A New Pied Piper Is In Town.

 All in the name of shopping.

One can't escape it. Days with colour or rather without it. When did Fridays and Mondays suddenly turn black? And why not red or green while we are at it! Major holidays tend to bring them to the fore and so far they have pied pipered a whole lot of shoppers.

A moment ago as I was scrolling through my news feed I couldn't help but notice yet another Black Friday special deal. The way the discounts are heading it won't be long before they give us some money along with our purchase. 

Seeing those 50% or more discounts makes me a bit suspicious as to whether the stuff is genuine and whether all along they have been horribly overpriced. The irony of it all is that at the moment hardly any of us need nor want stuff.  Okay, stuff to make staying at home more fun definitely. You know, books, wool, wine and chocolates!

New clothes - Who's going to see them? Ditto for new furniture, cutlery, dinner sets and more. Our enforced isolation has shown us how little we really do need. New clothes are hardly any fun if we can't show them off.  It takes special strength of character or should I say ego to dress up each and everyday one spends in isolation. Much easier not to mention more comfortable to don the old sweatpants. 

Back to those bleak and black shopping days. Now that Christmas is approaching they are as prolific as ever if not more so. Consumption has dropped quite a bit (  an awesome win for Mother Earth ) and with this second lock-down it has morphed into our collective DNA. Shopping for the sake of shopping is so last year. 

Our collective economies will change, if they haven't already, and find  new ways to create jobs that aren't based on everyone shopping for arbitrary stuff that only ends up on landfills a few months later.  Transitions aren't easy but the outcomes might just positively surprise us...

Biggi