A farm up bringing in the 1950s and 60s set the foundation for a certain life: frugal, efficient, and ornamentally-deprived

Add to the mix a pubescent mind reading the complete works of JD Salinger, and a love of 1950’s folk music and what do you get?

A young human being who has a serious issue with modern materialism/consumerism.

I was sun bathing on a picnic table behind a building in my home city this morning, and the huge tree next to me said: “Talk to me.” Are plants sentient? The tree was 80 feet tall, or more, and had a canopy designed so perfectly, the blue sky was brilliantly painted in the spaces between the thick, green leaves. And the sun came in to the picnic table at an angle, so as to tan, but still allow my gaze free access to the sky.

It was perfect. It was heaven. And it was free. No charge. No deposit. No waste. No plastic packaging.

I answered the tree. I asked if it was lonely, even though its majestic canopy seemed to be holding hands with the neighboring trees. It didn’t answer but had anyone else in history talked to this tree? It had to be very old. Was it senile? I touched its bark but still no more words. Maybe trees aren’t sentient, after all.

But are humans? My recent move from the south to the north highlighted how fast–and insidious–consumerism is: a lot of “things” left my life through donation, garage sale, gifting, or (sadly) garbage. All that came north was what I needed. It fit in my small car. Where had all those departed things come from? And why did a “human being who has a serious issue with modern materialism/consumerism” have all this excess stuff?

The idyllic morning in my tree support group sent me back to college days, when as Freshman we were challenged to “challenge everything”, every modern assumption, every modern truth, every modern “ism”.

There is no hope for the world if a man who hates consumerism ends up a absent minded consumer, is there? Was it my nature that overcame my nurture? Or was it something else?

Back at my apartment, I looked for my worn copy of Vance Packards 1957 book: “The Hidden Persuaders”, a book about how advertisers can manipulate consumers, but it was gone. I’ll just have to buy another.