination? Another hiker coming up from the other side? I’d wait and see. No need to disturb their day any more than I have to. Another few blissful minutes slid past, and I knew I saw something move over there. Very brief; very swift; very quiet; but movement all the same. What could it be? Hard to say. I bent down to my notebook again, made some minor scribbles, then looked up to see himself indeed not a few yards in front of me:

Could it be...?

Okay…I had seen some tracks, and I know there are deer in the area, but…that’s no deer. He stopped to regard me, as I stared in rapt amazement and fumbled for my camera. He patiently waited another few moments; then, as if satisfied that I belonged there too, calmly trudged on.

'Tis a moose, my friend

OHMYGODLOOKATTHATTHINGCANYOUBELIEVEITOHMYGOD!!! I said quietly to myself. Call me what you like, but I can hardly recall being so excited. Just that moose and I, sharing a moment of sunshine and tranquility, content to coexist and pass each other by. As I was saying, about Kamiak’s more subtle and sublime charms…

Next: Going home, the long way

That, in fact, was part of the inspiration for both of these expeditions. On top of my recent college transfer/unenrollment, I also lost my father to pneumonia and old age just before New Year’s; my part-time job just after; and a dear uncle only a week or so ago. I flung myself headfirst into career-search mode, only to have my first good prospect pass. My Dear Wife advised me to take some time for myself to re-focus, so I thought a solo hike in a nearby park would be just the thing.

She was right; which, with an alarming frequency, she is. Some dozen miles north of here lies Kamiak Butte, a mass of rock that emerges from the hilly plains like an ancient stegosaurus. I had gotten it into my head to hike there a few days before, and Monday was the day for it. I stuffed some essentials into my daypack, rustled up my trusty hiking stick, and headed out for adventure-or at least some fresh air and exercise.

As the rock formation runs along an east-west axis, the north and south sides can present very different aspects. This day found the parking lot empty and the northern side encased in crusty snow, under which lay a bed of ice. Perfect for snowshoes, which I naturally don’t have. Hmmm…what to do…I’m going to need some more traction. Good thing my hiking stick is made of wood, and I had a good pocket knife with me; I carved the end of the stick to a decent point that would get a bite in the ice and snow.

First morning ever?

Glad I was of the solitude; I could actually hear myself think, hear the wind sigh in the trees, hear the snow crunch under my shoes. Nothing against people, mind you; but I do seem to get my fill rather quickly these days. On I hiked, as the trail switched back and forth through the forest on the cold north face of this ancient part of the earth.

Up we go

After this ascent through the woods, the trail crosses the spine of the hill near its low eastern end and emerges onto the southern face of the butte. (It’s not a proper, flat-topped butte, I know; but that’s what it’s called, so let’s just go with it.) The view, impressive in its own right, is also a dramatic change from the shelter of the evergreens:

Looking south

Notice the change in vegetation too: from tall pine and fir to scrub and sage, and plenty of bare ground from southern exposure. In summer, there is no doubt of the high desert climate here, and one is grateful for a hat and extra water. This day, though, with snow on the ground and a stiff north breeze, emerging into the sunlight and space was like waking from a nap on a bright afternoon.

Next: An Unexpected Visitor

Only, I’m not sure if what I missed was an opportunity or a catastrophe. Perhaps only time will tell. I suppose I was being being a bit silly in thinking it could work in the first place, and it probably never would have happened if the alternative hadn’t been so unappealing at the time. Nevertheless, there it is, as they say. It’s probably time to move on.

Sorry; I forgot to actually mention what I’m talking about. I should probably do that.

I was going to stay in college for a while longer, and transfer from Cascadia State College to Our State U. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had been rejected from graduate school the previous year, and wasn’t anxious to repeat that experience. So, I figured that transferring in as an undergraduate would be an easier route.

But didn’t I just finish college? Wasn’t I ready to put that all behind me and head out into the job market?

Yes, no, and no.

While I have enough credits to graduate from Cascadia this year, I wasn’t fully confident in the awesome job-finding power of a Bachelor of Arts diploma from a hippie liberal-arts college out on The Great Frontier. I was also a bit leery of finding suitable employment out here, given my rather eclectic interests and skill-set and the dicey state of the economy. I thought, too, that a more focused degree from A Prestigious University would carry additional weight in a competitive job market, aside from all the sweet new knowledge I’d gain.

As it turns out, I wasn’t alone in these thoughts.  According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, college enrollment has spiked over the last decade; by 38 percent, in fact. For students over 25 years of age, the rate was a stunning 43 percent. This trend is expected to continue, surely reflecting both a job market in transition and an economy in shock. Yet there was something more I was seeking: connection and community. After nearly a year and a half of being a stay-at-home dad and solitary scholar, the idea of being on a busy campus bristling with ideas was almost intoxicating.

The trouble came when my wife and I stopped to count the cost and weigh it against the gain. The way my Cascadia credits transferred, I was looking at three more years of school before being eligible for a Bachelor’s from Prestigious U. That meant three more years of loan debt and three years’ less full-time income. Adding this to my (and my graduate-student wife’s) current balance produced a mountain of debt that we simply couldn’t justify for the marginal gain of a slightly better Bachelor’s degree.

So, that was it; I cancelled my enrollment and started gearing up for a career search. I would update my resume, expand my network, and keep my ear to the ground. I reasoned that I didn’t really need more school at this point. I’m pretty good with numbers; have a decent grasp of science; understand economics; and appreciate the intricacies of my field. Plus, I can write pretty well, or so I’ve been told. No problem, then; time to move on.

Something happened this morning, though, that both shook me to my core and gave me an insight that must surely be worth the pain of loss it triggered. Returning to campus with a forgotten library book after dropping off my wife for a meeting, I strolled through a sea of bright, young faces, and was hit by a wave of regret: for the conversations and arguments I’ll miss, the papers I won’t write, even the exams I won’t have to study for. Sure, I’ll keep reading and writing, but I’ll miss that essential magic that occurs in a community. The learning that takes place in hands-on action and the exchange of ideas between people is irreplaceable, and something I know I want more of in my life.

In a way, this lesson is no surprise: I need to get out more. But I didn’t realize my love of learning, or my need for connection, were so great. I need to respect both of these traits as I pursue a career and plan my eventual, triumphant return to the halls of higher education.

Another problematic issue which has emerged during this holiday season is the way that public space is viewed, used, and exploited. There is something here that hearkens back to “the commons,” again in pre-Industrial England. We know it as the Enclosure Movement. Enclosure, or “privatization” as it is known these days, involves the legally sanctioned transfer of traditionally public goods and services into private hands. In medieval through industrial England, it was the grazing and farming land which got privatized; in the United States of the 20th and 21st centuries, it is the less tangible assets: education, fire protection, recreation, and so on. Make no mistake, though, they want the land too. Don’t get me started on public-land resource extraction; we’ll be here all day.

“Public land”…what image does that conjure? Probably a park of some sort, whether city, state, or national. And rightly so; America’s parks are a commonly held resource, and one of its greatest treasures. Yet this fall and winter, we were witness to mass arrests, harassment, even brutality from police forces against unarmed citizens who were peaceably assembling to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” a right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Meanwhile, other people were allowed-encouraged, even-to camp out in front of large retail establishments for days on end, anticipating the Big Sales Event. Apparently, the only violence there was shopper-on-shopper. The cruel irony of using the “Occupy” tag on these campers notwithstanding, there is a huge incongruity here.

Or is there? Viewing these events through the lens of enclosure provides a different perspective, and may uncover the rationale behind them. As practiced in pre-industrial England, enclosure had the short-term effect of re-directing thousands of people: both physically into urban areas and socially into a new form of dependence on industrialists for employment, merchants for goods, and philanthropists for charity. Long-term, the populace gradually learned how to be “good workers:” how to conform to a clock, answer to a boss, and re-pattern a life to fit this new urban, industrial paradigm-the “new normal” of its time. Meanwhile, power accrued with wealth in the hands of a privileged few.

Wait-I’m still referring to the Industrial Revolution. Eerie, isn’t it, how the same sort of pattern is emerging today? Of course, one major difference is that the “commons” now being overtaken is less physical than economic and social; i.e., the public goods and social safety net which progressive activists and legislators had built over the previous century. From the National Park Act of 1916 to the Clean Air Act of 1970, not to mention progress in workers’, children’s, and civil rights, the arc of the American experiment has bent towards community and equality, however erratic that arc looked at any given moment. The past 30 years or so, however, have seen a gradual but undeniable erosion of that progress.

Erosion, geologically speaking, is a tricky business: year upon year of slow, steady work may show little progress, yet a momentary shift in equilibrium can release a catastrophic  event.  Then, when the crucial “tipping point” is reached, the whole hillside falls away.  The same pattern seems to hold with recent political and social changes. What may look like a sudden shift in the national mood was more likely the end result of a generation of relentless grinding, like water on stone, undermining the surface. When the appropriate crisis emerged, the privateers (I mean, privatizers) were poised and ready to implement their “austerity measures” in order to save what they left (I mean what was left) of the economy. Not that I’m implying that the crisis was engineered to lay the groundwork for the new regime; goodness knows I’m not that cynical. I can, however, recommend someone who is. She may also be spot-on in her diagnosis.

Meanwhile, the pattern replicates, and institutional advantage reinforces itself. Law enforcement protects the interests of the privileged, and those marginalized have to resort to ever more desperate tactics in order to be heard. Now that free speech has been “monetized,” it’s pay-to-play. Camping out on private property is perfectly fine, if the intention is to go shopping later; but gathering in public areas to exercise free speech is met with batons and pepper spray-unless the necessary permits have been purchased.

Or, apparently, if the issue in question is the firing of a legendary football coach in the wake of an egregious child-abuse scandal. What I find most curious regarding the Penn State rioting is not the students’ behavior itself, but how long the police allowed it to continue, especially considering the Draconian response to #Occupy protesters by campus police elsewhere in the country, such as UC-Davis. To an outside observer, it might seem as though the same protective mind-set that allowed the child abuse to continue for so many years was directing the campus police to let those poor, frustrated college kids have their collective tantrum. Why else would they have let the situation escalate to the point that it did?

While we’re on the subject of appropriate reaction to public-space occupation, I must admit to getting tired of the SHOCK and DISMAY regarding the presence of-GASP!-homeless people in the #Occupy camps! Really? That’s the big problem? Not poverty and homelessness rates approaching all-time highs in this country, but that some of “those people” have the temerity to mingle with the…the what? The elites of the 99 percent? Should the protesters be the “middle 98%,” then?

Oh, please.

First of all, the idea that citizenship depends on owning property should have been left behind with colonial charters and the British East India Company, or what did our ancestors fight a revolution for? Secondly, since the trend of economic policy for most of the last 30 years or so has been a leading cause of the rise of homelessness in the United States, who better to speak to the issues of most concern to the Occupy movement than those most affected? Besides, who else understands the tactical issues confronting urban campers better than those who have done so for the long haul?

I am not being facetious here. I’ve been on the other side of the line that separates “camping” from “nowhere else to go,” and that change in perspective, while hard to swallow, is irreplaceable. Whatever issues homeless people face are symptomatic, not causal, of other systemic problems facing this country. “The least of these,” as a past social activist once called the poor, ill, and indigent, are the canaries in our society’s coal mine. We ignore them at our own peril; and if we are one of them, we need to sing out while we still can.

“I would rather see the trade-off being that I don’t buy that expensive electronic gadget,” he says. “Just a few of these decisions will accommodate an organic diet for a family.”

Right, because that’s just what I was thinking: shiny toy that goes ‘beep’ or healthier food for my family? How many other of these decisions are there? Considering how we nearly max out our modest food budget every month, that’s not actually a dilemma I face. Try “I’ll get chicken instead of ground beef ’cause it’s half the price per pound.” And not the happy free-range co-op chicken either, because that’s actually more expensive than steak. No, we’ll never get to know that bird’s name, if he or she ever had one. This was just another beak in the crowd, on sale at Safeway.

Or do we? I seem to recall a website  focused on handmade crafts, and I personally know both a bead-maker and a jewelry-maker who produce beautiful things. There may even be more folks like that out there. You might even know some personally. If not, you can probably find them. And what better way to localize your shopping than buying from a neighbor?

There’s another way to subvert the current system: buy used. I daresay there is hardly a durable good in existence that one can’t find second-hand. Cars, computers, clothes; you name it, it’s out there. Some consumables, too: I see pencils, pens, and notebooks all the time in thrift shops, and I buy every Parker pen I find. Buying used does a few things, all of which are counterproductive to the dominant economic paradigm. First of all, it keeps money local, since most thrift shops are run by community non-profit groups. Next, it actually benefits the community, as the store’s income goes to support the work of the sponsoring organization. Third, it puts some constraint on the production and consumption of new merchandise. If money is speech, as the Supreme Court of the United States seems to believe, then we need to make sure our dollars are saying what we want them to say. Buying used and local is a wonderfully subversive way of “speaking out” against corporate economics. Not quite a wildcat strike, but definitely a slowdown.

There are some psychological effects as well. The “treasure hunt” element of thrifting brings a bit of excitement to the task, and the delayed gratification helps to put some distance between desire and fulfillment. In this space there is time to consider whether one really needs the thing in question, or whether something else will do the job. I find it much easier to say “no” to something when there isn’t a pile of them, or even one of them, in front of me. Considering the psychological manipulation that corporate marketers use to induce us into shopping, I think we should use every bit of leverage against them we can muster.

Let’s face it: the game is rigged. Marketers spend millions, perhaps even billions, of dollars to talk us into buying this or that. What resources are on our side? One of the underlying premises of a “free market” is that both buyer and seller have enough knowledge to make an informed decision on the transaction, but that is seldom the case. Do the tomatoes at the supermarket carry pictures of the poor migrant workers who picked them? Does the new shirt at Target have a photo-tag of the sweatshop worker, possibly a child, who sewed it? Not last time I looked. I would like more information on the origins of the shiny things I’m being seduced into buying.

“Where is it from?
What is it made of?
Where did that stuff come from?
Did anyone bleed or die for it?
Who mined the ore,
wrote the code,
wove and stitched the cloth?
How did it get here, and what did that cost?”

I’d like to see cost breakdowns like that on consumer goods, the same way food labels are required to show nutritional information. This information, to be truly useful, needs to be available at the point of purchase-not scattered across a range of obscure websites. Then, we as consumers could make some truly informed choices about how we speak… I mean, spend our money.